This column is a guide to using the Internet to a writer's advantage in matters of craft and marketing. This summer I taught a seminar at Portland State University for a small, select number of students on Marketing Your Screenplay. The results of this seminar make me more optimistic than ever about the marketplace. Each student got at least one producer to request her script, one student got over six requests, and another got over a dozen requests. For each student, this was her first script.
None has an agent.
Rewrite until the script is ready to market. Each of my students has been working on a script for nine months. They developed the concept in my beginning screenwriting class and also wrote a draft of up to half the script there. Then they continued to work with me on their script through the next two terms of the school year. Each script, then, had had several rewrites by the time they enrolled in my marketing seminar.