Bart Baker on Pitching Your Book to Hollywood

294 / Do you want to pitch your book to Hollywood? Screenwriter, playwright, and novelist Bart Baker shares how authors can position their books for adaptations. He also gives us the story behind Honeymoon With Harry, a movie deal twenty-plus years in the making, which will go into production in 2026, starring Kevin Costner and Jake Gyllenhaal for Amazon/MGM. 

• Lessons from writing plays, scripts, and novels
• What authors should know about adaptation and selling movie rights
• When to get legal advice 
• The business side: money management finding trusted advisors
• Why following trends is unhelpful—and what to do instead

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⚡Links:

• www.bartvbaker.com

Transcript

Jami 0:03

Welcome to the Wish I'd Know Then podcast. I'm Sarah Rosette and I'm Jamie Albright. And this week on the show we have Bart Baker. Yes, we do. It is so fun. It is such a good interview.

Sara 0:16

He has a really interesting story. He's one of those 20-year overnight success people.

Jami 0:21

Yeah.

Sara 0:22

Yeah. So tell him a little bit about the interview. Because you know much better than I do.

Jami 0:26

Yeah. So Bart is in the clubhouse room with me. You know, we've gotten some of our best guests, I feel like, from that room. And he is a screenwriter now, primarily. He but he is still writing novels. But he wrote a novel 20 years ago, Honeymoon with Harry, that he sold the options to a long time ago. And twice it's he thought it was going to get made into a movie it didn't happen. I think it's twice. Anyway, it now is. It was in variety. Kevin Costner and Jake Gillenhall are gonna be in it. And but we just talk a lot about just the industry of writing in general, the writing novels and then writing screenplays and all of that good stuff. It's very interesting. And a lot of stuff I didn't know, so it was really good.

unknown 1:21

Yeah.

Jami 1:21

Yeah.

Sara 1:22

And we talked a little bit about craft, about writing, and about technical things about legal advice, like when to get legal advice if you have an inquiry or you think your script you think your novel is going to be sold, and just interesting things like that that we don't get to talk about that much. And it was a fun interview to just talk with him and enjoy the success of achieving something that's been a long, long time coming. Right.

Jami 1:47

And I mean, that's not the only thing he's sold. I mean, he's doing two movies just in the last two years, I think, with Tay Diggs. One just came out. So yeah, Bart is he's in the biz, as they say. So yeah, he's got s lots of irons in the fire, I guess. So what have you been doing this week? I was on a road trip with my parents, and I think I told y'all we survived. It was a three-day road trip. Two of the days we drove six what eight hours and the other we drove six hours. The first day we drove to the Grand Canyon, we Grand Canyon, and then we got in the car and drove to the next town and stayed there. But my mother, she's so funny. This is the thing about my mother, and if she heard this, she'd probably kill me, but it's the truth, and she knows it's the truth. She is the most compliant person you will ever meet on the outside. She is standing up on the inside the entire time. So that's part of her personality. The second part of her personality is when she's done with something, she's done. Like I cannot tell you the number of places we've been, and we're all still kind of in the middle of whatever we're doing, and we look and she's headed to the car. Like she's just done. Well, that's kind of how it was with the Grand Canyon. We had gotten to the Grand Canyon, and I I made a video about it, but halfway to the Grand Canyon, we stopped and I bent down to flick a piece of lint off my pants, and my back froze up. Froze up. I could not hardly stand up, but I could sit, so that was fine, and I was driving. My dad always has a bad back. I mean, bless his heart, he's all bent over. And my mom's it's have been really hurting her lately. So we get to the Grand Canyon and I stand up to and take one step, and I almost fall. I like my back is so frozen up. So we are just like limping along to the hundred yards it took to get to the rail of the Grand Canyon. And my mom at one point sat down and said, just take a picture. I'm like, get up here, going with us. So we all limp over there. And literally, she looked, she goes to the end, she looks around, she goes, Okay, let's go. I'm hungry. And I was I had to make them take pictures, it was ridiculous. So it was fun. It was we had a good time. We I have listened to more oldies country music. Oh my goodness. And I like country music because and at full volume can he. And it was it was it was an adventure, but it was an experience, right? And I was I will never get that again, probably. And I'm very grateful for it.

Sara 4:35

But yeah, that's all I've done. That's such the behind the scenes thing. Because if you just look at your pictures of the Grand Canyon, it probably looks like y'all are there, you had a fantastic time. We look great, we look great, but it's like, no, we're taking these pictures. I've been there many times. We are taking these pictures.

Jami 4:51

And but yeah, it was fun. We we had a really good time and I ate some questionable convenience store food, but you know, I that's part of the adventure. I mean, if you're not partaking in something the health department may or may not have overlooked, then why are you even on a road trip? Is kind of what I've got a whole experience. It was worth it too. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you used it. What's been going on?

Sara 5:16

Well, so I got back a couple days before earlier than you did, because you just got back. And this guy has been like catching up. Um, you know, when you come home from a conference, there's all the things that you didn't do while you were gone, plus you were at the conference, so now you have all these contacts and ideas and things to do. So basically just catching up and doing really basic things like laundry and things like that. So not very exciting stuff for me. I did email my list today, caught them up, sent them some photos from the tea that we went to. Oh, yeah. So they'll enjoy that. That was so fun. Yeah. So just kind of basic stuff catching up, and I have an event coming up this weekend. Uh by the time this goes out, it will already be over. But I have a book event in a bookstore in La Porte, Texas. So that will be fun. And I am bringing extra books for that just in case. And they arrived. I was a little worried, but they're here, so that's good. And that is it, nothing super exciting or informative. Yeah, that's like all we got this week today.

Jami 6:21

Yeah, I went from high tea at the Waldorf Historian to convenience store burrito in a Pop Tart. That's America for you. Oh my gosh. Well, we start the interview because it is awesome, and you guys are gonna really love hearing from Bart. Um I know you will. Yeah, so here we go. Well, today we're really excited to talk to Bart Baker. Hi, Bart, how are you?

SPEAKER_00 6:48

I'm well. How about you?

Jami 6:50

We are great, and we are so happy you're here. We're excited.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

I'm happy to be here. This is fun. This is fun because I know you, Jamie, because we we talk together in the mornings. And Sarah, it's a pleasure.

Sara 7:03

So it's great too. And y'all are convincing me I need to make time for Clubhouse.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

It's not too early for you if you're in the Midwest. If you're in the middle of the city.

Jami 7:14

I know. I should do it.

Sara 7:15

I should do it. I'll try and pop in there. Let me read your bio and then we'll get right into the question. Okay. Uh Bart Baker is a screenwriter, author, and playwright. He's had eight plays produced, including Relay, selling the movie rights to Warner Brothers, as well as 20 films, TV movies, and series episodes produced. Bart has written 10 novels, including Honeymoon with Harry, which is being turned into a movie starring Kevin Costner and Jake Gyllenhaal for Amazon MGM in 2026, and a whole bunch more, but we'll just start with that.

Jami 7:46

Oh, those guys, just them, that's all they see. I know. Dang it. Well, tell us how you got into writing.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

I s you know, my friends tell me that I was writing as a kid, and I don't rem I just don't remember it. I, you know, I don't really remember doing that, but you know, I I I believe them. But it was about Sank Maria College when I said I wanted to go, I wanted to go to Los Angeles. I wanted to be an actor and a writer and a screenwriter, and the acting took off first, and I ended up on a soap as an actor, a very small role, but I lasted about eight months, and I just hated it.

SPEAKER_03 8:22

Yeah. What's it was General Hospital. Oh my gosh. General Hospital.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

So I was on, I was on in the Frisco and Felicia days.

SPEAKER_03 8:30

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Um, so many years ago, and I just didn't enjoy it. And luckily, I a couple months later through this event, I met a couple people, and there were some actors looking for a play, and I had been writing, and uh, they picked a play of mine. These guys were there were some soap names, there were some nighttime TV names in there, which means it got an audience, and that was Relay. And and so the play went up, it was a big success, and Warner Brothers bought the rights, and that started me into screenwriting. And then I guess I, you know, and I've been very lucky. I have had I had a lot produced. I had just come off a feature uh that had gotten made, and I worked with these people, and they were just horrible souls, horrible human beings. And I'm gonna say I was 40 or 45, I can't remember. And I was like, I can't do this anymore. I can't work for horrible people. And so I sat down, I had pitched Honeymoon with Harry, which was my first novel, as a movie and got no, nobody seemed to care. And I thought, screw this, I'm gonna write this. I'm gonna write, I'm gonna write a novel. And in the process, my agent drops me because of all the through this, and and I sat down, I literally just sat down for three months and wrote. And I'm a very disciplined guy about this stuff. I treat this, you know, I treat it pretty seriously and I do it every day. I'm one of those people that actually likes to write. I wrote this, and in in that three months, I met these managers, so I got new reps, and it was right around the holiday, and they were like, you know, uh, what do you got? You know, you got a new screenplay, you got what do you got for us? I said, Well, I wrote a book. And they were like, What? And I was like, I wrote a book. And the guy goes, Can I read it? So I gave it to him. And then right after the holiday, right after the holidays are over, like 10 o'clock in the morning, the phone rings and it's him. And he goes, Dude, I cried. I cried a lot. And I was like, I was like, oh, and I only had one other person read the book, which was my sister-in-law. And she had had, she got calls me one day and goes, she goes, I take this book to work. I take this book home with me. She goes, I have cried for three days. I've cried for three days. And I'm like, it's I that was kind of funny, isn't it? Don't you find some of it funny? Because I know Jamie, you're writing women's fiction now, where you know, it's it's it's funny, what you called this morning, funny sad. Yeah, but that's what that's what Harry is. And long story short, uh, you know, it was just a stack of paper. Within two weeks, my uh my managers had sold this uh originally to Newline in a in a bidding situation, like three quarters of a million dollars.

SPEAKER_03 11:20

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Yeah, it was a big sale. And this thing, and that kind of opened me into the book world. So I've kind of bounced back and forth. Uh I've written now 10 or 11 novels, and I keep, you know, I've been very blessed to keep working in the in the film business. And I got another, my next movie's on November 1st. Lifetime bought it. It's Tay Diggs and Leslie Ann Brandt called His, Hers, and Ours. I did one with Tay last year.

Jami 11:47

That's the second one you've done with Tay Diggs.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

And we're trying to do a third. We're gonna see if we can get a third, but the first one did really well. It was he and Megan Good. And I got like a writer's guild nomination out of it. It did critic critically, it did really, really well. Uh they it was a beautiful those guys did a beautiful job with that script. And it was really funny because that was gonna be my next book. I, you know, periodically I'll pull out scripts and go, this should make a good book. Scripts that haven't been made. And I was gonna turn that in and and I had written that 15 years ago originally. That's kind of you know how I got into all this mess. And and I somehow been blessed to keep working.

SPEAKER_03 12:25

Yeah.

Sara 12:26

Well, that's so interesting. And I'm sure we both have so many questions about screenwriting and books and adaptations and stuff like that. So I think we'll come back to that in a little bit. But first, what is your definition of success? We like to ask everybody that.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Mine, it's very simple. Uh you know, it's happiness. That's it's it's really true. I mean, I look at people who are happy as and I realize they're successful.

unknown 12:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

I don't care what they're doing or how they're how that happens, because I think oftentimes in our lives happiness is elusive.

SPEAKER_03 13:00

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

And I I have defined my personal happiness by you know, and that that encompasses a lot. It encompasses my kids being taken care of, my kid being well, my relationships being well, and but I've realized that it's all really pretty simple and it's yet really hard.

Jami 13:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

And that's happiness.

Jami 13:23

Yeah, that's great. And I I mean, I think that shows with the fact that you walked away from acting because you hate it. I mean, like it didn't make you happy. And a lot of people are like, this is even if it doesn't make me happy, this is what I've decided I want to do, and I'm gonna do, you know what I'm saying? Like hanging on to things that that you thought you wanted to do, but they just don't bring you joy. So you have to pivot and do something else. But a lot of people won't do that.

SPEAKER_00 13:50

No, you get in too deep. And, you know, I I I am one of those people, as we I said earlier, I'm one of those people who really loves to write. I love the whole process of it. I love the aloneness of it, I love the stuff in my head. And but I know a lot of writers who don't like to write. More screenwriters than novelists, right? You know, who don't like to write. They like having written. Yeah. But unless you enjoy this process, it's hard.

SPEAKER_03 14:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

And this is where I go kind of frankly to escape the rest of the world.

Jami 14:22

I know, I know. That's I love that. I admire people like you because I I like having written, but that empty room is super hard for me. Just me in a room and a keyboard, very hard. And I know that for a lot of people it's not. In fact, that's their happy place. So it's just yeah, it's just a different thing.

unknown 14:42

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

What do you wish you'd known about writing in craft when you started when I'm gonna go for the books first, but we'll probably apply to screenplays as well. But I wish I knew format better, you know, when I guess, you know, when you just I'm a pantser anyway, and just when you're gonna sit down and write a book and I know nothing about this, the process, other than in my head, how it works for me as uh in the other other aspects of my life. I I wish I would have known that, and I wish I would have known the business far better than I when I started. I because Harry started as basically a stack of paper, and then all of a sudden, you know, I have this movie deal, and then I've got agents and all these people at me, publishers, and I literally didn't publish that book for 10 years because of it. Yeah, I just sat on it. I was like, I didn't understand what all this was. I don't think I'm great at s it's sniffing out people who are fair weather friends, but I could tell these people were pretty much, you know, that they were interested in the moment. And I I didn't I'm not saying I I I have to I have to know everything or I I have to be in charge of everything, but I I like feeling comfortable in any situation, and I didn't with that. I literally just sat on the book for 10 years. We had moved in that time and all that, and then I decided I'm gonna I'm gonna put this book out. And I was very blessed that that the book itself I didn't market it well because I'm an indie writer and I prefer to, because of my other business, I can't put books out on a schedule.

SPEAKER_03 16:26

Yeah.

unknown 16:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

So I can't be one of those guys that said there's a book coming out next year, or I'm gonna put out three this year. I have no idea. And so, you know, I put them out when I can, and I I was pretty lucky to, you know, put this book out. It did, you know, modestly well for an indie book. And, you know, I'm sure now with all of this stuff, just from the little blur, you know, little bit that came out in watching the sales just skyrocket again, you know, I've got to figure out, I'm trying to figure out my next moves when this movie comes out because I'll be really frank about it. There could be a lot of money for me involved in this from a book sale, and I am not good at this stuff. I am not the good marketer. I am not still not cracked this. But I was lucky with that one because it had gotten bought. I had something to at least advertise off of. Now, rather than it's so hard to just come out with a book and say, hey, you know, I wrote again.

Sara 17:22

Yeah, I think that's so smart that I mean, if anybody is ever in that situation where you have some amazing thing happen, it's wise to take a step back if you don't feel comfortable. And there is no rush to publish. You're right. And I think we do that in Indie world a lot. We publish quickly, and really there's no need to do that. And it's better to go a little bit slower sometimes, maybe. So I think that's very smart.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

I just like I said, it for me, I was I, you know, for lack of a better way of putting it, I was a little scared. I mean, it just was an unknown thing, and you know, you're meeting a bunch of different agents and things at that time, and there was a young guy that I really kind of, you know, gelled with, and everybody kept saying, No, no, no, go with the bigger people, go with the bigger people. And I that was, you know, it's I've been through that in the movie business, and you know, it's like, how many times do I got to get hit in the head? You know they're gonna be there for the moment and that they're moving on.

Jami 18:18

Right. What have you done for me lately? Nothing right. Nice to know you. Yeah. Yep, yeah. Well, I was gonna say, oh, I know what I was gonna say. The good news is you know a lot of people that are really good at marketing. I'm happy to help.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

I appreciate that.

Jami 18:35

Because that is the one thing I I think I'm good at. And I I proved that with my own books, I've proved it with other books, and so happy to help.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

So thank you. I appreciate it. Because like I said, I still to this day, I you know, I try things that I and I will say that's the one thing about our morning rooms. I've learned an enormous amount, or I know I know less than nothing.

Jami 18:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

So that's the point we all are at, right?

Jami 19:01

There's always more to learn. Oh god.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Oh my, and it is crazy. And because especially with Harry now, being an indie author and having gone through Amazon and all that, I try to make my life as simple as possible in those respects. You know, now I can get it into libraries because they're now doing this whole other thing. And I was thinking of taking it down and you know, going through drafted digital and all of this other stuff, just so I could get it into libraries or maybe get it into bookstores, because you know that bookstores are not, you know, they're they're they're less than willing to put an Amazon book in their stores. So, and and I understand the business aspects of that. You know, I'm I'm still trying to figure all this out. And in the subsequent 10 years since I put that book out, I've written two sequels because I the story, which is a funny story. I was I did a lot of book signings, which I love. I love book signings. Yeah, I think they're the most fun, and people come and it becomes sort of a party, and I love that kind of stuff. And in Harry, there's a little boy that the lead character interacts with. Uh, he interacts with his mother, who's a bartender, and we find out at the end of the book that these two knew each other many years ago. They slept together when she was a bartender at a in Iowa and he was there for a convention. She says, I remember you. And and she gives some backstory to him. It's a it's a nice moment. And everybody kept coming up, going, That's his kid, isn't it? When I was at these book signings, and I'm like, What? Yeah, what are you talking about? And you know, about the 20th time you hear it, you're like, Why, yes, yes, it is. You're so smart.

Jami 20:36

Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So you've written subsequent books. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

So you have more to it gave me an avenue into a second book. And by the end of that one, I knew what the third book was. And so I wrote the other two books pretty close together. And, you know, and now I'm really glad I have them because if this movie's any success, I'm sure they will at least talk to me about them.

SPEAKER_03 20:59

Yeah.

Jami 20:59

It's wonderful. If the movie if the movie's a success, your the sales of book one will scout it, and then that gives readers, I mean, to take you to a reader's house, it gives readers a place to go.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Absolutely. Yeah, I've had people, it was interesting. I got an email the other day from somebody saying, I've read the first, I've read your two books, your two hairy books, and was talking about the books, and I've let them to my friends because I blah blah blah. And and I said, I just went back and said, You know there's a third, and they're like, What?

Sara 21:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's amazing what people miss. I've had people email me and they're like, I am waiting for the new book in this series. I'm like, oh, well, it's out. Here you go.

Jami 21:40

You need to check your back matter. Yeah to make sure your back matter is leading them to those. Yeah.

Sara 21:45

But some readers, they don't go there, they just stop and they're done. So it never hurts to tell people. It does not hurt. Don't assume I've learned that the hard way. Well, what are you glad you know now?

SPEAKER_00 21:57

I'm glad I know structure a little bit better for novels.

SPEAKER_03 22:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Because if you read Harry, if you know anything about screenplays, most screenplays are written in three acts. Not that things don't go up and down before then, but they're written in three three big acts. And Harry is certainly written in three big acts. And so I I know structure a little bit better. And I'm able to I'm able to discern better what is a book, what is a play, and what is a movie, and where it should at least go first. Because I've had ideas where I'm like, this would make a great movie or this would make a better book. And I now can I'm comfortable enough to go, I'm gonna take the time to write that as a novel.

Sara 22:42

So how do you figure that out? Because most of us are just writers of novels. And so what some of us have an idea we would like to turn something into some other format, but how do you figure out which is best?

SPEAKER_00 22:54

It's the filmicness of an idea that makes me go, oh, that would make a better movie. Okay. Not that it wouldn't make a book, but it would probably make a better movie. And also just how how I see the story in my head. Again, I'm a pantser. So I, you know, to me, it's like a big movie running in my head anyway.

SPEAKER_03 23:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

And I know, and I and some stories are more intimate or more. I need to get in, it's easier if I can get into the heads of the characters. Yeah. Which, you know, in in movies, you have to externalize every internal thought. It has to come out in an action, or people don't know what it is, or it comes out in a voiceover, or whatever. You know, the joy of a book is I can go into the characters and I can I can sit with them for a bit and and and and let them be who they are, rather than trying to find a way to make them who they are. And so I I love that ability to go into people's heads and and let people I think books are better are better at humanity, if that's for lack of a better term.

Sara 23:59

Yeah. Yeah. That makes complete sense. Yeah.

Jami 24:03

Well, what do you still need to figure out?

SPEAKER_00 24:08

As I said, I I I I am no ace at marketing. Also because I write, I I don't stick to a genre. And I know, you know, Jamie, we you know, I heard you this morning, we were, you know, you're going into a new, you know, and it it it's unnerving because I I'll finish a book and I'm blessed because I don't my money comes more from from the the film business. So the books are are mine. And and so I I can write what I want. I have not, I don't stick in a genre. I think you can tell a Bart Baker book, but I still it's not genre, it's not by genre. And so I've got to learn I I get how they advertise romance, I get who their audience is, and I get why the email list is important, and I get those pieces. I think for how I do this, especially because I'm not writing consistently, it it comes in spurts, that the email list is much harder. Uh, you know, I'm very good at using Facebook, and I'm very good at using uh in taking out ads, but my you know, the ads on Facebook and the A the AMS ads don't seem to pop for me at all. And I cannot and I uh I bl part of me is because I I blame myself because I just don't know it. I just don't know it well enough to target it and what the keywords will do and all that stuff that we as indie writers worry about. Right.

Jami 25:34

Okay, yeah. Yeah, I mean the best advice I ever got and it was back and I think I said this this morning, but back like right after my second book came out, I think. So within that first year of writing was that I needed to brand myself and that that has helped me and I think it will help me when I change you know, in changing this right genre for this book, but it's also hard because people do kind of begin to expect certain things from you, and if you don't deliver on those things, then you've let them down, and that then that's hard. So yeah. Right, yeah. It's tricky. It's tricky if you don't write in the same genre.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

I can't imagine you, from what I know of you, not writing in your voice.

Jami 26:25

No, everything is in my voice. Yeah, that is true. I wouldn't even know how to write anything else.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

I mean, I I get it, I get it.

Sara 26:32

You know, that's Jamie couldn't have a secret pin name. No, she had a pen name, but not a secret pin name.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Everybody wouldn't somebody go, hey Jamie, AI just copied your book. Yeah. And I'd go, yeah, right. Good luck.

Jami 26:49

Good luck.

Sara 26:50

No day. Well, what's the most unhelpful advice you've gotten?

SPEAKER_00 26:57

Look to look to trends. Yeah. Look to trends in any avenue of writing. By the time you finish something, they move that's that's back road. That you, you know, and you're always behind. And when you're running the trends, you're always behind.

SPEAKER_03 27:15

Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

And it it, you know, you hear these things. This is selling good, this now, and oh, nobody's buying, you know, this morning, nobody's buying, or now they're back into to mysteries, but only these kind of mysteries, or you know, romantic uh suspense is big, but not with you know, military. I'm like, oh my God. I you know, and I that messes with your head. It just messes with your head because sooner or later they're gonna say something about what you're doing. Yeah. And you're gonna, you know, you're gonna feel your heart palpitate and think, oh my God, I'm gonna, I'm just watching my career explode.

Jami 27:47

Yeah. You know. Yeah. I do think that's the advantage of not being on the rapid release treadmill. Like if those of us who write slowly, we d we can't even worry about that because we write so slowly that who knows what that matter will be by the time we finish.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

Like you're absolutely right. Yeah. And I just can't worry about that because this comes down to voice for me. I don't care what it is, book, movie, whatever it is. If they're gonna hire Bart Baker, they're hiring Bart Baker because Bart Baker's voice. If they want Jamie Albright's voice or Sarah's voice, hire Sarah, for God's sake. Don't hire Bart to try to do that. You know, if you know she does it well, hire her. Yeah. And so I don't get, you know, I can only be me. And that's something I've learned too. I can only be the best me. I'm trying to be the best me. And I gotta let the chips fall where they may, because I think, you know, when you're younger, I think you do fall into that trap much easier of, oh, that this is hot now or that's hot now, or you know, you should be doing this or that. And you you you spend half your time running around trying to how to do that when you could just be yourself. And the thing, I've been doing this a long time. I will say this you will come around again. If it's not you right now, you will come around again.

Jami 29:06

Well, uh, if you were starting over, what would you do differently?

SPEAKER_00 29:11

I would have gotten into novels much earlier. And, you know, maybe I'm blessed that I didn't get into them until I had places fairly, you know, where I had places to go. Because I've written most, you know, I've written a lot, and I was able to, when I got into club, I'll start figuring stuff out because I could I could listen to experts talk. I had at least some I didn't know, I don't know any in real life, I know one other novelist, you know, in other than my Facebook people. I went on a retreat with some of them and and we got to know each other. But in real life, I uh there's one person I know.

SPEAKER_03 29:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

So you, you know, and I'm I I've not done a lot of seminars or that kind of stuff either, which I think would be fun. But a lot of it's because I have kids and they take up 90% of your day anyway. So but I would I would have gotten into that earlier and not done what I did, which was run around when somebody said this was hot, oh I you know, I gotta run that. You know, I gotta go to that, you know. And and you f I found myself trying to figure out too many too many things. Now I don't listen to it, and I've made the books especially things I want to write.

Jami 30:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that's proven to be successful. And it is. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

And it's it's it's so simple, and yet you know if you could tell your younger self, stop, just stop.

Jami 30:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Trust, trust who you are, right? Trust your voice, trust trust that thing that makes you want to do this.

Jami 30:51

Correct. Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

And and treat it like a business.

Jami 30:55

Yeah. That's hard. That's hard too, because for a lot of authors, it's hard because, you know, I mean, they they get into it because of their craft and their art, and then they go, Holy crap, I have to business. I'm gonna sign up for this. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And and it is a business. Yeah, it is. It is a business. And even if you're doing it somewhat casually, it's still a business. Right. You've got to pay taxes on what you owe, and that makes you that alone makes you have to.

Sara 31:30

Even if you're just a solopreneur, you still have to keep up with all that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:35

Absolutely. And and and frankly, if you when you set your mind to saying, I'm gonna make my living doing this, I'm gonna raise my family, I'm gonna buy a house, I want all the things that everybody else has, but I want to do it this way, which is unusual. Look, I mean, but what the three of us do is not a normal world outside of our the small world we've created for ourselves. Exactly. And people don't understand it, they don't know how you do it.

Jami 32:00

I was about to say that they don't understand it.

Sara 32:03

They're like weird creatures to people that are you know, they're it's once you get outside the author of the community, they're fascinated.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

And everybody comes to you with their story, you know, thinking they've got you and I should collaborate. You're like, dude, I got I said, I I always tell people I've got more stories in my head. I'll die before I tell half of them. Yeah, so you know, I it's it's just that's hard. And it's hard to think with the left and right side of your brain.

SPEAKER_03 32:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

And it isn't, you know, I I learned that I lost a lot of money. I made a lot of money very early in my screenwriting career because I broke in at the end of what the spec script era, which is where they were buying scripts for a million dollars and you know, people were throwing money at things, and they were. And I broke in then, and literally I would think, God, this is so easy. I don't know why more people don't do this. Why do people say this is so hard, right?

Jami 32:55

I mean flag number one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

I I literally pulled something out of my it back in the day, out of my typewriter and sold it in an afternoon.

SPEAKER_03 33:05

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

For like for a ridiculous I I'm not gonna say the name of the company because it's a it's a well-known company, but and I kept thinking, this is so dumb. And I knew it was wrong. You know how you know something's wrong?

SPEAKER_03 33:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

And you know, eventually that imploded. But I made a lot of money and I invested it in land deals. There's a really good idea.

Sara 33:24

Um some great financial advice right there.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

Oh, Lord. And right after that, I got a financial advisor, and I have been with the same same group for 30 years now. And because I trusted them, my my actual guy retired a couple of years ago and handed me off to his partner. And I've known those people, same people have done my taxes. I my lady died, and she, you know, I went with, and then when she retired, I went with the woman that was also where I if people are good to me and that's because I know I'm not good with it.

Jami 33:56

Yeah. So you have to find people who aren't. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

You have to find people who are and trust and trust and make sure you trust them. Yeah.

Jami 34:04

Well, I have a question about, so let's switch a little bit to like screenwriting and or not screenwriting, but like for novelists who want to sell their books. Like what, like you mentioned, they bought the rights to it. What is that process? Like, what happens first?

SPEAKER_00 34:21

In that process, it is it does help if you have Hollywood connections. There's no, you know, look, I'm not gonna lie to anybody. It definitely helps. It's a lot different today than it was when I broke in because now we have things like IMDB Pro. You can find names if you need to find names. And I tell people how to do this all the time. If you're if you are a person that writes like small town romance and that kind of thing, that certain, you know, like Hallmark does, but they all think they've written a Hallmark movie and they haven't, because Hallmark's very specific about how they do their movies. And they're very specific. And I'm gonna be really honest, a lot of it doesn't transfer well out of the novel because the novels are uh, frankly, are a little deeper than I know that sounds horrible, but you know, they're they're doing a movie in 90 minutes, so it's not gonna have the depth. You but if you have something that fits that, I always tell people go see who makes those and watch 10 of them. Take the time, watch 10 of them. Write down the names of the companies, get on MDB Pro and find the companies, find names. You can you, you know, there's two ways of two schools of thought. You either start at the top and hope the crap trickles down, or you start a little bit lower and hope that that person, you know, you can get to that person. And you pitch yourself in your project. What I do know about, especially about Hallmark, because it's a machine that eats, makes 90 movies a year. There's probably 120 romance, you know, quote unquote, you know, romantic comedies. Most of them aren't romantic comedies. They're romances with a bit of humor.

SPEAKER_03 35:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

They're lighter romances. And not all of them, because now Netflix is doing a series of them. You know, they're doing, and it's guys with their shirts off and they can cuss, but the formula works the same. If you've got that, find out who's making them. And all you got to do is watch them and take the company and look it up. You can literally go to Google now, you can go to, you know, you this is where AI does come in handy. Yeah. And you find out who's doing it and you send them, and you send them an email and with a with a log line that's got to work, which is one or two sentences. And I I find those really difficult to write. You know, if I've written a book, how do you sum how do you sum 250 pages, 300 pages into two sentences?

SPEAKER_03 36:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

But you have to core it down to that and maybe put a couple paragraphs if they get past that and they want to read. If somebody's hungry enough, and what I do know about these companies, a lot of them are one-man band companies making these small films for Hallmark or I would say the people making the Netflix movies because they're a little bit bigger, or the the ones on Prime that you'll see, the romantic comedies. I always call them dead girl comedies. You know, they're romantic comedies, but she's dying of cancer and they're in Paris. You know, those are a little bit bigger companies. But if you could find the development person and pitch, you know, say, I'm, you know, you pitch yourself in a sentence or two. You know, I'm a New York Times bestselling writer. You know, I watched your movie the other night, loved it. I think this book would just be perfect for you guys if you're looking. Here's the log line. They may get read. They're not going to read the book without asking. Don't send the book. And frankly, it costs them nothing to go get an e-copy of your book.

SPEAKER_03 37:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

You know, the they'll do that if that interests them. I mean, granted, that's what it that's what it a book agent should be doing for you anyway. But as indie writers, I don't think it hurts. They are looking, they're oftentimes, especially the Hallmark movies and the the smaller ones you'll see on like there's a couple other people doing those now. G A C Great American Country is doing them. And they're all romances. A lot 99% are romances. If you write that stuff, send this stuff in because oftentimes it's a one-man band. It's I know the producers. It's, you know, one woman, and maybe she's got an assistant. Maybe she has an assistant. They're they're all in looking, and don't not believe that they're looking through Amazon on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_03 38:31

Yeah.

unknown 38:31

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

So make sure your stuff on Amazon, if you've got, if you're, if you've got a book up there, put sort of a your first two lines should be your log line so that they read a little further. And I would not put log line on there, but I would just pitch it that way. And and so people know what your book is.

Sara 38:48

So basically, we just need to be able to boil everything down to like a log line, a couple paragraphs, and a little bit about who we are. And then we that's all that they need. And that's all we need to prepare for them, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:03

No, yeah, absolutely. Because they'll they'll contact you if they're interested. And they are looking. And the reason I know, here's how I know. I'll get a call from a producer. Hey, could you look at this book? And I'm gonna send you the Amazon link. So they haven't bought a they haven't bought it they could to send me, and I'll go and I'll look and I'll say, yeah, this works really, really, you know, really. They won't buy it until they will pitch it. And then if they have to buy it, they'll buy it. And so it's it's kind of sucks. I mean, some some of the bigger companies won't do that. The bigger people handle it a little bit more, you know, but these smaller people don't have the money to throw around. They're they're producers making maybe 100, 150 on a movie project they're getting once a year, and they're living in Los Angeles, and 150,000 does not go very far.

Jami 39:51

No, it does not. It does not.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

So they're looking to do two movies, you know, they want it badly to do two movies a year for GAC or for Hallmark or get one on Lifetime. And Lifetime does a lot of those thrillers. There's they do a ton of thrillers. Now those pay less, and don't think you're gonna rob the bank if you sell a movie to Hallmark, if you sell your book to Hallmark. It's not life-changing money.

Jami 40:16

Yeah, yeah. So this but what is it called when they they say they want, they may make the movie, but there's no guarantee. What's that called?

SPEAKER_00 40:25

An option.

Jami 40:25

Is that an option, yeah. Option. Okay. So they option it, but they can you can keep optioning that book or that story or screenplay or whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:34

Options last. And so, yeah, you can sell it again and again and again, you know, or keep they they can keep the option, you know, you're always hoping for the buy, but most companies, even when you read, if you read like deadline or you read variety or any of those things where it says, you know, this the book was bought, most of the time it really truly is an option. It's not a buy.

SPEAKER_03 40:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 40:55

It may say they're buying it for a million dollars. Mine, they said they were buying it for a million dollars. That wasn't true on its face.

SPEAKER_03 41:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:01

I mean, it was a good chunk of change, but it wasn't a million bucks. Yeah. You know, that just people put those in. Those they don't, there's no reporters going out and digging this stuff up.

SPEAKER_03 41:11

Yeah. No fact checking going on.

SPEAKER_00 41:16

So yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. I was just gonna say, so yeah, that you know, they you can option that book over and over and over. And the problem can become, like, say they've optioned your book, Jamie, and they've hired a screenwriter, it's not you, and they write a script and they don't like it. So they let the option last. The problem becomes now that if somebody else picks it up, there's a screenplay already out there. And they're either going to start again or they're going to try to option that screenplay on top of it. So it gets a little more weirdly complicated if it doesn't, if it doesn't go. But look, I always tell writers, I said, if you're blessed to get a movie made like on a home on the Hallmark channel or which is watched by millions of people. Right. You advertise the hell out of that when that movie, when if it's a Christmas movie, when they first put it on in uh late September, here's a slate of Christmas movies. Advertise the hell out of that. When it's getting close and they're running commercials, advertise the hell out of it. You know, soon to because there's going to be a million people watching this movie. If you could sell a tenth of those people your book, that could be life-changing money. Yeah, that could be life-changing money.

Sara 42:34

That sounds like good marketing. Like you do know something about marketing, even though you say you don't.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

I you know, I I in that in this case, I do get how that's built in marketing. Yeah. Yeah, that's built-in marketing where you don't have to figure out how to sell it. You know, that you know, something else is selling your book.

unknown 42:53

Right.

SPEAKER_00 42:54

And your name is going to be on the screen. And then you get that snapshot and you shove it onto every you Facebook it, you Instagram it over and over, boost those posts so people see it because it's just reading based on a book buy. You're kind of riding the coatel. I saw that movie, and I really liked it. And, you know, especially I would imagine that a good portion of Hallmark watchers are readers.

Jami 43:19

Oh, yeah. I would think so too. I think the Venn diagram on that would be pretty close.

SPEAKER_00 43:24

So pretty tight.

Jami 43:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:26

If you can sell a hundred thousand books and you're getting five, you know, five dollars a book. Yeah.

Sara 43:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:31

Why not? Why not try for that? Yeah. That's it. That's where that low option money doesn't matter to you.

Sara 43:38

Yeah, exactly. Well, I have a quick question. So one thing people always worry about is the we know it's a long shot to ever have any of this stuff happen, but say that it does happen. Legal advice, where would you have a few more than that? Okay. A lawyer.

Jami 43:56

Oh, you would never know. Absolutely. At what point?

SPEAKER_00 44:00

I guess too. If if if you guys are put, let's say you put out your your Christmas book and somebody bites and they say, Hey, Hallmark wants this. A lawyer does your deal. Okay. You don't do your deal. Yeah. A lawyer has to do it. And yes, an entertainment lawyer or someone that that is versed or a literary, because most literary places have know how to do this as well. There's just too many pieces of this that you can't cover. I'm I I'm on a 5% retainer at my law firm. They take 5% everything I make. Yeah. They're worth 25%.

Jami 44:36

I was going to say it's worth every penny I would imagine.

SPEAKER_00 44:38

Absolutely right. Because I know I'd screw up. Yeah. And these things are not something that your average even contract attorney can understand. Because there's too many app, you know, what if they make a sequel to your thing? Is it covered? Yeah. You know, what if you're not going to be able to do that? And that's a big deal. Oh my gosh. You know, the first set of movies I got made were made at CBS back in the day when they were CBS was doing movies. The first one spawned a sequel. A sequel did better. We did a third. Now I was involved, but you know, they could have easily just had somebody else go and do that if it wasn't in my contract that I get first crack at that, that that they got to pay me, you know, that there's money that gets paid even if I don't write it. You know, that there's stuff that you got us as writers have to know. And I think we we think we're just blessed if somebody likes us enough to make our movie. No, this is again, we go back to this is a business.

Sara 45:34

Business. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:35

And you want to, I want, I always say make enough money to live to fight another day. Yes. Because that's where it becomes really important. Is you have to, you know, we've got to be making enough money so that we can continue to do what we do. And trust me, there's enough money to go around in most of these things.

Jami 45:57

I agree. I agree. Well Honeymoon with Harry, you you published that 10 years ago?

SPEAKER_00 46:05

I published it about 10 years ago. I say 10, 12 years ago.

Jami 46:08

So when was it optioned?

SPEAKER_00 46:10

It was optioned 22 years ago.

Jami 46:13

Okay. So that's the timeline's really matter. I was like, I didn't think that's what he had said. But so it was optioned 22 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 46:22

And it And I held on to it for 10 years. In that time, there was the first script was written. I was shown the door very quickly. I was supposed to write the screenplay. And then back in the day, Paul Haggis, who was coming off the Oscar for Crash, got a hold of a copy, called the studio and said, I'm in. And they politely showed me the door. And he got Vince Vaughan and Jack Nicholson.

SPEAKER_03 46:48

And this was, I thought, we're in.

SPEAKER_00 46:51

And it fell apart because of money. Yeah. Because both those guys wanted Jack and Vince, and that would have been a really good, cool people to make that with, wanted a lot of money. And it laid around. And then about five, six years, maybe a little bit more after that, Bradley Cooper got involved. And he was going to do it with Robert De Niro. Another director came aboard and rewrote the script with his partner. It was universally hated by everyone. It's the only draft I've never read. They just said to me, You'll be so mad. And I'm like, fine, not, I don't need to be any madder than I am. And that all fell apart. Then Cooper said, then they brought on Dan Fogelman, who you guys may know from he created This Is Us. Yeah. He's got the Paradise on Hulu, but he also wrote Crazy Stupid Love and Whiskey Tango Foxtrot and some other. I mean, it's just he's a and he's a wonderful guy. I will say this guy's a lovely human being. Wrote a draft that is literally my book. And I was so thrilled. And I got to meet him and sit down with him. And he was telling me, he goes, We bought 10 copies of the book. We ripped out every page. We highlighted, you know, all the funny stuff. And and it was a funny, like, like you, Jamie, you're talking about it was, you know, it's a funny, sad, it's a funny, sad book. And so it made me really happy to see how reverential he was and how kind he was to me. I mean, he's just a nice human being. And so he wanted to direct then Cooper, then he fell out. Then Cooper announced he was gonna, he was gonna direct this, made the cover of Variety, the head banner, and Cooper direct Cooper's going on the honeymoon. Two weeks later, he took a stars born. And the thing is, sat around, and then out back in January, I was hearing people were calling me, going, hey, I'm I'm hearing Amazon MGM's buying this out from under New Lawn. I'm like, I haven't heard anything. Nobody's calling me. And I I heard it like three times. And so Dan and I, Dan Fogelman, I'm friendly enough with him that I sent him an email. I said, Dan, I'm hearing this and your name's in the middle of it. So, and then he wrote me back, said, I was hoping we'd have all the deals closed. He goes, I don't like talking about things before they happen, but yeah, it looks like it's gonna happen. And then about two weeks later, one of the producers called me and said, Look, this is breaking in the trades on Monday. I want to give you a heads up. And he goes, you know, we're not even, we're not shooting even until 2026 and the first part of 2026. But I tried to get them to not run the story, but they refuse. They're running the story. And so be prepared. And, you know, I and I luckily I kind of known the pieces. It was Gyllen Hall and Costner, and it'll be, it'll be MGM Amazon. I imagine it'll probably, I imagine it'll probably run in the theaters for a bit and then write run right over to the network.

Jami 49:47

That's amazing. That's amazing. It's I love it when good things happen to good people.

SPEAKER_00 49:51

It's just it is it is so crazy and it's been so long. And everybody goes, Oh, you know, do you how do you feel about you know them changing your books and stuff? And you go, you know, when you I've been very good because having written screenplays that don't always end up exactly like you thought they would. Yeah. You you judge the product on the product and recognize that this book is mine.

SPEAKER_03 50:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00 50:15

The movie is theirs. Right. And they share a title. And I'm hoping, again, you know, I I hate to, you know, I put on my business ad. I want to be able to use that to sell more books and have people fall in love with my writing.

Sara 50:28

Yeah. Because the book will never change, right? The movie is an adaptation. And the book is the book, and it's just a different version of kind of the story.

SPEAKER_00 50:37

It's it's a different, it's a hybrid animal. I mean, you know, movies and movies are are are weird anyway because even as a screenwriter, you can't be guaranteed that that's going to be exactly what you had in your head.

Sara 50:49

Yeah. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 50:50

Directors come in, actors come in, and you surrender, you have to surrender that to other artists. Yeah.

Jami 50:58

Yeah. Well, and that's what I I had written down here, you lose say. Like when you sell it, it's not yours anymore. I mean, like, it's your book and your that part is yours, but the rest of it is somebody else's.

SPEAKER_00 51:11

It is absolutely. And you have to recognize, I, you know, I hear book people get mad about this stuff, but you know, you want to say, you took the money, had no problem with the money, you know, and or oh, I won't sell that unless I have a big say in that. And you go, when you have a hit, like if this hits, I probably would have a bigger say in whatever comes next. Sure. No doubt about it. But you got to earn that. You know, they're not, they're not giving it to you right away. And or I'm not gonna sell that because it's mine. And you go, your book is yours. It absolutely is yours. And trust that that's gonna be enough, but be smart enough to take whatever they do, which has a big, bigger global audience than you have, and try to bring those people to you. Right.

Jami 51:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:54

And that's that is a lot of work.

Jami 51:56

It is a lot of work, but I think there's never been a better time for authors to have this pot have this up, have this potential to get into this because of the streaming services, because people are just clamoring for content. There's a lot more places for things to go.

SPEAKER_00 52:15

There are a lot more places to go. And I was reading, I I actually saved the article. There, they there was an article in Deadline last week talking about a company that is now that's their synergy, is the book to movie. And I and they've been very successful. And interestingly enough, just the producer of the of Harry, he's got a deal, he's got a deal at Warner Brothers. I don't know how his deal is, but he's been doing a lot of movies for Amazon, MGM, and he said, they're offering me an imprint. Oh, wow. And he said, Would you be interested in making these books? You know, he goes, I haven't even thought about it, but uh, would you take the Harry books? And you know, it's it's on the table. Uh, you know, the only problem I have is I'd love to get them into bookstores, and I don't know if Amazon I think so.

Jami 53:07

Uh well, I could think their Mont Lake books are in bookstores, aren't they, Sarah?

Sara 53:11

Mm-hmm. I think so, yeah. I think it kind of depends on the author and because not ever even if you're traditionally published, there's no guarantee that your books will be in bookstores, maybe, or maybe they're there for a release month and then they're gone. Right. So it kind of depends on what you want and and how it works. But yeah, it's an exciting thing.

SPEAKER_00 53:32

So I, you know, I I I'm absolute I told him I said I'm absolutely open to that because I also think if they're behind it, maybe they'll let me shove Kevin's picture on that book.

Jami 53:41

Right. I mean, that's what happens with I mean, that's what happened with Bridgerton. That's what happened with the Colleen Hoover books. Some of those, I think. Maybe I you know I there are others that's happened. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:54

And you know, I'm sure even like, you know, I mean, you know, Colleen Hoover, I'm, you know, I'm sure she didn't bargain for what she got on the first movie, you know, in terms of the drama behind the the the scenes on that. But I I will also say this I bet it sold a whole bunch of books.

Jami 54:10

It sold a lot of books. And now she has her own production company. She it it launched her into something else. So I I just feel like it opens up I mean, it opens up other problems too, but I think it opens up possibilities. And in this day and age, with everything going on in the public, especially in sub-publishing right now, it feels like having another avenue gives us some breathing room and maybe a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 54:37

And and recognize that that there are a lot of producers now looking for things because of, like I said, those a lot of the what I call the YA movies on on Prime and on Netflix and all that are coming straight out of books. Straight out of books.

Jami 54:58

Absolutely that had the twist at the end. I can't remember the oh the I can't remember, but yeah, the good girl, Good Girls Got to Murder? No, but that one has two, yeah, a lot of them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:10

And and so we do have, and they are looking, people are looking for this stuff. They're looking for the good story. Because look, uh, you know, The Summer I Turned Pretty was a a popular book, but not as popular as the TV series.

Jami 55:24

No, not at all.

SPEAKER_00 55:25

And I could imagine a million people bought that book because of the series.

Jami 55:29

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My daughter read that.

SPEAKER_00 55:32

And the writer owns all of that. And I love that.

unknown 55:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:35

Yeah.

Jami 55:36

Well, this has been so great. Is there anything else you think we need to know before we let you go?

SPEAKER_00 55:42

No, no, I I appreciate this very much. This is fun. This was really fun talking about. I I don't think about this stuff on a daily basis. So it was fun to, you know, kind of go back and realize, God, this has been a long time. And, you know, Harry itself just Oh, look, it's getting too.

Jami 55:58

Yeah. That's important. I think that's important. In fact, that's really one of the reasons I wanted to have you on because you wrote the book 22 years or 20 years ago or 22 years ago, and it's just now being made into a movie. You published it after you wrote, after it was optioned. And so it's nothing's not working right now. It doesn't mean it won't work. It doesn't have a lot that it doesn't have a life later.

SPEAKER_00 56:23

A friend told me a long time ago, I I had a um a script that I wrote, and I tried to, he loved it. He was he was at a company called TriStar, if you remember them. They were around back in the late 80s, early 90s. And he wrote, he was an executive over there and he read a script of mine. And he said, I I love this. I'm taking it to my boss. I'm gonna try to get him to buy it. And he called me and said, Look, this isn't going. The boss, you know, he didn't like it, or didn't, it's not that he didn't like it, he just didn't see where it fit in their thing. And he goes, But I'm gonna tell you something. This script is money in the bank. You can't spend it now, but it's money in the bank.

SPEAKER_03 56:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:58

And two years later, that was the three movies that I made for CBS.

Sara 57:03

That's fantastic. Yeah.

unknown 57:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:06

Things find their time. I mean, you just gotta trust. Sometimes that's really hard. And I think that's the joy of getting older, if there's any joy in that whatsoever, is that you have a different perspective on a lot of things. And you recognize that that some things just everything takes its own time. We all take our time to figure out who we are, and everything we create takes it takes on a life of its own after we let it go. Yeah.

Sara 57:34

Well, this is a good place to ask the question that we ask everyone. What's the best thing you've done to set yourself up for success?

SPEAKER_00 57:41

Got a broker. Got a good money guy.

Jami 57:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:44

And I hate to say I hate to bring it back to that.

Jami 57:46

No, I think that's a good point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:49

Finding my voice as a writer because I've been more successful since I stopped worrying about everything else and just focused on what I do. And and then having having a money manager because I'm not good with it. Somebody you trust. Like I said, my first guy, Johnny, was the was wonderful. And strangely enough, his parents went to my gym. Yeah. And he would call call me and go, I'm moving the money into this and I'm doing this with this. And I'm going, John, I see your folks every morning.

Jami 58:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:20

Never forget that.

Jami 58:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:26

And because it it is hard. And we aren't, we aren't, unless you're raised with money, you don't know how to handle money. I'm sorry. You just don't. I have a working class background, you know, that's and I'm not good with it. So I've recognized that there are better people with it and allow them to do their job. As they, you know, as we want people to leave us alone to let us write.

Jami 58:48

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, that's a great place to end. Tell everyone when they can find out more about you, your books, all your stuff.

SPEAKER_00 58:56

You can find me, you can find me pretty much anywhere, but my website, Bartbbaker.com. I'm on Facebook. I'm on Instagram as the first Bart Baker, because there is another Bart Baker who does music, parodies, who's very successful, and doesn't speak kindly kindly of me on his podcasts because I had a lot of the Bart Baker monitors before he did. So, but yeah, you can find me on Instagram. I am on TikTok. I haven't figured that out yet either. But I am easy to find. And I'm on Clubhouse most mornings. Yeah. In our rooms.

Sara 59:32

Yeah. Okay. Very good. We will have all those links in the show notes. Just thank you for being here. We appreciate it. It's been fun to talk to you.

SPEAKER_00 59:39

You too. Thank you so much. You're welcome.

Sara 59:41

Those will be at wish I'd known for writers.com, and you can go to that same link slash support to support the podcast. We'll see everybody next week.

Jami 59:48

Bye.