I’ve briefly alluded to this over the past few months, but haven’t written anything about it because I was waiting to see what the outcome would be. As much as I try and keep my two writing halves separate, Courtney Brandt seems to want to have something to do with this blog, so I’m not going to fight her (me).
In early April, via the facebook fan page for my YA books, I was approached by a producer interested in my various writing projects. Over the moon, I quickly sent an e-mail to my friend at Village Roadshow to validate the producer’s work – turns out she was a perfect fit and had a lot of sales on networks I would love my manuscripts to be developed at. After the initial back and forth, I sent her through my top three treatments for adaptation (basically a synopsis, which, I would suggest any writer have these in a good place for just an occasion). She came back saying my most recently published book, Confessions of a Teenage Band Geek, was a project she wanted to take to the Disney Channel. Cut to me basically smiling for a week.
Recently I learned that Disney passed as they have another marching project in development and that they passed. The answer was completely expected. Of course, I am disappointed, but not devastated. Although it might not go anywhere, the producer has mentioned she is still interested in the project and will keep trying to find a home for it.
So, why am I still smiling?
Validation, pure and simple. For years, I’ve been on the outside looking in on traditional publishing, watching other YA authors get support, marketing, and reading their blog posts about how great their agents are. And yet, here I am, little old me with no official representation, the girl who did it by herself and self published, the author who grew her own audience, and I get approached by a legitimate producer. Would I be ecstatic if one or any of my projects had been optioned? Of course! Am I still happy that success can still be found outside of the normal channels? You betcha.
annbenjamin 