Forum: Author Hangout

Some readers have hipped me to a newish company that archives published works and makes them available for movie studios to consider. FlicTale. The author retains all rights, but FlicTale can bid on the dramatic rights and present the work to studios and production houses.

Not sure what their definition of 'published' is. Not sure that the one-year author's fee of $88 is a good investment.

The two founders are a producer (Marjorie Prime) and an executive with stints at Apple and Netflix. They launched the company in response to the growing demand for original intellectual property.

Discuss.

I would think that a legitimate broker would not ask for money up front from the writers, but would take a cut from any stories sold. If they needed to charge a fee to cover operating expenses, then it should be a lot less or even paid by subscriptions from the producers needing story material. It's my understanding that movie producers get more unsolicited screenplays from wannabe screenwriters than they could possibly use.

As they say, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." I ran a search on FlicTale and got 0 hits. If it is a reputable business, I would expect at least a few hits.

Most of the stories an author produces aren't suitable for being made into a movie. If your story has a good plot, that still means a total rewrite. If you are approached with an offer, you need a lawyer. That is money owed and the offer could disappear if you have a lawyer involved.

As Remus2 said, read the legalese. I would suggest reading it at least once a day for five days before making a decision. Multiple readings to catch the little items you read over and time between reading so the information you read is sorted out and makes sense.

The thing that disturbs me is bidding on the dramatic rights to your story. What does this mean in this context? The circumstances make it possible for FlicTale to find a buyer and then offer you far less than what they will get for your story.

Next what do you get for your $88? Are your stories archived on-line and easy to retrieve or are they off-line and what does it take to retrieve a story? Is there a retrieval fee? What about site security? Probably a hundred more similar questions that need answers. You can buy a lot of external hard disk space for $88 and if you need offsite storage to store the hard disk, a safety deposit box isn't that expensive.

Personally, I'd pass on the deal. There are just too many unethical businessmen in this world.

Overall, this sounds like a variation on "Vanity Press" scams, but the lure is a story made into a movie instead of a story being turned into a published book.

It sounds fishy to me.

I couldn't find anything on the company. Marjorie Prime is the name of a movie.

It's not an investment. You're going to be out $88.

It seems to me that there's a clear analogy to the world of photographic modelling.

A reputable agency will choose people they feel have the looks to be a successful model and prepare a portfolio for free, making their money out of the fees from those who hire the models.

Less reputable agencies operate on a vanity system - the models (or their parents) pay for the portfolios, so there's no risk to the agency. Needless to say, they're rarely successful in placing models, most of whom never recoup the cost of their portfolios.

I don't know how successful agencies operate in the film rights market, but it seems unlikely they'd charge an upfront fee to authors, instead recouping their costs from the film company placements.

AJ