When submitting your script to agents, managers, and/or producers, is it better to send your script to one person at a time and wait for a reply (be it a yes or no), or send it to multiple people at once? Thank you for help!
Screenwriting : To Wait, or Not To Wait? by Nathanial House
To Wait, or Not To Wait?
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It can up to 6 months to get a reply. Even if you cut that in half that's a long time to wait, isn't it? Imagine how long it will take to find an agent or manager if you send your script to two or three a year. You may 20 rejections before you get that one "yes".
You'll never get into a bidding war for your screenplay if you're only submitting your script to one person at a time.
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Yea, it will take 3-6 months for most to get back to you if ever. so doing it one by one should get you rep'd by....2023.
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this was something I wondered about too.
Thank you for the advise everyone! To keep this going how does one "handle" a bidding war? And for that matter, is it normal/ethical/legal to allow two different people permission to make the film and get the credit for both?
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By the way: A friend just got a reply from an agent asking to read his script 2 years after sending his query. He'd written that agent off a year and a half ago!
One "handles" a bidding war by hiring a very good lawyer. Or one "handles" a bidding war by holding off on accepting an offer before the other side withdraws. A very tricky negotiation. You second question is an odd one. So you're thinking that producer A will pay you for a script and make the movie and that producer B will also pay you and make a movie from the exact same script? I've never heard of that happening in the history of movie production. But if both producers agreed to pay you and both agreed to make competing movies from the same script, then it's legal and ethical. What the producer is buying is the right to use your script to make a movie. So it is not normal for two different people to buy the same rights. It would be unethical and not legal to sell the rights to producer B after selling the rights to producer A.
nathaniel, selling a script to two different companies to make is ridiculous. if you tried that I promise they would find out and the consequences would not be pretty.
Send it to multiple people, but know something about each and everyone. Find out what they have worked on. Your applying for a job, so know something about the employer.
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Cherie, Nathanial is not talking about selling. He is talking about submitting. And my advice: send to as many people as you can. People even reading may be as low as 1%, let alone getting back to you. And as William says, it could take years to get to that read. So send it out as far and as wide as possible. If it is ready. Maybe get some professional coverage first so that you don't burn any bridges?
Good advice
Thank you everyone for the advise!! It means a lot!