Why Query Letter Mailings Are The Best Way To Market Your Script

Screenwriters know they need to get their scripts out to Hollywood but frequently are not sure about the best way to do it.  My company Smart Girls Productions has helped over 2500 screenwriters get their scripts ready and out to Hollywood, and so I want to go over some of the ways you can market your script and compare them.

As a starting point, let’s assume that you will not be marketing your script until you know you have a great story to market, and we’ll compare the ways to market from there.

Some methods for marketing your script are:  Go to pitchfests and pitch in person, make calls to various executives until you get through, do email blasts to potential producers or agents, or do a time-tested method of direct mail called Query Letter Mailings.

Given a great story, when you get right down to it, any of these things could work and have worked.  So whatever works, do it!

There are trade-offs with each method though.  Emails are easily and quickly deleted and often just go unread.  With pitching, you have to find pitchfests to attend with the related expenses of the conference itself, and travel and lodging if you live out of town. Plus, the number of executives you get to pitch to in a short period of time is limited.  Phone calls are scary for most screenwriters and often disheartening.  Query Letter Mailings are not cheap or free like an email or phone call, but you can certainly deliver a professional pitch the way you want it to a lot of hand-picked people in a short period of time.

Here are a few more details on  why query letters, if you’re willing and able to invest a little in your marketing, come out on top as the best way to market your script.

With a query letter mailing, you can craft your pitch exactly the way you want it in writing and that is how it will be presented, so it’s a lot easier for most writers than pitching live.

• You can spend however much time you need researching the right people to send to and have that list to “work” indefinitely.  In contrast, to pitch live, you will need to find a way to pitch to that person one on one, and you will just never be able to reach some execs to pitch live to them – but they might read a pitch if their assistant handed it to them in a letter.
• The query letter you send to an office has to be handled physically in some way or another, therefore has more likelihood of being noticed.  An email can be deleted instantly, and we’re trained to do that.  A live pitch disappears as soon as you hang up the phone or you leave their office.
• A letter has a good chance of being opened and at least skimmed.  Then it takes no additional effort to place it into their inbox on their desk as a reminder call later or to pass to the exec.  But if the assistant sees your email and wants to bring it to their boss’s attention, they need to either print it out or make a note to tell the boss and later go back and find the email.  If they just forward it, you’re back to square one of it probably being deleted instantly when the boss sees it.
• With a query letter mailing, you can easily follow up with a phone call to see if they received your letter and it won’t seem odd.  With an email, it would be a bit odd to follow-up to see if they got your email, because if you were going to call you should have just called in the first place.
• One final advantage I want to mention, although there other advantages to a query letter mailing, is that when you do a Query Letter Mailing (with Smart Girls anyway), you get a complete listing of the names and addresses of every executive you are mailing to.  This is a good paper trail for you to have should you ever need to show evidence of who saw your idea when.  Hopefully, no one ever steals your idea, but it’s just one more thing to have in your backpack, should you ever want supporting evidence.

Because of the volume of digital information that people get, the most reliable means of getting through to a large number of prospective producers and agents for your script is:

          — a physically-delivered (USPS) professional query letter

          — that gives a great pitch of your story

          — to the right executives.

You can also then follow-up with all of the other methods to improve your responses.  But the best starting place is a query letter mailing.  Although it does cost more than just sending out an email, the idea is that you will then work that list indefinitely with the various other means to support your efforts, so it’s not a one-shot deal.