My book's been optioned--just in time for movie week!

Just in time for this week's movie theme here at the Teen Fiction Cafe, I'm thrilled to announce that my two young adult novels, I Was a Teenage Popsicle and Beyond Cool have been optioned by Fresh Entertainment (affiliated with Fresh Animation, producers of the fabu toons 6teen and Total Drama Island)! The Fresh producers are hoping to make a movie first, then a spinoff TV series! They're pretty confident they can attract network interest in both Canada and the U.S., so keep your fingers crossed...

I'm doubly proud because this deal came about upon my own initiative. Usually, these things happen when a book deal is announced in Publisher's Marketplace (which studio scouts read) or when an author's literary agent sends the material to a film agent. My books had attracted some interest at the PM stage, but no deals happened. And the books weren't the type of thing the film agent my lit agent partners with were interested in. After that, I sort of shrugged and thought, Well, that's that.

Then one night when the family was watching 6teen (which we looove), my husband said, "This show sounds like your books. Why don't you send I Was a Teenage Popsicle and Beyond Cool to the producers?"

To which I (the all-knowing editor/writer) rolled my eyes and told him that wasn't how it was done.

To which he said, "Why not?"

To which I had no answer.

But I still didn't want to do it--thought maybe sending the books in myself was amateurish, unprofessional.

To which my hubby said, "I think you writers are all so beaten down by rejection you forget that you can control your own careers."

To which I said, "You know what? You're right."

I sent the book off with a letter telling the producers at Fresh (the address of which we found on the net) what a big fan of their shows I was and pitching my Popsicle books.

They called two days later.

Moral of the story: the conventional paths don't always work. Try the unconventional one when they don't!

Blog ya later,

Bev

P.S. Did lunch (yeah, I'm totally going Hollywood!) with the exec producer at the Fresh office--an ultra-cool loft space filled with 130 animators, editors, directors, etc. and got super-excited!

Tweet