EDDIE GAMARRA: The Real Deal About Television & New Media

Gotham likes to think this way: If you have an idea and you think it works as a books, sell it as a book first. In Hollywood when a project is acquired, movie companies generally want all rights to everything. You can end up having a movie made from your book and books based on the movie made of your book with your characters. These deals can be really complicated.

Let's say you've sold millions of copies of a book, Eddie says, that pretty much mean nothing to Hollywood. For them, it's all about sales figures. They don't care about reviews and awards, just numbers. Foreign sales are also important--Hollywood is a worldwide business.

For film executives, what really matters is the concept. They think in terms of what will be on the poster, what's the big idea, what's the hook. These execs don't have time to read books. They read blurbs or jacket copy. So when you're thinking about whether your book has movie potential, think about whether it would translate into a movie trailer.

--POSTED BY ALICE