How to Enter Screenplay Contests...and Win!: An Insiders Guide to Selling Your Screenplay to Hollywood [Paperback]

Lorenz Books (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 25, 1997

Contains comprehensive listings of over 40 legitimate screenwriting competitions. Learn the odds of winning. screenplay!

Editorial Reviews

Review

Erik Joseph coordinates one of the longest running screenplay competitions in the country and is the Assistant Director of the Nevada State Film Commission. He also teaches entertainment industry classes at various colleges and university and has had numerous screenplays optioned. Joseph is perfectly positioned to provide an insider's guide to selling screenplays to Hollywood. How To Enter Screenplay Contests And Win is essential reading for all aspiring screenwriters with its practical, comprehensive, easy-to-follow tips, tricks and techniques for winning a screenplay contest -- the most affordable way to get a screenplay noticed, optioned, sold, and produced! -- Midwest Book Review

Product Details

• Paperback: 170 pages
• Publisher: Lone Eagle Publishing Company; First Printing edition (January 25, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0943728886
• ISBN-13: 978-0943728889
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,597,854 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Little Misdirection Never Hurt, Right?, July 23, 2002

By 

Carrie Harris (Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Enter Screenplay Contest ...And Win!, 2nd Edition (Paperback)

Okay, so the title is completely misleading. After reading the title, I picked up this book expecting to learn about how past winners made it that far, from how they selected the best contests for their screenplay to their techniques in entering. I expected a book full of success stories and testimonials I could look to when feeling a little discouraged. But it's not what I got.

I would describe this as a market listing more than a how-to book. It provides information on more than 150 screenplay competitions, with the usual market directory information: entry fees, categories, sponsors, contact information, deadlines, rules, etc. But when it comes to making that leap from an overwhelming list of contests to THE contest that is best for a screenplay (if such a thing exists), the pickings are fairly slim here. The book contains a smattering of short interviews and features on specific contests, but the focus here is on where to go and not how to get there.

The fact is that contest information is available (and often more current) in the trade magazines and on numerous websites. This book might provide a good place to start searching for the right contests, but ultimately it hasn't filled any need that I wasn't able to fill elsewhere.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Effective advice, but I would have liked more, July 17, 2000

By 

Bull Durham (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Enter Screenplay Contests...and Win!: An Insiders Guide to Selling Your Screenplay to Hollywood (Paperback)

For the price of this book, there isn't a lot of information presented here. But the author, Erik Joseph, does at least provide an overview of what to expect when entering a screenplay contest.

The first part of the book describes structuring. I was skeptical about this section in particular since I've seen some great screenwriting books devoted to this. And, the author doesn't really go much into structure but scratch the surface, relying on quotes to guide the novice screenwriter.

But Mr. Joseph does at least cover what the screenwriting contests consider standard formatting for screenplays. So I'd say his advice on formatting was effective and helpful.

As for the screenwriting contests themselves, Mr. Joseph provides a one page overview of 42 screenwriting competitions. This section could definitely have been condensed. I think about every screenwriting journal out there lists these contests frequently in their respective publications ("Creative Screenwriting," by the way, is my personal favorite of those publications).

Further along in the book are a few interviews. I always like interviews in screenwriting books, and I will sometimes buy a screenwriting book just for the interviews. However, these are very short and terse and could have been more effective (I guess not everyone can interview like Barbara Walters, so I'll cut the author SOME slack).

An excellent chapter (only two pages though) is entitled "Good Examples of Bad Screenwriting." It contains actual samples of bad writing in submitted entries. Examining those atrocities was very helpful. However, I thought the author could have expanded on these a little more or explained why he chose specific ones for inclusion (are these frequent mistakes? how can one best avoid them? what are good sources for further refinement of grammar?)

Overall, I will give "How to Enter Screenplay Contests & Win!" four stars because it is effective in its discussion of screenwriting contests. However, I would have liked more advice and a longer book (it's 170 pages; but a lot of the pages are partially blank). And the cover of the book was not up to par due to the advertising blurbs on it that were entirely superfluous ("over $3 million in guaranteed cash!" on the front cover; and "win millions of dollars with your movie idea!" on the back cover).

In short, I'd like to see a second edition of this book that is expanded upon. However, I do think the product as it stands now is effective in accurately describing screenwriting contests and motivating aspiring writers to enter them.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not so good, March 27, 2003

By 

Pat C. Ames "Pat C. Ames" (Indiana) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: How to Enter Screenplay Contest ...And Win!, 2nd Edition (Paperback)

Was so unhappy with this book I resold it the next day. Nothing here that cannot be found for free at a zillion web sites.