Is Your Book Ready For Film?

BooksForFilm.Com Launches a High-Visibility, Showcase Web Site

I am excited about the possibilities of a new Web site, especially for writers of fiction and memoir. It is for every author who has ever dreamed of their book as the next blockbuster movie. This is the release from BooksForFilm.com. I've registered my novel This Is the Place, as you can see from their release below.

BooksForFIlm.com is a hot new site for select authors with film-worthy books to showcase to agents, producers—buyers of book film rights. Placement is not automatic but Books for Film makes no judgment about suitability, just professionalism and quality.

DISNEY, DREAMWORKS, SONY, PARAMOUNT, FOX, IMAGINE ENTERTAINMENT, MIRAMAX, ABC, CBS, NBC, HBO, SHOWTIME, HALLMARK, USA NETWORK, LIFETIME, A&E, SONY, WARNER, UNIVERSAL, and other Television, cable, satellite, and film entities, are all constantly searching for great film properties.

You’re an author with a book everyone says would make a great movie. Perhaps they are right. If you have an effective agent who is covering all the bases for you, he or she will certainly examine your book’s film possibilities. If you are not so fortunate, you should not simply dream about seeing your book as a film; you owe it to yourself to make sure your book is presented in the best light to garner the attention of those whose job it is to find such books. They are out there every day.

Each year, an average of 30 or more books become films. Many more provide the basis for the big screen and television. In addition, options as high as five or even six-figures are purchased. In many of those cases, a film is never made. Yet, the author gets to keep the option money.

Both fiction and nonfiction titles are purchased for film or optioned. Either way, you win.

You are invited to learn more about these authors and their works. No one can guarantee nor should promise that any book has all the ingredients that agents/film-makers are seeking. Even they will tell you that this is a very subjective process. What is certain is that books never offered cannot be considered.

Authors on BFF present themselves and their titles on our BooksForFilm network. See booktrailers, text, and digitized excerpts. With our digitized excerpts, you may actually turn the pages online. Read authors’ biographies, reviews, blogs, and much more.

So, is your book ready for film? You tell us at http://booksforfilm.com. Join authors like: Carolyn Howard-Johnson, Gene Cartwright, Alicia Copeland, C. Alease, Peter Klein, Susan Klopfer, Shirley Ryan, Shirley Roe, Shelagh Watkins, Martine Ehrenclou, Gunter Swoboda, Timothy Heffernan, Daniel McLaurin III, Linda Ballou, Cliff Ball, Joan Delmonte, Patrick Schnerch, and others.

BooksForFIlm welcome buyers/readers, as well as publishing/film industry professionals. After all, our authors' goal is to place their books in the hands of book-lovers.

Join us at http://BooksForFilm.com, and our assoicated sites, http://ifogo.com, http://iBookTrailer.com, and iFOGO Village.

Happy Reading!
# # #

BooksForFilm.com is an iFOGO, Inc. company. — IFOGO.com is the new frontier for authors, publishers, and book-buyers. The company, created by an author, presents books in an interactive, multimedia format that informs and connects all three crucial parts of the book world. Includes a social network.

----
Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and two how to books for writers, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't and The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success. Her FRUGAL book for retailers is A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. She is also the author of the Amazon Short, "The Great First Impression Book Proposal". Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor blog.

If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widge to let them know about it:

Q&A a la Ann Landers: This Is a Multiple Part Question on the Great American Publishing Dream

Note: This letter from Cindy Cadelo is printed in segments with dashes between them so that you can read my comments to in context:

Question: Dear Carolyn, Literally in the dark at the time, I signed on with a print-on-demand publisher for my debut novel and have lived to regret it ever since. I suppose the worst part was having a paperback priced at $29.99.
------
Answer: Yes, the price of your book was out of whack. I'm guessing that no one bothered to give you advice on the size of the book. It sounds as if -- putting Michener aside (and he isn't writing in today's publishing world) -- that you should have figured a way to shorten your work. Many subsidy publishers just don't know so can't advise their clients. Others do know but don't rock the boat for fear they will lose their clients to another subsidy publisher who will publish just as the author wants -- regardless of the outcome.
-----
Question: A "no returns" book store policy on POD books meant I had to buy my own books for promotions and sales which I couldn't afford because of the price, neither would the publisher pay royalties on author-purchased books.
------
Answer: Subsidy publishers that arrange to take books back do exist. Generally the author must pay for the returns, of course. Having said that, in the Frugal Book Promoter, I talk about how bookstores aren't the best place to sell books anyway. So, there's hope. It's not too late for you. You could change publishers or arrange to guarantee sales on your own or concentrate on a different way of selling books.
-------
Question: How, I wondered, did books find their way to reviews by the NY Times? How did it work that new authors were recognized with awards and mentions in literary circles? How did one's book get into the libraries all over the country? Book clubs?
-----
Answer: Your experience resonates. Those are the things I hear from authors all the time. Those are the things I learned with my first novel, This Is the Place. In fact that's why I wrote the Frugal Book Promoter and now the Frugal Editor. To share what I learned. To answer these questions and others and to help authors get these very things done to get their book read! Both books were a labor of love. I like writing them, but I'd rather be writing my second novel or book of short stories or book of poetry. (-:
-----
Question: My lovely book was invisible; unnecessarily sacrificed. On the verge of completing a second manuscript, will the stigma of the first book reflect on the next one as for my chances of finding a reputable agent?
---
Answer: It might. It depends on lots of things but also on the way you handle it. Don't try to hide that first book. Own up. Basically you say something like, "I didn't know the ropes so missed out on these things. I think my experience will make me a better promoter of my own work and partner for a publisher." Something like that. You can't hide it. Not in this electronic age.
-----------
Question: Is it ever possible to resurrect an invisible first novel, and what are the chances it could work as made-for-TV movie or a screenplay? I still get wonderful letters from those who bought the book used, or found copies at yard or library sales where I donated the copies. I'm sure I'm not the only writer who has such grisly first-time novel woes, so we writers can all learn from such experiences as well as from your valued professional opinion on how a writer proceeds from this point forward.
------
Answer: Yes, absolutely. All is not lost. But it will take lots of work and maybe discarding the idea that you will make lots of money on it. The idea will be to get your work into the hands of people who might make a difference for you. You could republish it POD. On your own. (See the Frugal Editor before you do this, PLEASE!) Or you could serialize it. Perhaps on a blog or on your website. There are other possibilities, of course. But again, this TV/Movie Miracle Dream doesn't just happen. We think they do because others look like overnight successes but usually they worked years at their craft and at networking. And, yes, a very, very few just get lucky. (-:
-----
From Cindy: Thanks for your advice and patience!
-----
Comment: Your story breaks my heart. It is so common. I encourage you not to give up. Take classes (that's networking, too!) Enlist a great editor. Republish. Keep writing. Do keep promoting.

Sincerely,
Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Temporary website: http://www.Authorsden.com/carolynhowardjohnson
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author THIS IS THE PLACE; HARKENING: A COLLECTION OF STORIES REMEMBERED; TRACINGS, a chapbook of poetry; and two how to books, THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T; and THE FRUGAL EDITOR: PUT YOUR BEST BOOK FORWARD TO AVOID HUMILIATION AND ENSURE SUCCESS.
Her other blogs include TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com and AuthorsCoalition.blogspot.com, a blog that helps writers and publishers turn a ho-hum book fair booth into a sizzler.