InkTip Downsizing

Agents are certainly going to have to start working a lot harder. Savvy producers/execs can simply utilise so many options now to find content directly. 

When you put your house up for sale, you don't have to pay the Agent to list and promote it...So why should writers bear the financial burden of listing a script or identifying a buyer?

It's easier to sell a house than to sell a script. 

Just answering the question, that's all. 

 I have found more success here than anywhere else.  Plus I find the promises of ink tip less believable as time goes on.  When I first found it they quality of the leads that arrived by email seemed good.  Now I am seeing their disclaimer about "this producer has been allowed..." more and more.  Plus it is common to see "if you have pitched to us previously do not pitch the same idea again".

So they are getting less "qualified producers" (whatever that means) so they are sending out less valuable lead and repeat leads. Which to me, says they are becoming less relevant.  They are like the "Yellow Pages" (commercial phone directory), people would pay $20,000 for a page in that book.  The internet made it redundant overnight.  I think inktip has been outpaced by the internet as communications channel has made that service less needed.  Plus scriptrevolution has also killed their business model.  Hard to compete with free.

Yeah.... I think Inktip's lifespan is limited. I believe that is the case for most of them. There are more and more paid pitching sites (VPF, Stage32, Blacklist, etc. etc. ) promising to be the holy grail where one has to eventually conclude - well, they can't all be!  Much like there were tons of browsers when web surfing was in its infancy, this business will throttle down to a few. I believe that the characteristics of the winning site will include:

They don't pay Producers/Agents/People to hear or read the pitch. i.e., The site will be valuable enough in terms of quality scripts available that they will seek scripts and writers to meet their content demands.  

I think if anything brings down Inktip, it will be their new money-grab "pro" system. However, as much as I hate the "new" inktip,  I must admit I had some good success on that site. I have noticed the leads in their newsletter are not what they used to be, but I still average about 10 to 20 logline views a day, and most of them are from established production companies - which makes it all the more frustrating that I can't continue with them as they are now too expensive. 

@John Hunter - yeah, but I tired of being the chaff :)

Yeah, Jerry - I get the email with the leads on them - they have been really dwindling in quality.

I think an indicator of a lack of validity in an industry is the number of offerings.  There are nearly infinite cheap crappy car manufacturers. But a much smaller number of quality car makers.

Inktip promotes all their success. But these are the occasional option or sale. For the thousands of scripts and apparently huge number of producers visiting their site the success rate seems low.  If there is a huge number of bad scripts in there, why would I pay to throw my work into that swamp?

I truly believe in self promotion. 

I agree, Craig.   Like I have said before, the site I am looking for is the one that makes money AFTER you sell your script through their site. I don't think it is all that complicated, If a site owner truly believes that their connection to the industry is prominent enough to create pathway to success - then they should put their money where their mouth is. Hell, even if a site wanted a finder's fee of 20%, what aspiring screenwriter wouldn't play in that sandbox?

I saw a stat for Inktip recently and it was pretty impressive. I think it was 400 produced movies off the back of it.

I don't believe in the wheat and chaff thing personally, not on a single curator scale anyway. This is one of the reasons Script Revolution is so open as to encourage the SCRIPTOCRACY concept. 

WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SCREENWRITER AND A PIZZA? A PIZZA CAN FEED A FAMILY OF FOUR!!!!!!!!!!

Love it!

I saw a stat for Inktip recently and it was pretty impressive. I think it was 400 produced movies off the back of it.

Difficult to tell the number of those that would have been made without INKTIP. I IMDB'd several of them - some with zero box office, all small, very few recent. For what it's worth. 

400 is a nice stat. It started in the late 90's. So that is about 20 a year. Which is a good help to the industry.

I don't think InkTip generates the need. So I suspect that these may have been made regardless. Just an observation.

CJ you mentioned agents having to work harder. I think the WGA embargo on the use of agents that didn't sign the code of conduct (whatever it was called).  Has shown the industry that agents are not as important as they were.  I think it is an industry that will evolve and change.  But their angle of being the keeper of secret contact lists is over.  Once we get a well designed and effective filtering process for producers (perhaps SR) agents will become more and more irrelevant.

I kinda feel like InkTip is damned if they do, damned if they don't. They've hooked writers up with work and those credits, regardless of how small, can easily be the start of something. Sure, they could have gone elsewhere but that's beside the point. They went to people using InkTip.

It all boils down to the script. If it sucks, you won't sell it on Script Rev with free hosting, and you won't sell it on Inktip where you pay for producer access.  I am happy to have sold screenplays on both, and I did it without losing a kidney or my inheritance :)

It all boils down to the script. If it sucks, you won't sell it on Script Rev with free hosting, and you won't sell it on Inktip where you pay for producer access.  I am happy to have sold screenplays on both, and I did it without losing a kidney or my inheritance :)

First - congrats.

It's kind of a given that you need a quality script regardless. The question is not whether or not whether Inktip has a good ROI in terms of crappy scripts sold vs. fees paid. It's whether or not they have have a good ROI on good scripts sold vs, fees paid.

 I kinda feel like InkTip is damned if they do, damned if they don't. They've hooked writers up with work and those credits, regardless of how small, can easily be the start of something. Sure, they could have gone elsewhere but that's beside the point. They went to people using InkTip.

Sure, but the question is not if writers have optioned scripts. The question is whether or not it represents a good value, What one pays vs. the chance of option. Right now it costs $60 a month to host one script plus an additional $30 to be in the newsletter, or nearly $1,100 per year.  So one must ask themselves is that good value, 

Contests are often decried. But PAGE is an example, since 2003 has had 197 scripts optioned, 192 writers signed, and 149 of the projects have already been produced. That costs you a one-time entry fee of around $60.  This is anecdotal, but in 2017 I placed highly, got prize money along with a 6 month free listing on Inktip. I got four non-Ink Tip related requests for the script. I  got zero requests from InkTip. I have no harsh feelings for them - heck, I got a free listing for several months. But for me, personally, the one time investment in PAGE was far more productive than the 6 month listing on Inktip.

So, the question isn't really whether 400 script options is a good or bad. The question is whether or not the number of options generated vis Inktip represent a good value based on the total client base. For example, if they only had 2,000 monthly subscribers, that's about $2.1 million a year in fees - if they option 20 scripts a year, that's more than $100K per script optioned. I obviously don't know the actual numbers, just making them up for illustrative purposes.  - But the point being, that;s how you would assess if the site provides value commensurate with what it charges. 

PAGE INTERNATIONAL SCREEWRITING CONTEST

I'll just throw this out there:  Like managers and agents, many of these pay-for-access services are suddenly showing up listed as "Producers", and even have numerous projects in development (and some finished credits) on IMDB.  Really, isn't that what all of us want, and so do they.  The difference is that the people who write are mostly conditioned to be writers who may dream of the finished product but who are mostly just plain writers.  The other side, the producers (and wannabes) often can't tell a good script from a hill of confetti, but voluntarily or accidentally they find themselves hosting, teaching, managing, or repping writers - but only insofar as it's a stepping stone to their real goal of being producers. 

Check Blacklist's Franklin Leonard; he's got several upcoming credits - and guess where he must be finding his material?  He sure ain't a writer - even though he keeps talking about dusting off some old spec he started in college, and finishing it.  Well, when you're making a mill or more a year, every rep, producer and studio head is your best friend, and you have 000's of scripts on your server, it should be a pretty easy step to producer-dude.  Well positioned, Franklin; you worked hard.

But Inktip, too, has a truckload on IMDB listed as "screenplay facilitation".  I guess that about describes what they do, when a production is underway on one of their client's scripts.  VPF guy, too, has credits.  But it seems that he, and the other script services, and consultants, and lecturers - and don't forget directors and actors and others, who're forming their own 'production companies' - are not so far along. 

However, I'm sure a transition to 'producer' is in their 5-year plans somewhere.

ScriptRevolution is a bit different, because CJ's a working pro writer and is obviously involved in further writing (and now producing) his own stuff, before SR came along.  SR serves himself, but others, too, and from our perspective you just can't complain about "free", can you?

So writers can continue to believe that writing a script, and dreaming of how somebody ELSE out there is going to come along, spend all their time and cash resources on your dream, and make it all come true.  Mansion with a spa?  Fancy cars?  Work two days a week?  Union membership and security?  Here I come!  

Meanwhile, all those service owners and reps who're dreaming their own dream, of becoming big-time producers, have a universal subsidiary fantasy that they hope is never made public:  That there are always enough writers who don't see the power that they, the authors have, since it is we who own the (c) to our work, but that fortunately there are always enough writers who're willing to give away their blood sweat and tears for basically nothing.  

And double-meanwhile, most writers are only a book or on-line course away from becoming producers, too, but sometimes it just seems too much to contemplate - especially when the system we must believe in assures us that it cannot be so. 

"So can you please let us option your script for $0 for 3 years, thanks!"

Hey David, before they started the "pro" program, inktip was indeed $60. a script - but that went for 4 months ($15.a month) and if you added another within 30 days, the second script was $50. for 4 months, and a third would be $40.  

The NEW Inktip wants 32.50 a month, and with that you get 1 script listing (worthless to me - I think the more scripts listed, the better the chances). Additional scripts will be $12.50 each - this is a huge increase in fees and with that, I am done as it will now cost me over $2,000 a year for the same amount of scripts I posted this past year for about $550. Not gonna happen. I was lucky with the sale though. because in the end, I did not lose money on inktip. It's not for everyone, that's true.

I entered the PAGE awards once, didn't place in quarterfinals.  It's one of the best, and one of the toughest - HUGE congrats for placing there. 

Steve: very interesting post - I had no idea that they were listing credits on IMDB. 

Not sure what script facilitation means in the industry. 

This is from their T&Cs.

11. It is understood that the way InkTip is able to entice new industry professionals to use InkTip is by promotion of InkTip results. Therefore, I promise to always inform InkTip of any relationship I form with any industry professional that was in any way found, heard about or nurtured through InkTip, so that InkTip can not only promote myself and my works, but also promote themselves. It is understood that this is a condition to using InkTip.

I'm guessing that when they get notified they could into IMDB and claim a credit. Also noted that you can't search on script facilitator in IMDB - nothing comes up. 

Think I could dd script reader as a credit category???? It would really boost my profile :)

Thanks for the clarification, Jerry - got it. And also for the congrats - appreciate it.