As a Screenwriter Today You Must Diversify to Be Successful in This Economy

If you are reading the trades (Daily Variety, The Hollywood Reporter) I am sure you are reading about studios making less and less pictures and spending less and less money on those pictures.

So what can you do?

The only way to survive in this town is to diversify, diversify, diversify. Think of it like stocks — you want to be in as many businesses as possible because, in case something happens in one field, you have others to fall back on.

What this means as a writer is that you should be in as many different fields as possible (while still endeavoring to be great in all of them). Whether this is books, tv — half hour and hour, film, games, comic books, etc., the more fields you are in, the more stocks you have in different arenas that could pay off.

The other great thing about being in as many fields as possible is that  it will stretch your creative muscles.  You will be forced to be creative in ways that you might have not thought possible.

And that new creativity will flow through to all your other arenas.  It will make you a stronger writer in every other field you are in.

Being Nice to Everyone Is a Good Business Practice

I once read an article about a famous old producer who said that he spent over half his day doing favors for other people.  And I have to agree with him.

Much of my day is spent doing favors for other people: trying to help friends get jobs, making introductions, reading resumes, introducing actors to casting agents, etc.

It might seem like a waste of my time (and, trust me, there are days that I would agree).  But then something happens to remind me that it all comes back to you.

We have been friends over the years with a writer who we have tried to help out whenever we can without the expectation of anything in return.  We recently got an email from him saying he is now working at the Huffington Post and he would love to do an article on our very funny client Ben Schwartz.

Of course we said yes and, boy, are we happy about this article.  See the link below to read this fantastic article.

And remember, this goes to show you that it’s a good business practice to try to be nice to everyone — you never know how it is going to come back around.

Enjoy reading the article now.