Marketing Blitz

So, I've taken on a rather huge project recently. Over the next seven weeks, I'm going to be sending a query letter out to every agent listed on the WGA's website. Now, all the best advice that I've read, says that you should make a query letter as personal as you can get. Unfortunately, I can't seem to apply this strategy to WGA Agents. I spent the better part of November and December 2008 calling agencies individually to ask for a contact name for a query letter. More than 90% of those agencies responded with the following answer:

"Just address it to 'agent.'"

Most agencies do not post the names of their representatives online. Few of them are published in the Writer's Market. So, that leaves the phone. Alas, my phone research led me to find data that directly contradicts most of what I've read.

Granted, most of the stuff that I've read from the Writer's Digest line of books does not deal with Screenplay Agents. So, if you're going to query publishers, I would still suggest that you make the letters as personal as possible.

In any case, I started getting my first series of rejections today. As I excitedly rifle through all of the SASE's that I always include with my queries, my wife asks, why do you get so excited about rejection letters.

"Simple," I answered, "If you're not getting rejected, you're not trying."

I stand by that. But, I also stand by the numbers. Over seven weeks, at 168 letters to be mailed for each one of seven screenplays, that's 1,176 letters. Of all those, it only takes 1 letter--just 1--to change your life forever.

-Matt