Kenneth Atchity's Blog, page 124

Female Filmmakers Dominated the Sundance Awards, But That Doesn’t Guarantee a Career Boost

 

At this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the annual event broke some of its own barriers, doling out each of its four directing awards to female filmmakers. For the first time in the festival’s 34-year history, directing prizes went only to women, spanning all four major categories — narrative and documentary, U.S. and world cinema: Sara Colangelo (“The Kindergarten Teacher”), Alexandria Bombach (“On Her Shoulders”), Sandi Tan (“Shirkers”), and Isold Uggadottir (“And Breathe Normally”). The festival’s juries also awarded Desiree Akhavan’s “The Miseducation of Cameron Post” the Grand Jury Prize, the festival’s highest honor; Sundance’s sole dedicated screenplay honor, the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award, went to Christina Choe for “Nancy.”

In short, it was a big festival for women. But what does winning an award at Sundance actually mean for female filmmakers? How does it impact future projects? Does it guarantee further success in the industry? None of those questions have an easy answer.

The festival only started giving out dedicated directing awards in 1998 – before that, any prize that singled out a filmmaker fell under the banner of “special jury prize” – and even then, they were simply divided up into “dramatic” and “documentary” sections, with no differentiation between the world cinema and U.S. slates. Ten years later, the festival began giving out four directing prizes total, one for each competition section.

Prior to 2018, the best showing for women directors was way back in 2008, when they won three of the four prizes. While the U.S. dramatic directing award went to Lance Hammer for “Ballast,” Anna Melikyan and Nino Kirtadze dominated the world cinema front, and documentarian Nanette Burstein won for her U.S. documentary “American Teen.”

Mostly, though, directing prizes for female filmmakers have been limited to about one a year, with a slight uptick taking hold in 2012, when the prizes began to be more evenly split along gender lines. There were some lean years, though, including 2001, 2005, and 2006, when no women won a directing award.
Debra Granik on the set of "Leave No Trace"

In 2010, Debra Granik won both the Grand Jury Prize and the Waldo Salt for her lauded “Winter’s Bone,” even though the dramatic directing award ultimately went to Eric Mendelsohn for “3 Backyards.” Similarly, in 2016, female filmmakers picked up three of the four Grand Jury Prizes, though none of them earned a directing prize to match. Talk about mixed signals.

The female filmmakers who have been honored by Sundance’s jury run the gamut from household names like Ava DuVernay and Jill Soloway to anomalies like Barbara Sonneborn and Tinatin Gurchiani, who have yet to follow up their wins with new projects. There’s no guarantee that winning a Sundance award will catapult a career to new heights, and even for the most recognizable of filmmakers, it wasn’t their Sundance wins that pushed them over the top.

DuVernay and Soloway won directing awards in the U.S. dramatic section in 2012 and 2013, respectively. Both have gone on to huge successes: DuVernay is the first woman of color to direct a $100M+ live-action film, while Soloway’s beloved Amazon series “Transparent” has earned them two Emmys so far. However, it wasn’t their Sundance wins that immediately catapulted them into such huge projects.

DuVernay first made “Selma” before getting the chance to make “A Wrinkle in Time,” while Soloway has said that “Transparent” was partially spawned by audience backlash to “Afternoon Delight.” They didn’t benefit from what Akhavan herself has termed the “Colin Trevorrow moment,” i.e. being a white male director who gets a huge opportunity after screening a well-regarded film at the festival. (While Trevorrow’s Sundance breakout, “Safety Not Guaranteed,” did win a Sundance award, it was for screenwriting and went only to writer Derek Connolly; Trevorrow was later hired to direct “Jurassic World.”)

Another big name that scored her first batch of good buzz at Sundance? Catherine Hardwicke, who won the dramatic directing award for her debut “thirteen” in 2003. Even with that accolade under her belt, Hardwicke didn’t get her first arguably big film until “Twilight,” five years later (she directed a pair of other films before her YA vampire offering, but both had budgets under $30 million).

Karyn Kusama similarly won a directing award for her own debut, “Girlfight,” in 2000, though she didn’t direct another film for five years. Like DuVernay, her career is on a major upswing, but it wasn’t a result of some immediate response to her Sundance win. The same goes for Debra Granik, who won a directing award for her first film, “Down to the Bone,” at Sundance in 2004 and didn’t make another film for six years. That feature, “Winter’s Bone,” served as Jennifer Lawrence’s big breakout and earned a pair of nods for Granik. She returned to the festival this year with her latest, “Leave No Trace.”

Other Sundance winners have struggled to translate their very important wins into new work. The first winner of the documentary directing award, Julia Loktev, eventually turned to narrative films, but has only made two since her “Moment of Impact” won in 1998. Still other winners have yet to make another film, including 1999 doc winner Barbara Sonnenborn, 2013 doc winner Tinatin Gurchiani, and 2017 doc winner Pascale Lamche. And there’s also “Beach Rats” director Eliza Hittman, who won just last year and continues to top lists of female filmmakers to watch, but has not yet locked down an official next project. When she won her prize at Sundance, she said in her acceptance speech: “There is nothing more taboo in this country than a woman with ambition. Hollywood, I’m coming for you.”

It’s in the documentary section that many filmmakers have been able to move beyond their big Sundance wins. Heavy hitters like Lauren Greenfield (who just returned to the festival with her “Generation Wealth”) and Kim Longinotto (the 2015 winner for “Dreamcatcher”) are not only still working, but didn’t necessarily require the attention of the festival to break out. Longinotto, in fact, had made nearly 20 films before Sundance gave her an award.

Rebecca Cammisa – who co-directed the doc winner “Sister Helen” alongside Rob Fruchtman – has worked steadily since her 2002 win, including offerings in both film and television. Similarly, “American Teen” filmmaker Nanette Burstein continues to create in both film and television, narrative and documentary. Andrea Nix, who won for her 2007 doc “War Dance,” is still working in documentary realm. Nino Kirtadze has made three additional documentaries after her 2008 win for “Durakovo: Village of Fools.”


In 2009, both the U.S. and world cinema documentary awards went to women, and “Afghan Star” director Havana Marking has since made two films. Natalia Almada made one more documentary and moved to narrative filmmaking with “8” and “Everything Else.”

There are recent signs of life for narrative directors, too. “52 Tuesdays” director Sophie Hyde is prepping her first narrative after her 2014 win, a big screen take on Emma Jane Unsworth’s novel “Animals.” Another winner in 2014, “20,000 Days on Earth” co-director Sophie Hyde recently moved into narrative television with “Neil Gaiman’s Likely Stories.” Alanté Kavaïté, who wrote and directed 2015 winner “The Summer of Sangaile,” recently wrote the twisty sci-fi noir “Evolution.”

For now, however, there is much work to be done. Sundance may have lauded some of our finest filmmakers – gender notwithstanding – but even walking away from the country’s most important film festival with a shiny award doesn’t guarantee a huge career boost, greater name recognition, or even the ammo for the next project. For so many female filmmakers, that’s a story they already know.



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10 Questions to Ask Yourself if You Want to Write a Book

1. Publisher or self-publish: The publishing world has changed dramatically in recent years and the Internet has made self-publishing considerably easier. If you self-publish you have full control of your book, but also bear all costs. A publisher is harder to secure and will have control over some decisions, but also absorbs many costs (e.g., printing, distribution, cover art) and also gains access to critical distribution channels, including identifying outlets to review your book.

2. Agent or no agent: With an agent you give a portion of your royalties to them. Literary agents work on a commission basis and are incented to find you the best deal so that their payout increases when you sell books. Though you give up some of your royalties, an agent is often your best chance to get your book proposal reviewed by a major publishing house.

3. Publicist or no publicist: Publicists bring access that is hard for many people to get on their own. They identify media outlets such as television shows, newspapers, and podcasts to bring valuable exposure to you and your book. The best publicists can cost tens of thousands of dollars and you will have to consider if their services are worth it to you.

4. What is the book's "hook": Every book needs a quick and compelling hook that captures attention. This is always needed to draw in potential readers/buyers, but also literary agents, publishers, and publicists if you go that route.

5. Who is the target audience: Don't try to pretend your book is for everyone - all books have a more targeted market. If you decide to use a publisher they will want to know exactly whom you are targeting and how big the audience is. They will also want to know how your book is different from similar books that have been written and if it has relevance to sell outside your home country. The target audience will also help you decide who to ask to "blurb" or endorse your book.

6. Write or ghost write: You would be surprised how many books are written by someone other than the stated author. Ghost writers are sought after and can make anyone come across as a gifted writer. Authors may not have time to write a book or find that a professional writer is better able to capture the voice they want to convey.   

7. What is my platform: This one must be alive well before you publish your book. You must consider the best way to bring visibility to your book and contemplate platform options such as your standing as a well-known expert, your social media presence, professional speeches, access to different constituencies, etc.

8. What are my goals: Consider the reason you are writing a book to help hone your focus, especially because the outcomes are not always connected. You might want to make a lot of money but not care about getting great reviews. You way just want to build your brand by getting your name out there. You may want to achieve critical acclaim for your book even if it doesn't make a lot of money (think Indie films). Not everyone can be a NYT best selling author, but you can be pleased with the outcome if you know your goals in advance.

9. What format will the book be: You have many options. It can be hard cover, paperback, eBook, audio, small, large, etc. If you self-publish consider the costs of developing multiple formats, particularly hard cover and paperback.

10. How much time will you commit: The reality is that a book once published is there forever. In addition to the time it takes to write (or work with a ghost writer) you will also need to spend time promoting the book. You must consider you ability and willingness to travel, speak, go to book signings, and otherwise invest your time to market and sell your book.

No series of decisions is right for everyone and you must consider your particular situation and goals. One last tip: don't get too fixated on the title of your book - it often changes as the writing process progresses, especially when you have a publisher and and editor.


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By David Van Rooy@dlvanrooy

Documentarian Alma Har’el is Making Super Bowl Ads and Breaking the Cycle That Kept Women Out

The Super Bowl is the biggest advertising event of the year, as brands spend over $5 million for 30 seconds of air time, and even more to produce the year’s biggest commercials. It’s a world that, until recently, was closed to director Alma Har’el, whose new Coke ad will premiere during the Super Bowl this Sunday and whose “Thank You, Mom” campaign for Proctor & Gamble — which will air throughout the upcoming Winter Olympics — made her only the third woman to be a solo nominee for a DGA award.

There are few film artists who better represent the freedom and possibilities of the digital era than Har’el, the self-taught, one-person filmmaking crew behind unorthodox, cinematic nonfiction films like “Bombay Beach” and “LoveTrue.” Over the last few years Har’el discovered, like most independent filmmakers do, that critical acclaim and festival accolades didn’t pay the bills and, unlike her male counterparts, she didn’t see offers to direct bigger movies and television.

“I started to look at a lot of the filmmakers, the ones making independent films that I appreciate over a decade or more, and I saw they either were from rich families, or supporting themselves by directing commercials,” said Har’el. “That ability to sustain yourself while making something you really love, or doing rewrites on a script until it finds its way, or developing a TV show, those things take time. It doesn’t happen overnight and you need to pay rent. The financial element more than anything is why women filmmakers have to make compromises in their career paths as a directors.”



Har’el, who was born and raised in Israel, was working by age of 11 and never had family financial resources to lean on. She quickly discovered the commercial world — where women directed less than 7 percent of commercials and made up less than 3 percent of the creative directors at ad agencies — was in many ways even more closed than Hollywood. In looking at the advertising world, Har’el saw the same cultural problems that in exist in film and TV, politics, and the corporate world. The key difference being the way those problems manifested themselves in the ad world were far easier to both pinpoint and target.

On every commercial made, from the smaller ones to the multi-million dollar Super Bowl ads, all are legally required to go through a “triple bid” process of hiring their production teams. The ad agency hired by the brands to come up with the campaign goes out to three directors who interpret the outline of the campaign and pitch their approaches, while their production companies put together a budget. The agency recommends one bid to the brand (which is legally required to look at all three) and pick who will make the ad.

“Because of years of bias, and the fact that when women do get offered jobs in advertising it’s usually for hygiene, beauty, or laundry products — women never get to direct car commercials or things that have action in it — so the male directors’ reels were always much more impressive, more rich, and they had more experience,” said Har’el. “As a result, they end up with three men bidding against each other, and of course that 90 percent of the time they were three white men — so the advertising world was stuck in a loop that kept reinforcing itself with the proof of these reels.”

Har’el started Free the Bid with the idea that if she could get agencies and brands to pledge that one of every three bids come from a women director, there was a chance of eventually breaking the cycle. “They aren’t pledging to hire anybody; all they are doing is pledging that one of three bids come from a women, which I think is a really good offer because we are half of the population,” said Har’el. “It’s always a lot easier to reach out to the three directors you’ve worked with and trust and love their production company, and that’s understandable. But I always believed if producers of these commercials became acquainted with women directors — which we built an expensive and searchable database of over 400 directing reels to help them find — they would see their passion and vision and want to work with us.”

What Har’el wasn’t expecting was how many women in positions of power at agencies and brands were anxious to break free of the disturbing and embarrassing numbers in regards to diversity, especially when publications like the Harvard Business Review estimate that women make 85 percent of the product purchase decisions for a household. In just a year, 12 major brands — including Visa, HP, Levi’s and Coca-Cola — and over 50 major ad agencies signed the pledge. Of the close to 70 companies that signed the pledge, there was a 400 percent increase in the number of women directors they hired.

While Har’el first went into commercials for financial stability, then as an advocate for women directors, what she soon learned is how vital commercial work can be to a filmmaker’s growth. “You can’t take away the huge value of what you learn on a commercial set,” said Har’el. “Being trusted with millions of dollars to produce a one-minute spot and have the time constraints that you have, the confidence you gain, the equipment you get to play with, and the filmmakers you get to work with – even though what you are making is not art, still you are using so many of the same tools and you are developing so much. In many cases, working with brands is the equivalent of negotiating your ideas with a studio.”

Har’el is used to being enraged when male directors more easily transition to commercial films, but what she didn’t understand until this past year was how vital the technical training gained on a commercial set would be to her being able to take the next step in her own career. Har’el — whose breakout was winning the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival with “Bombay Beach,” which she shot on a $800 camera from Best Buy — got to shot “Thank You, Mom” on 35mm, the first time she ever shot on film.

“It’s unmeasurable, you can’t even start to quantify that amount of experience that men get on commercial sets,” said Har’el. “Good luck knowing how to shoot a chase scene on a freeway when you never even been on a moving truck with a Russian arm. But if you’ve done it even once on a commercial, and you saw the footage you created and you heard the technical limitations you are going to face and dealt with them creatively, you are going to be a better filmmaker for life.”

As for her own film and TV projects, Har’el is deep in rehearsals on a yet to be announced scripted narrative feature that will start shooting in a couple months. She also sold a pilot script she’s developing with a production company, which she hopes to start pitching to studios this year.

Reflecting on how radically her career had changed as a result of Free the Bid and her commercial work, Har’el said, “I’m telling you, man, the dirty little secret male directors keep is how they build filmmaking skills and financially sustain themselves making commercials. That’s what women filmmakers need to know more than anything.”

Chalamet said the famous peach scene "serves as a metamorphosis of some of the strongest ideas in the movie."

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Write Your Novel to Be a Film by Kenneth Atchity

Novelists seeking representation complain that none of their books have been made into films. At any given moment, we have literally stacks of novels from New York publishers on our desks in Los Angeles. Going through them to find the ones that might make motion pictures or television movies, we — and other producers, managers, and agents — are constantly running into the same problems:

    “There’s no third act... It just trickles out.”

    “There are way too many characters and it’s not clear till page 200 who the protagonist is.”

    “I can’t relate to anyone in the book.”

    “At the end, the antagonist lays out the entire plot to the protagonist.”

    “There’s not enough action.”

    “There’s nothing new here. This concept has been used to death.”

    “We don’t know who to root for.”

    “The whole thing is overly contrived.”

    “There’s no dialogue, so we don’t know what the character sounds like.”

    “There’s no high concept here. How do we pitch this?”

    “There’s no real pacing.”

    “The protagonist is reactive instead of proactive.”

    “At the end of the day, I have no idea what this story is about.”

    “The main character is 80, and speaks only Latvian.”

    “It’s set in Papago...in the 1960s, and is filled with long passages in Uto-Aztecan.”

    “There are no set pieces.”

Of course anyone with the mind of a researcher can list a film or two that got made despite one of these objections. But for novelists who are frustrated at not getting their books made into films, that should be small consolation and is, practically speaking, a useless observation. Yes, you might get lucky and find a famous Bulgarian director, who’s fascinated with the angst of octogenarians, studied pacing with John Sales or Jim Jarmusch, and loves ambiguous endings.

But if you regard your career as a business instead of a quixotic crusade, you should be planning your novel from the outset to make it appealing to filmmakers.

Give us a strong (preferably male) lead who, good or bad, is eminently relatable — and who’s in the “star age range” of 35-50 (where at any given moment 20 male stars reside; a star being a name that can set up the film by his attachment to it).

Make sure a dramatist looking at your book will clearly see three well-defined acts: act one (the setup), act two (rhythmic development, rising and falling action), and act three (climax leading to conclusive ending).

Express your character’s personality in dialogue that distinguishes him, and makes him a role a star would die to play.

Have someone in the film industry read your synopsis before you commit to writing the novel.


Though I’ve observed the phenomena for several decades now, it still surprises me that even bestselling novelists, even the ones who complain that no one has made a film from their books yet, don’t write novels dramatic enough to lend themselves easily to mainstream film. It’s a well-known phenomenon in publishing that, with very few exceptions, the more books a novelist sells the less critical his publisher’s editors are of his work. So time and again we read novels that start out well, roar along to the halfway point, then peter off into the bogs of formless character development or action resolution.

A publisher invests between $25,000 and $100,000 or more in publishing your novel. A low-budget feature film from a major Hollywood studio today costs at least $40 million. There is, from a business point of view, no comparison. Risking $40 million means the critical factor is raised as high as can be imagined when your book hits the “story department” — much higher than the critical factor of even the finest publishers. Hollywood studies what audiences want by logging, in box office dollars, cents, and surveys, what they respond best to.

If you want to add film to your profit centers as a novelist, it would behoove you to study what makes films work. Disdaining Hollywood may be a fashionable defense for writers who haven’t gotten either rich or famous from it, but it’s not productive in furthering your cinematic career.

5 Reasons why we need negative reviews

We all strive for excellence in our work. Sometimes, though, others don't think we measure up. It can be annoying, heartbreaking, or downright infuriating. Others will remind us that not everything is everyone's cup of steeped leaf water, and we'll eventually put down the chocolate, or wine, and get on with our existence. 

But could it be we actually need negative reviews? Yes!

Here are five reasons why:

Congratulations! You're real. In the throes of self publishing and sock puppet reviews, it's important to establish a piece of work—and the creator behind it—is honest. One of the surest ways to do this is by receiving negative reviews. Since nothing is universally loved, not even Harry Potter, then a book with only five-star reviews is bound to raise a few eyebrows.

Marketing: You're doing it right. When a book is first born, it usually finds itself passed around from one loving supporter to another. And that's okay. Eventually, though, your baby will have to find its legs and start exploring the world. That means it will be outside the safety of the village, and into the wild. And some things out there will want to have it for breakfast. In short, if your book hasn't garnered a few negative reviews, you haven't sent it out far enough.

Welcome to the classroom. Before publication, a book should have been revised, beta read, and edited. Even with all that, your manuscript likely only saw less than a dozen people. Once out in the world, it—hopefully—will reach hundreds, or even thousands of readers. Among all the voices, some might ring true with thoughts and opinions no one had considered before. Don't dismiss constructive criticism just because it was accompanied by a one-star.

In the words of Picard. Anyone with even the slightest bit of knowledge about a marketing will tell you that word of mouth is the best way to promote anything. This means you need people to talk about the book. Negative reviews often generate conversation among readers. No need to get involved. Just let it run its course. Engaged readers pique curiosity along the way.

It's good for the soul. Praise is nice. If you managed to see a book through from start to finish, you've earned all the bubbly feedback. But even Shakespeare had critics (and now entire classrooms pick his work apart). Sometimes it takes a negative review or two to keep us grounded and, therefore, real to our fans. 

No one likes negative reviews. It's okay to be privately hurt or even angry about them. Rant to a friend, take it out on the punching bag, or indulge in a whole gallon of ice cream (not the fat free kind, either). Just keep in mind that in the end, you need negative reviews. They're part of being a real writer.
 

About the Author:

Rainy Kaye is an aspiring overlord. In the mean time, she blogs at Rainy of The Dark, and and writes paranormal novels from her lair somewhere in Phoenix, Arizona.
When not plotting world domination, she enjoys getting lost around the globe, studying music so she can sing along with symphonic metal bands, and becoming distracted by Twitter.

She is represented by Rossano Trentin of TZLA. 



Originally posted on Book Daily

Ageism in Hollywood? by Dennis Palumbo

Hollywood on the CouchThere's an old joke about a man working in the circus, whose job it was to follow behind the elephants, sweeping up their droppings. When asked why he doesn't find some other line of work, he replies, "What, and leave show business?"

What makes the joke funny, of course, is the truth behind it. Creative and talented people, having once tasted the nectar of Hollywood success, find it almost impossible to quit the field, even when the odds are stacked against them.

And nothing stacks the odds higher than committing the one unpardonable sin in Hollywood---getting older. As the late, great TV writer Larry Gelbart once said, "The only way to beat ageism in Hollywood is to die young."

I ought to know. I deal with issues like ageism in the entertainment industry---not to mention depression, creative "blocks," relationship crises and dozens of other concerns---every day in my therapy practice.

Who am I? I'm a former Hollywood screenwriter (My Favorite Year; Welcome Back, Kotter, etc.), now a licensed psychotherapist in private practice in Los Angeles. And though I've retired from film and TV, I still do some writing---articles, reviews, and, most recently, a new series of mystery novels.

But my full-time day job is my therapy practice. Given my background, I suppose it's no surprise that my patients are primarily writers, actors, and directors in the entertainment industry. They range from the famous and successful to the unknown and struggling. And after over 23 years of doing therapy in Hollywood, I can state one thing with complete confidence:

Doing therapy is the same everywhere. Except here, where it's different.

Which, by way of example, brings me back to ageism.

At 63, my patient Walter (not his real name, of course) has been directing episodic television for most of his adult life---except for the past five years, during which, despite Herculean efforts to get work, he's been unemployed. He also got divorced and lost his house, and had to move to a condo in Burbank.

At a recent session, Walter announced more bad news.

"My agent finally dumped me," he said quietly, without rancor.

"I'm sorry, Walter. I know you've been his client a long time."

"Twenty-one years. Lasted longer than my marriage. And the sex was better..." He managed a rueful smile. "Hey, I can't blame him. He busted his ass for me. But let's face it, nobody wants to see a gray-haired old fart like me on the set. Everybody there looks like my grandchildren."

As is often the case with patients in his situation, we talked about options. Walter agreed that he could probably teach, but that even teaching jobs were getting scarce and the money wasn't very good.

But the money wasn't really what bothered him. Right now, at 63, he felt he was a better director than at any time in his life. He knew his craft, he understood actors, he could keep his head in a crisis. But it seemed clear that nobody wanted to see a face much over 40 or 45 nowadays.

"I might as well pack it in," he said gloomily. "My life in this town is over."
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"Your life isn't over, Walter." I said. "Neither is your career. Unless you're ready for it to be over."

"What does that mean?"

"It means you don't have to let other people decide what you can do. Or how to feel about what you can do."

"Hell, don't get all therapeutic on me now."

"I'm not. I'm being pragmatic. If you want to teach, go teach. But if you still love directing, go find something to direct. A play. A short film. You say you have a few bucks. Okay, then hire someone to write something. Or rent a small theater downtown and put something up on its feet."

"Forget it. I'm used to working for studios. Networks. Guys with parking spaces on the lot, who at least have to pay me for the privilege of pissing all over my work."

"And I know how much you'll miss that. But at least you'll be directing. If that's what you still want to do."

"Hell, it's what I am."

He sat back, stroking the edge of his trim, salt-and-pepper beard. Then he laughed. "Hey," he said, "remember that joke about the guy at the circus, cleaning up after the elephants?"

"One of my favorites."

"You think I'm that guy?"
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"Walter, I think we're all that guy. These are the lives we lead, the things we do. If it's who we really are, all we can do is keep doing it. As a colleague of mine said once, about trying to achieve in any profession: Keep giving them you, until you is what they want."

He paused. "You know, Alvin Sergeant is in his 70's or 80's, and he wrote those first Spider-Man movies. Huge hits. For years, David Chase couldn't get arrested, and then he creates The Sopranos. Hell, John Huston directed his last picture in a wheelchair, sitting next to an oxygen tank."

"All true."

"I mean, maybe I'm just kiddin' myself, but..." He nodded toward the door. "There's gotta be at least one more elephant out there, right?"

I smiled. "I've never known a circus without one."

  


Dennis Palumbo is a former Hollywood screenwriter (My Favorite Year; Welcome Back, Kotter) turned licensed psychotherapist and mystery author.

How Technology Is (and Isn’t) Changing Our Reading Habits

When Alexandra Alter, a reporter who covers the books industry, doesn’t want to lose herself in what she’s reading, or lose her balance on the subway, she reaches for her Kindle. Credit Jeenah Moon for The New York Times 


How do New York Times journalists use technology in their jobs and in their personal lives? Alexandra Alter, who covers the books industry for The Times, discussed the tech she’s using.

Given that you write about the books industry, how do you prefer to read books? On a Kindle or iPad or some other device, or printed books?

I came a little late to e-books, but I became a convert in 2010 when my older daughter was born. I needed a way to read books with one hand (and in a dark room), so I got a Kindle. The Kindle and ice cream sandwiches — also easily managed with one hand — are what got me through the brutal early weeks with a newborn, when you basically can’t put them down. Now I’m on my fifth Kindle.

I still love print books and find it to be a much more relaxing and immersive experience, but when I’m reading books for work — honestly, the bulk of my reading — the Kindle is incredibly convenient. I have all my books on a single device that I always have with me. I read advance copies of books that way: Publishers send me digital copies through NetGalley or Edelweiss, sites where book industry professionals and critics can get digital copies of books before they’re published.

I like that e-books are searchable, which is helpful for fact-checking, and the device stores all my notes and highlights, so I can quickly look stuff up when I’m writing. And I can read with one hand on a crowded train. One of my mild phobias is being trapped somewhere, on a plane or a stalled train or in a line, with nothing to read, and I also have the Kindle reader app on my iPhone, so I always have my entire library with me.

How is technology affecting the publishing industry?

About a decade ago, when Amazon introduced its first e-reader, publishers panicked that digital books would take over the industry, the way digital transformed the music industry. And for a while, that fear seemed totally justified. At one point, the growth trajectory for e-books was more than 1,200 percent. Bookstores suffered, and print sales lagged. E-books also made self-publishing easier, which threatened traditional publishers.

But in just the last couple of years, there has been a surprising reversal. Print is holding steady — even increasing — and e-book sales have slipped.

One possible reason is that e-book prices have gone up, so in some cases they’re more expensive than a paperback edition. Another possibility is digital fatigue. People spend so much time in front of screens that when they read they want to be offline. Another theory is that some e-book readers have switched to audiobooks, which are easy to play on your smartphone while you’re multitasking. And audiobooks have become the fastest-growing format in the industry.




Ms. Alter likes that e-books are searchable and that the the Kindle stores her notes and highlights for easy retrieval. Credit Jeenah Moon for The New York Times

Social media has also had an enormous impact on publishing, as it has on all corners of the media industry. It has definitely become a new way for readers to connect with authors and discover books, but it has probably also cut into the time that people spend reading. (A depressing article in Quartz estimated that if people spent the same amount of time reading that they did on social media, they could read 200 books a year easily.)

Many new authors are skipping traditional publishers and use tech tools to go straight to self-publishing their own e-books or print books. What will be the fate of traditional publishers in the next few years?

Self-publishing has been one of the most fascinating corners of the industry to me. There have been a handful of massively successful self-published authors who have started their own publishing companies, and they’ve started to publish other “self-published” authors. But publishers have survived so far through consolidation, and we’ll probably see more of that.

 
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What Makes Something Go Viral?

What's the secret to making content people love? Join BuzzFeed's Publisher Dao Nguyen for a glimpse at how her team creates their tempting quizzes, lists and videos -- and learn more about how they've developed a system to understand how people use content to connect and create culture.

'The Meg': Jason Statham And Cast Assemble In New Photo

Warner Bros. has released a new look at The Meg, the action-slash-horror that will pit The Fate of the Furious star Jason Statham against a 75-foot-long Carcharodon megalodon.



The photo sees Statham's Jonas Taylor take center alongside cast members Page Kennedy (DJ), Ruby Rose (Jaxx Herd), Li Bingbing (Suyin), and Cliff Curtis (James 'Mac' Mackreides).

Rainn Wilson (The Office), Robert Taylor (Kong: Skull Island), Masi Oka (Death Note), and Jessica McNamee (Battle of the Sexes) co-star.

Based on author Steve Alten's 1997 novel Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror, The Meg sees a deep-sea submersible attacked by a massive creature that was previously believed to be extinct.

With its crew trapped inside as the submersible lies disabled at the bottom of the deepest trench in the Pacific, expert deep-sea rescue diver Taylor is recruited by visionary Chinese ocreanographer Dr. Minway Zhang (Winston Chao) to save the crew — and the ocean itself — from the unstoppable over-sized shark.

Taylor, who encountered the terrifying creature years before, will team with Suyin and must confront his fears to save everyone trapped below — bringing him face to face once more with the greatest and largest predator of all time.

Jon Turteltaub (National Treasure) directs from a script by Erich and Jon Hoeber (Battleship).

The Meg has been in the works since Disney purchased the rights in 1997.

Warner Bros. revived the project in 2015, eyeing Hostel and Knock Knock filmmaker Eli Roth to direct. Turteltaub boarded in 2016, originally prepping The Meg for a March 2018 debut.

The Meg swims into theaters August 10.


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Why Do You Have to Market Your Book? 10 Ways to Focus Your Marketing

Your book is about to be published or already published, and now it's time to talk about the simple facts of marketing. The American marketplace, nearly 300 million strong, is the most lucrative market for books in the world -- and the gateway to the global marketplace. Amazon now has websites in United Kingdom, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Japan, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil -- and is adding more each year. Your book's reach can truly be global -- if your book is visible.

One book in a million launches to instant sales while the author does absolutely nothing. It's the most common pathetic fallacy to think you'll succeed without PR or that the media will cover your book with little effort on your part.

The other 999,999 books require the marketing (promotional) efforts to become visible to the American and global marketplace. And marketing is an ongoing thing that never stops.

To begin with, you need to know this formula by heart:

MARKETING has no direct relationship with sales.

But GOOD MARKETING produces VISIBILITY.

Without VISIBILITY there can be no sales.

Consider BMW, Veuve Clicquot, Victoria's Secret, and many other brands that are embedded in the American consciousness. They well know that spending millions of dollars a year in the big slick magazines with sexy ads has NO direct relationship with sales. But they do it because it keeps their brands in the forefront of the browsers' awareness.

They don't dare NOT spend the money. For one thing, they know if they don't spend it, someone else will be spending it and that someone else may take their place in the buyers' awareness.

The same is true of the massively crowded world of books.

So one way or the other, you must MARKET YOUR BOOK as fervently as -- maybe even more fervently than -- you wrote it. Devote a minimum amount of time EACH DAY because time upon time produces results.

What are some of the best ways to market your book? From years of trials and errors, both my own and those of my clients and published authors, here's what I suggest:

1. Come up with a marketing plan that fits your time and budget constraints; revise it as you continue forward and as opportunities arise.

2. Put time into it, and as much money as you can spare. Nothing happens unless you invest your time and/or your money (and don't forget: money buys time).

3. Get help. If you don't have the time or desire to do it yourself, use our help to make your book visible.

4. Forget about all marketing except the internet. By 2012, 274 million (78.6% of the population) people were using the internet in North America alone; 2.95 billion are online worldwide! Why spend your money on television, or print ads, or even radio (though the last is still a good idea) when you can be in direct touch with this humongous market from your keyboard?

5. Focus your book by offering it exclusive on amazon.com--which has over 100 million subscribers. Get that "Author Central" page up as soon as your book is launched. Amazon is the 500-lb guerrilla -- so set the other monkeys aside until you've sold 100 million books.

6. Build a Facebook page instead of a blog. With 1.3 Billion users globally, where can you find a better marketplace? Maybe you'll consider that limiting when your book has sold a billion copies. Then you can think about expanding beyond Facebook. Meanwhile here's the biggest market imaginable -- nearly 200 million in North America -- right at your fingertips.

7. Focus on getting book reviews on your sell-page. First aim for 30, then 100, then 300. Magic happens when the amazon computer's algorithm starts paying attention to your book, and more and more reviews inevitably make that happen.

8. end out a press release about your book through a service that reaches internet reviewers. You will surely receive requests for review copies -- and at least half of those will end up as reviews on the internet.

9. Social networking is where it's all happening today: Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, Linked-In, YouTube, and Tumblr. Set up accounts and send out postings regularly until you grow your following, capturing their emails so you can keep in touch with them.

10. Experiment as much as you have time and funds for, but double down on anything that's working for you.

Don't be overwhelmed by the marketing process. Take control of it by limiting it to a specific time allotment each day, say 60 minutes. You'll be amazed at the results sixty minutes a day, day in and day out, will produce. Good luck -- and enjoy the excitement of this new frontier for writers, where you can reach out directly to your readers and prospective readers.