Reader Question: Is summer a bad time to send out a spec script?
Open forum question from Matisse:
Do less specs sell during the summer? I heard that is not a good time to go out with one.
Given how slow the spec market is — the last sale 4/27 and only 16 sales to date in 2010 — my snarky shadow self would be inclined to answer your question this way: No time is a good time to go out with a spec. However I have successfully suppressed the snark in order to peruse some basic facts.
Here are the spec script sales by season for 2008 and 2009 (Winter = 1/1–3/31, Spring = 4/1–6/30, Summer = 7/1–9/31, Fall = 10/1–12/31):
2008
Winter: 11 sales
Spring: 47 sales
Summer: 12 sales
Fall: 17 sales
Actual 6/1–8/31 sales: 21
2009
Winter: 21 sales
Spring: 19 sales
Summer: 12 sales
Fall: 16 sales
Actual 6/1–8/31 sales: 13
[Bear in mind these are my numbers based on best efforts to determine actual sales].
What can we learn from these stats? First, we need to go back in time and find out whatever studio execs were drinking in the spring of 2008, and give them a double dose of that, intravenously if necessary, to give the current spec market a jolt.
Second, apart from the spring 2008 aberration, the numbers tend to be pretty even, noting however that in fact the summer quarter (7/1–9/31) does clock in twice at the low end of sales numbers.
That said there may be some compelling reasons to go wide with a spec in the summer. For example, your script may be in the same genre of a summer movie that becomes a surprise blockbuster. If that’s the case, you can be pretty sure studios would be interested to read — right then — specs that are ‘similar but different’ than the hit movie with an eye toward tapping that consumer market again in the near future. Likewise if you have a spec that has some tie-in to a current major news or cultural phenomenon, again you might find more receptive studio buyers.
Conversely what if you decided to wait until the fall to go out with your script… and over the summer another script with a similar premise to yours gets set up. How crappy would you feel then?
Of course, if what you’ve written is a truly great script, it probably doesn’t matter what time of year you go out with it.
Now if your question is about whether to wait until the fall to send out a script to agents or managers to seek representation, it’s probably safe to assume that they are always looking for good new writers with great scripts, irrespective of the season.
So on the whole, my advice is don’t wait, get your script out there, but only after you’re sure it’s a good script and you’ve got a clean, professional quality draft in hand.
How about it GITS readers, especially those of you who are agents or managers, work with reps, or are part of the spec script tracking grapevine: Do you look at summer as being a bad time to go out with a spec or does it not matter?
Comment Archive