Query Contest and Happy Thanksgiving

See below for important info on how to participate in our Query
Contest.

Thank You and Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I've gotten emails eager to hear what happens next with our ScreenplayLab
Query Contest. Before we get into that, and in the spirit of Thanksgiving,
I want to say thank you to our host theaters, our speakers, our casting
director Gabrielle Pantera, our writers, our actors, our volunteers and
our audience. Thank you for making ScreenplayLab possible. I love you
guys!

Sometimes people don't realize that ScreenplayLab isn't a non-profit
corporation with a hired staff, but rather a no-budget personal mission
that myself and others volunteer our free time to make happen. We charge
no membership fees and almost all our events are free. I'm amazed at the
exciting events that somehow happen week after week. Finding theaters,
speakers, fresh upbeat scripts and working actors is a constant challenge.
It's only possible thanks to the generosity and community spirit of
Hollywood. Some people are cynical about Hollywood, but I've never met
such a group of nice people in my life. What a pleasure!

The Query Contest...

A month ago, on October 15th, four winners were chosen at our event at
Raleigh Studios. They'll each get a meeting with at least one agent.
Which agent will see them will depend on the query letters they submit.
Ideally, these will be such awesome query letters that the writers will
get to meet with more than one agent. Know anyone else who'd like to do
that? I'm going to open it up to everyone.

I'll be forwarding a set of query letters to be read by an agent or
agents. The agent will pick the best query. That writer will get a
meeting with the agent to discuss his or her career. It may be that
there's more than one winner of the Query Contest. It depends how great
the query letters are and how many writers an agent is willing to see.
All queries will be read by at least one agent, more if I can manage it.
Nobody has done this before.

So What Does It Cost???

It's free or $40, it depends. If you paid the $20 for our live Pitch
Contest in October, whether you pitched or not, I want to give you a
chance to get in the Query Contest for free. See the rules below for
details.

If you did not pay $20, and if there's room in the Query Contest, the
cost to participate will be $40. I will announce on December 5th how
many spots are open. I'm planning on up to 120 spots total, but many
or even most of those could be taken by our Pitch Contest participants
who get until December 4th to tell me they want in for free.

So is it worth $40? For people who are based in Hollywood and have a
personal referral to an agent it may not be. You can always try
writing to an agent yourself. Whether writers participate in the
Query Contest or go it alone, we want to help bring everyone's game
up so screenwriters write better queuries and agents have an easier
time discovering fresh talent. Please write great queries!

The Rules...

The intention of our Query Contest is to help talented writers
advance their careers. The best way to do that, in my opinion, is to
get an agent. A good way to get an agent is to write a great query
letter that an agent actually reads. As a personal favor to me, my
agent and maybe other agents I know will read the query letters I
forward to them. I can't guarantee that anyone will get to sign with
an agent, but many people I've referred in the past have. My agent
is Karl Sanger of Sanger Talent Agency.

If you paid to be in our Pitch Contest in October, send me an email
no later than December 4th stating your intention to be included,
how you paid your $20 for the Pitch Contest so we can check it
(some paid in a company name or through a friend), and a sentence
describing what you pitched at the event (if anything). I will reply
to confirm. I need to hear by December 4th to know how many spots
to open to everyone else.

Don't send me your query letters, yet. I'll ask for those starting
December 5th. What you can start doing now is drafting your perfect
query letter. Here are agent-approved examples to help guide you:

http://screenplaylab.com/perfect.query.html

You'll need to write a query in this same format, but completely
different to apply to you and your story. It has to fit on one page.
I'll be giving details later of how to mail that to me. After I get
the query letters I'll bind them together as a book for agents to
read.

I expect I'll have to post more rules as we go along based on the
questions I get, but really it's simple. Be polite and act
professional. Instead of trying to beat the system, use the system
to your advantage.

How to Get Disqualified...

I don't like to bring it up, but unfortunately there are a few
people who are way too pushy, like to argue, are scary, or make no
sense. Sorry if that sounds harsh. It's nothing personal. To
protect everyone's reputation we have to turn away people who
would cause a problem. For instance, there was one person at our
Pitch Contest event who made up an offensive story pitch about
an agent and deliberately wasted everyone's time. Others have
said they had a personal referral when they didn't or that they
had an agent when they didn't. In a town where reputation is
everything, people like this have no chance. Fortunately,
almost all of the over 1,200 people in ScreenplayLab are really
nice.

Email me with any questions you have.

Thank you!

Robin