I just posted another blog on Findaway’s rights grab on my Patreon page. Again, I have made this post open to everyone. Usually, I don’t do that, and I won’t do it much in the future, but I want you folks to understand what just happened with Findaway. It’s a business lesson that all writers […]
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To Get a Free AI Audio Version of this blog, click here. For most of you, the main issue in this year’s Writers Guild of America writers strike is whether or not your favorite TV programs will be affected. Already, some of the streaming shows, such as Stranger Things and Cobra Kai have shut down […]
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Artists: I want you to pay attention here because this post is for you. The rest of you, those who love business, please read because you might find some inspiration here. But I’m talking to the folks who seem to believe that practicing art is something that is divorced from business and must remain so. […]
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About the time I started planning this series, I got an email from a writer friend. The writer friend is one of those people who think they know business, but have never really bothered to learn much about it. Or maybe they’re the kind of person who reads the how-to, remembers the details, but misses […]
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I’m starting a tiny new series because of everything that’s been in the news of late. But first, let me give you a caveat. For decades, Dean and I have said “Hollywood” when we really mean the film and/or TV industry. That word wasn’t accurate 30 years ago; it’s less accurate now. The industry has […]
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Much of Apple TV’s high profile The Morning Show focuses on contract negotiation. The show, based on Brian Stelter’s book Top of The Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV, focuses on a network morning “news” program on the day its popular male anchor gets fired for sexual misconduct. No! Apple insists, this is […]
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Yes, licensing can bite you. And it can bite you when you only look at the money, and not at the rest of the deal.
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One of the major reasons I write a lot about contracts and negotiation is because in the entertainment field, which is where we writers work, contracts are a nightmare. They’re often written by people who are not lawyers (agent contracts with writers) or negotiated by people who are not lawyers (publishing contracts negotiated by an […]
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The universe keeps giving me excellent examples of things I try to teach on this blog. When I wrote a recent post titled “Knowing What You Want,” that example was one of the first positive examples I had found on how to negotiate. Today’s post does not contain a positive example, I’m afraid. It’s an […]
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It took me a long time to learn that negotiation is all about strength. If you say, My agent or my lawyer too many times in the middle of a negotiation, the person on the other side of that negotiation won’t want to talk to you. You’re not the one with power.
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