The Book is on Amazon!

FYI after weeks of emailing and filling out forms and general wrangling, the book is now available on Amazon.com.
Here is the link.

And here is the photo of the book cover.

The Book is Out!

I am proud to announce that my book, 26 Short Screenplays for Independent Filmmakers, is available now exclusively from the website www.26screenplays.com. The book is a collection of Creative Commons screenplays that filmmakers can use to make their own films. Each screenplay is tied to a type of film project. For example, there is a project called "The Meet Cute Scene" and it consists of two characters meeting in a really cute way. Other projects include "The Car Chase," "Pseudo-Documentary Style," and "The Horror Short." The idea is that an independent filmmaker can use these scripts to develop a portfolio showing his or her versatility.


I know everyone who reads this blog wants to support the book in whatever way possible, so here is a list of things you can do to show your support.

1. Buy the book. I know it is stating the obvious, but the more people who buy the book the more money I make. And I like having money. www.26screenplays.com

2. Tell people about the book. To the best of my knowledge, there isn't a book like this out there. There are a lot of "how to make your film" books and "so you want to be an independent filmmaker" books, but there aren't any other "screenplay cookbooks" out there. And feel free to mention the website. www.26screenplays.com

3. There are snarky T-Shirts on the website, too. Thanks to the power of Cafe Press, they cost more than the book. But, hey, T-shirts are cool and cool is priceless.

4. Make a short film using one of the screenplays and send it along. Every film made from one of the scripts gets featured on the www.26screenplays.com website.

I know some people are not made of money and don't feel comfortable sending hard earned cash to an exciting and vibrant website. Not a problem, because there are things people can do to support the book for free.

1. Follow the blog at blog.26screenplays.com. I will use this as a bully pulpit to talk about films, screenplays, and intellectual property law.

2. Follow the Twitter stream at www.twitter.com/26screenplays. This will be like the blog, but more fine tuned for those of us with ADD.

3. Follow the 26 Screenplays YouTube channel www.youtube.com/26screenplays. Everyone who submits a short film from one of the screenplays will be featured here.

So there you go. This is why I haven't been writing on this blog as much as I wanted to and why I probably owe you an email. Thanks for your interest and I hope you become as excited about this new book as I am.

Crazy Things I Used to Do

I am in the finishing stages of putting together my book and thinking of creative works I have actually finished. See, once a project is completed, it has to go out in front of people who will either love it, hate it, or more likely than anything else, feel completely indifferent to it.

This is a terrifying process.

So, right before the project is finished and ready to go out in front of people, what my brain does is generate about a billion new ideas for new creative projects. "Don't finish that book," it says, "I just came up with a great idea for a musical!"

I haven't decided if this is creativity run amok or just a form of ADD. Fortunately, I have tried to leverage this ability into my creative projects.

For example, the post card novel I wrote.

Inspired by the Griffin and Sabine books, I wrote a story on the back of 102 postcards (1 introductory chapter, 100 chapters, 1 conclusion chapter) and then mailed them out.

I followed up that with a 30-chapter X-Files postcard story told on the back of X-Files post cards (which were, conveniently, sold in packs of 30). That story was about a serial killer that used postcards to slay.

The secret is to take the weakness and make it a strength. This is not a bug, it is a feature.

My current project is a book contains 26 short film screenplays. Whenever I got stuck on one, I switch to another. Of course I have a million other ideas for things that I could be doing instead.

Fortunately, if I can just focus on 26 of them, I will have the perfect sequel.

And maybe one of them will be a musical.

Coming Fall 2008

Ok, everyone. I've been working on a book entitled 26 Short Screenplays for Independent Filmmakers.

Here is what the cover looks like:



The purpose of the book is to provide a set of tools for independent filmmakers to use to stretch their abilities. Each screenplay focuses on a different area of production, whether it be a car chase scene, a meet cute scene, or even a simple conversation over breakfast.

Each of the short film screenplays is designed to be filmed quickly and on a budget. If you have the cast, and you have the crew, all you need is a script to produce. That is what the book 26 Short Screenplays for Independent Filmmakers provides. And with the screenplays available under the Creative Commons license, any profits you make off of the screenplays in the book are yours to keep.

There is a web site, a blog, and a T-Shirt shop right now (the T-shirts all read, "Of course I'm wearing black. I'm an independent filmmaker.").

The actual book will be available sometime fall 2008 (I'm hoping late September/early October).

Um... Ta-Daaaaaaa!