Reader Question: Do sales have the tendency of slowing during summer months?

A question from @MaLaSaSy:

Do sales have the tendency of slowing during summer months?

Gee, if we only had some… I dunno… blog or something that kept a comprehensive list of spec script sales so we could… you know… pull together that information and do some analysis.

Oh, like this blog! And specifically The Definitive Spec Script Sales List (1991–2012).

Diving into numbers from 2008–2012 as an example of recent trends, we get this breakdown:

JAN: 0 / 3 / 1 / 1 / 9

FEB: 1 / 7 / 5 / 9 / 8

MAR: 10 / 10/ 6 / 15 / 17

APR: 24 / 8 / 8 / 10 / 11

MAY: 12 / 7 / 2 / 8 / 9

JUNE: 10 / 4 / 7 / 10 / 11

JULY: 5 / 5 / 2 / 5 / 3

AUG: 6 / 4 / 4 / 5 / 6

SEP: 1 / 3 / 5 / 8 / 4

OCT: 9 / 5 / 7 / 19 / 8

NOV: 7 / 5 / 5 / 10 / 7

DEC: 1 / 6 / 2 / 10 / 5

First point: April 2008 with 24 sales? That was right after the end of the 2007–2008 WGA strike, buyers flush with cash and writers flooding the market with spec material, so the figure is an anomaly. That noted, here are the totals by month in the 5 year period from 2008–2012:

JAN: 14

FEB: 30

MAR: 58

APR: 61

MAY: 38

JUNE: 42

JULY: 20

AUG: 25

SEP: 21

OCT: 48

NOV: 34

DEC: 24

Even if we knocked off 10 sales or so from April due to the surge in 2008, there does seem to be a sweet spot between the months of February and June with October-November in a second position.

Low periods of activity: January, July, August, September, December. December and January, we can chalk up to the fact that around December 15, Hollywood shuts down until about January 10. July-September probably reflects people taking vacations, figuring a month lag in time [generally] for scripts to go to market before deals are closed.

So to answer your question, it would appear that that three month period — July-September — is not typically the most active time on the spec script acquisition market. And yet, it’s not like Hollywood goes completely dormant either.

Bottom line: If you have a great script, you can sell it on New Year’s Eve or July 4th. Hollywood is always looking for the next big thing.

By the way, sales in 2013 by month:

JAN: 6

FEB: 5

MAR: 10

APR: 16

MAY: 8

JUNE [so far]: 4

Finally as usual in July, I will post a mid-year report on spec script sales.