Jerrol LeBaron is the founder of the Writers Script Network (www.writersscriptnetwork.com ), an online script listing service described by Christopher Wehner as "the most successful script site on the Internet"*. Boasting nineteen sales and/or options in as many months, the Writers Script Network has also helped over four dozen screenwriters find representation. I should know. I’m one of them.

* From Screenwriting on the Internet by Christopher Wehner, copyright 2001, published by Michael Wiese Productions (www.mwp.com ).

Daphne: You started the Writers Script Network in 2000, so it’s been, what? Eighteen months?

Jerrol: Yes, Valentine’s Day of last year is actually when we opened the doors.

Daphne: What prompted you to get into that? I know you came from a construction background…

Jerrol: Yes, construction and sales. I grew up doing construction and then when I was twenty-three I bought a jewelry business and had that for a number of years, which was basically straight sales. Then I dabbled a bit in screenwriting, and just saw how difficult it was to market work. And I thought there has to be some easier way of doing this. (Laughs) That’s what prompted me to develop the Network.

Daphne: So you were really looking at the process from a writer’s point of view and saying, all right, how would one go about this.

Jerrol: Exactly.

Daphne: I assume you sort of merged that with you background in sales and looked at it from the other point of view as well.

Jerrol: Well, the thing is if you’ve been in business for yourself, and I did very well in sales, you start to wonder why it is that so many writers have difficulty. When you’ve got that business experience and sales experience, you go, okay, it looks like these are the things that work and these are the things that don’t work. And of course, when you’re going into an industry you don’t know anything about, research is very important, and being able to discern what is actually correct information.

Daphne: Rather than ‘common knowledge’, which isn’t always accurate…

Jerrol: Right. Most of the Catch-22’s in Hollywood aren’t, in my opinion, correct.

Daphne: For example…

Jerrol: Well, for one, this whole concept in Hollywood of overshopping a script. Now, it does happen, but it’s much more rare than one would think. The only way a script gets overshopped, really, is when the production company has a lot of ins to the major studios, and they’ve submitted the project to twenty of the big guys in the industry. The Hollywood studios, of course, have their own tracking system, and as soon as you put the script up and start taking it to the major studios- the big big guys- they network. So that’s when you could consider a script overshopped. But for the average Joe who’s got a script and is trying to get it out there, it’s virtually impossible for them to overshop a script.

Daphne: Yes, you’ve got, what? Something like seven hundred production companies that are now using Writers Script Network?

Jerrol: There’s about seven hundred producers that are registered members and about two hundred agents and managers that are registered members. Then we have several thousand other producers, agents, managers that are subscribers to the Network. ICM just registered with us yesterday. A guy from Disney is registered with us… So we’re starting to get more recognition among the big guys as well.

Everyone is real big on loglines, they could read fifty loglines before they actually found a synopsis they wanted to view. We’ve been averaging about 230 synopses or treatments viewed a week- although, even though the synopsis is viewed, that doesn’t automatically mean the producer’s going to take it that next step and request the script. We just got an email from a writer yesterday, he was like ‘Hey, I just submitted my script, I posted it the day before yesterday and within twenty-four hours someone requested my script.’ And then we’ll have people that are on the site for six months and nothing.

Daphne: That’s one of the things that’s different about Writers Script Network than some of the other script posting sites is that you don’t really do a screening process.

Jerrol: Yes, well, aside from the writers that send us emails with huge typographical and grammatical errors. When we get an email like that, we look at the script, and if it’s just not very good, we take the script off. If a producer looks at it, he’s going to say if they’re not professional enough to bother to take out the typographical and grammatical errors, then they’re not professional enough to know how to structure a story. If they see that, they’ll move on. So we’ll just give the writer a refund.

Daphne: I’m not bringing that up as a drawback in any way, because it’s a very labor-intensive process, and it’s also putting yourself in the position of assuming that you know what the producers will want…

Jerrol: It’s true, you really don’t know. When we first started the site, we interviewed almost two hundred agents, managers, and producers to find out what they wanted so we could build the kind of website that they would come to use. What sorts of things would get them to come to the internet to try and find scripts? And one of the largest things was someplace fast and easy where they knew they weren’t going to be hassled. So that’s what we did. Now for the writer… for the writer who’s internet-savvy and doesn’t mind taking it step by step and following directions, the average to post a script the first time is probably two hours. So we weren’t able to be merciful for the writer, but on the producer’s side, we get emails all the time saying, wow, this is great. So it’s very easy for them.

Daphne: It’s funny because on the one hand there’s the constant cry of ‘We need new material’ coming out of Hollywood, and on the other hand the writers are going ‘Well, how come I can’t get anyone to read my script?’ This is one of the difficulties that I think has traditionally plagued the industry- there is so much material available, but the simple logistics of being able to get to the story, finding out what it’s about, finding out whether it’s something you’re interested in- the meat of that information can be conveyed in two paragraphs but you have to go through, oh, a secretary answering a query, getting a synopsis, getting a treatment, it might take five or six hours of time to get to that two paragraph nugget of information.

Jerrol: Part of the thing is the studios are constantly clamoring for different material, and you can understand what they’re saying. Most of the people who go up the ladder at the studios start out being a reader. Not all, but a high percentage of them, they’ll read several hundred screenplays a year. And after a while all the screenplays start to seem the same. So at some point they start getting jaded and they end up really looking for something that’s written in a unique way that doesn’t, well, bore them. So it becomes, well, we’re looking for new material and the story could be good, the idea could be good, but they just read five screenplays that were very very similar, and so they pass on it. It doesn’t mean it’s not a good story, it just means for them, they’ve read enough of them to where they’re just no longer interested and they want something ‘unique’.

Daphne: It’s difficult because on the one hand, if you’re looking at making a big Hollywood movie with a budget anywhere from five million to, oh, fifty million, there are certain expectations that the audience walks in with, and you need to fulfill those. And at the same time, doing that without falling into the trap of basically recycling what they’ve seen before is a real balancing act.

Jerrol: Very true. And the interesting thing is that a fair number of the movies that come out of Hollywood are written specifically for Hollywood. I think it’s somewhere around 17% of the scripts that actually get made into scripts are spec scripts.

Daphne: And the rest are developed from ideas generated within Hollywood itself.

Jerrol: Right, and with those ones that are generated from within Hollywood itself, there generally isn’t anything unique about it. (laughs) So then writers write these screenplays and see these movies, and think ‘Well, my script matched that perfectly’, and…

Daphne: And why won’t mine sell?

Jerrol: Right. It won’t sell because the studios already came up with that idea, and they’re looking for something unique in the spec script marketplace.

Daphne: (laughs) It really is a catch-22.

Jerrol: Right- discerning between the catch-22s. When I did my research, part of it was figuring out what really was a catch-22 and what wasn’t. And anywhere where someone said you can’t do this’ because of such-and such for the most part I disregarded it, because it’s putting a barrier in front of the writer, you know? What actually got me into the writing was because I was pursuing an acting career, and within the first six months I was getting paid work- pretty much because I came from a ales background, I knew it was largely a numbers game. And that was pretty much the way I approached acting- and it worked. I looked at the actors who weren’t working and how much they were selling themselves, and I looked at the actors who were working, and how much they were selling themselves, and then I just did more than the actors who were selling themselves. That’s part of what helped me build Writers Script Network, because as far as I’m concerned it’s nothing more than a numbers game. That’s really the bottom line. And writers, they think once they’ve got a good script written, they’re going to show it to five or ten people and the script’s going to be sold. And that’s completely false. The average producer, the person that actually makes the films, they generally read anywhere from two hundred and fifty to a thousand scripts before they find the ‘right’ script. So to get your script into the hands of five or ten people is far from adequate.

Daphne: In comparison to the other sites that are out there, in terms of your success level, Writers Script Network really leaves them in the dust, even though these are sites that are prescreening scripts, sometimes giving feedback, before they’re posted. What do you think makes the difference? Why is your site so successful?

Daphne: Let’s talk about some of the successes Writers Script Network has had. I know you’ve had, what is it, sixteen scripts sold from the site?

Jerrol: Well actually, we just had two more that haven’t been announced yet. We’ve had, I believe it is now eighteen scripts sold or optioned, five writers getting paid writing work, another fifty-five writers who’ve gained representation. And these are the ones I know about. A producer doesn’t necessarily tell me that he’s bought a script off the site. And sometimes the writers don’t tell me either! So, those are the results we know about.

Daphne: For myself, I have to say, Brian (of Overland Literary Management, who found The Sword and the Rose on WSN), has been absolutely phenomenal, the people that have read my script and the places that it’s being considered at are just… And I’m in Maine! I’m like the test bunny here, I’m as far away from Hollywood as you can possibly get and still be in the contiguous United States. It’s astounding. So… It works. What you do works.

Currently, nineteen writers have sold or optioned their work through Writer’s Script Network since they opened their doors. An additional fourteen ‘short’ screenplays have been purchased or optioned off the site as well. Twenty-three writers have gotten writing work, and fifty-seven writers have gained representation. The fee to place a script for six months is $30. For this, you can list your logline, synopsis, treatment (if desired), and full script. The site keep a record of who has viewed your loglines, and notifies you by email whenever and industry professional opens your synopsis, treatment, or script. For info on how to post a script, visit the Writer’s Script Network at www.writersscriptnetwork.com.

--Daphne Charette is the author of the award-winning screenplay The Sword and the Rose, based on the life of the legendary Grania O’Malley, and the current president of The Screenplayers. She is represented by Brian Overland of Overland Literary Management.