Novel to Film

If you have a contract with your agent, contact him/her regarding the wisdom of this kind of submission. If he/she doesn't handle film rights, then they should have an associate wh does. That's what you're paying the agent for, after all.

What DeleyanLee said. An agent should handle this.

Otherwise, I'd be very, very wary. Because while novel ideas are a dime a dozen and generally not worth stealing, ideas for film are different. Lots of screenwriters get paid to crank out scripts based on somebody else's "treatment" or "concept."

All that said, an unpublished novel selling to a film company, even a small indie, can be helpful. Or not.

I'm afraid it's one of those intangibles.

Just FYI, any option money offered is likely to be very little. And if they offered an option with no money, I'd say no.

But that's just me.

Whatever you do, make sure you and your agent work out the deals and protect yourself. I've heard stories about studios and production companies screwing the writer over... and with unpublished work, you need to be even more skeptical.

What the others said. Have a pro deal with that end of things.

One of my books got an offer from a production company, but thankfully I showed the boilerplate contract to a lawyer, who immediately pointed out a clause that would have screwed me over big time.

I'm not a total babe in the woods on contracts, but it was a tiny detail that slipped right past me.

And yes. An unpublished book CAN end up being a movie.

The rights to Jeff Rice's unpublished novel "The Kolchak Papers" were purchased by ABC and became The Night Stalker starring Darrin McGavin. It was the highest rated TV movie of its time. The book was published after the broadcast, spawned a sequel, and a cult TV series.

It's still a great favorite of mine.

So don't get your hopes TOO high, but it has happened.

Good luck! BUT BE CAREFUL!!!

Gillhoughly said:

And yes. An unpublished book CAN end up being a movie.

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Sideways came out as a movie first. The novel was published afterwards. The movie, of course, went on to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars....

Gillhoughly said:

One of my books got an offer from a production company, but thankfully I showed the boilerplate contract to a lawyer, who immediately pointed out a clause that would have screwed me over big time.

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Out of curiosity and for education's sake: do you mind sharing what this clause entailed? I've had trouble with unscrupulous agents before, and the more I (and everyone else) know(s), the better I (we) can prevent that kind of thing happening again.

It's been several years; I don't remember the exact clause.

The main thing had to do with the writer getting paid from the profits made by the film. (A film that had yet to be made???)

They were not going to give me a payment up front as an advance from the gross investment--something like that.

The thing is, once the bean counters get done with the books a film can show no profit at all.

Try some google fu on Forrest Gump. That's one of the more infamous cases of a highly successful film showing no profits.

As that clause was the boilerplate for the production company I told my co-writer it was a bad deal and explained why.

He agreed, but because he was in the industry and friends with the boss man they said he could direct the film, so he signed, hoping to get that gig. He's no newbie, and knew what the odds were: against.

I signed when they struck/changed that clause.

The advance I got was a dollar with the promise I would get a percentage of the profit.

The option had a time limit, expiring in a year.

Nothing ever happened, but it left a lasting impression on me about reading the fine print and getting EVERYTHING explained!

Today? I'm working on scripts, but "had lunch" with a producer/writer last fall. She's the real deal, working on major network shows you've heard of.

I asked for the name of a real script agent, making it clear I wasn't going to shove anything at her, I wanted to go through proper channels. No shoving scripts under washroom partitions!

She laughed and said to just send it to her when I was ready.

I damned near fainted.

Now..I have some script-writing to do.

something else to be wary of is that film contracts can and usually do insist on the the Prod Co' owning the rights to the characters in your novel. So...should you decide you'd like to do a sequel to your novel, you will more than likely find the fim company refuses you permission to reprise your main character, and then you'd be stuffed.

Film contracts are usually very greedy....much more so than book contracts.