Books and magazine articles have long provided the IP Hollywood depends on, but until recently, authors played little role in the process. Now, lit agencies and publishers are changing the rules and shortening the page-to-screen pipeline.
Book-to-screen deals are reported by the Hollywood trades in pieces that dutifully mention the novelists, directors and actors involved but often leave out the people who actually made it happen - the agent or manager who hooked up the players, the producer who optioned it years ago, the book scout whose secret source shared the proposal before book publishers had even seen it.
Filmmakers love to use novels as source material for films, and writers love to have their work adapted for the big screen. Why not? For filmmakers, literary adaptations come with a built-in fan base, along with (usually) a well-crafted story populated by ready-made, compelling characters. Read more
The relationship between the book, TV and film industries has never been stronger trade figures have said, with new, hungry players such as Netflix and Amazon Prime spurring on the number of dramatic rights deals being struck. Read more
After watching Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, self-published author Mark Dawson was inspired to create his own answer to the film's heroine Beatrix "Black Mamba" Kiddo. And now Dawson - and his character government-employed assassin Beatrix Rose - are set to take on Hollywood, with his series on the verge of a major television deal, complete with a "triple A" producer.
A clash of opposing worldviews. Countless innocent lives at stake. Dirty street-fighting and a race to save the country from a maniacal, self-indulgent sociopath. Sure, that was Wednesday's presidential debate - but the new Jack Reacher movie is pretty exciting too. Read more
Alongside familiar entertainment royalty - JK Rowling, Stephen King and George RR Martin - a new report from the Hollywood Reporter calculates that EL James, Paula Hawkins and Patrick Ness have become three of the most powerful writers in Hollywood.
'We've only been publishing for three years, having started just before the pandemic did... The digital vision we had formulated was vindicated and validated by the pandemic - but that doesn't mean it's not still relevant. As we grow, we're doing a bit more print, but we'll continue to adapt and survive.
In 2017, we learned that Eleanor Oliphant was completely fine. As you may recall, there was a bestselling novel all about it, titled, appropriately enough, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. Soon, a wave of syntactically similar book titles followed, all involving simple sentences containing the female protagonist's name: Evvie Drake started over. Florence Adler swam forever. Read more
Kate Clanchy's memoir about teaching won the Orwell prize. Then, a year later, it became the centre of a storm that would engulf the lives of the author, her critics and dozens of people in the book trade. So what happened?
Writers buy plotting books by the dozen and do their best to create the plottiest plot that the world has ever seen. They stuff their novels with action-packed sword fights, explosions, fist fights, and screaming matches. Plot points, pinch points, and grandiose climaxes abound. Read more
In my 15 years of teaching English to hundreds of children in various parts of England, there are four books that have been on the curriculum in every school I have found myself in, with no exception: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, Animal Farm by George Orwell, An Inspector Calls by JB Priestley and Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo. Read more
The Booker prize-winning author Bernardine Evaristo says she fears that publishers' interest in black authors may be only a "trend or fashion" that could wane unless the business becomes more diverse. Read more
Waterstones Children's Laureate Cressida Cowell has revealed the "transformative" impact on the pilot primary schools taking part in her "Life-changing Libraries" initiative, including an increase in a love of reading, motivation towards learning, well-being and feelings of self-worth. Read more
Every writer has had it drilled into them at some point. It's one of the most familiar bits of writing advice there is: "Write what you know." And it makes so much sense-it worked for John Grisham and Kathy Reichs, right?
Another May has come and gone without BookExpo or any other in-person, industrywide spring show taking its place. As the pandemic eases, more and more publishing and publishing-related conferences, meetings, and fairs are moving from online-only events to either in-person or hybrid affairs. Read more
Meanwhile, I was working on my column for Publishers WeeklyInternational news website of book publishing and bookselling including business news, reviews, bestseller lists, commentaries http://www.publishersweekly.com/. The theme: influencing readers-beyond BookTok. I certainly didn't expect to find a point of intersection with these two shows. Did I? Bear with me.