Book scouts in New York help identify literary works that could be adapted for film and television. With the success of book adaptations like Harry Potter and Game of Thrones, there is high demand for original source material. The article profiles six top book scouts, including Marcy Drogin who recently sold Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, and John Delaney who got HBO interested in Ryan Gattis' crime novel All Involved. It discusses how the scouts find promising books, what types of properties are in high demand, and the increasingly competitive business of acquiring literary source material for Hollywood.

1. www.thr.com | THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER | 5150 | THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER | 05.22.15 PHOTOGRAPHED BY Peter Yang
GROOMINGBYASIAGEIGERANDDAVIDTIBOLLAATCELESTINEAGENCY.
OU LIKELY WILL NEVER HEAR
a book scout thanked during
an Oscar or Emmy speech. But
these New York-based literary
sleuths are on the front lines in a
key creative battle: identifying
and helping reel in the next big
property that can be adapted
for film and television. Few stu-
dios have in-house book scouts (20th Century Fox’s
Drew Reed and Sony’s Ryan Doherty are notable
exceptions), so most rely on a small clique of inde-
pendent literary consultants whose job is to canvass
the landscape and chase down books (as early as
the proposal form), newspaper and magazine articles
and now even blogs and Twitter feeds. With such lit-
erary franchises as Harry Potter, The Hunger Games
and the books that became the Game of Thrones TV
series generating billions in revenues for Hollywood,
it’s no surprise that there’s an increased focus on
New York’s publishing world. And considering that
some of Hollywood’s most profitable films of 2014
— Gone Girl ($368 million worldwide) and The Fault
in Our Stars ($307 million worldwide) — started as
must-read manuscripts, the book scouting business
only has become more necessary.
At the same time, the explosion of original series
in cable television and streaming services — by
some measures, about 300 new series will launch
worldwide this year — has upped the ante for origi-
nal source material. “Getting early access to and
acquiring books is a competitive business for
studios, production companies, financiers and pro-
ducers because really great literary source material
that lends itself to film or TV adaptation is rare,” says
one leading scout, Maximum Films & Management’s
Marcy Drogin.
Though Reed and Doherty are on staff at their
respective studios, book scouts typically are paid
as consultants by their high-profile Hollywood clients.
Unlike agents, they do not spark bidding wars, but
book scouts do frequently engage in battles with their
brethren to get a first look at a hot literary property.
Still, the community of New York book scouts “is
shockingly civil and supportive” compared to its
Hollywood script counterpart, says Wheelhouse Films
president Erik Palma. There are more than a dozen
book scouts working on behalf of film and TV studios
as well as production companies and financiers. THR
brought together six of the very best who handle some
of the most aggressive buyers.
The book scouts were
photographed May 5 at
The Library at The
Public in New York. •|•|•|• What TV Agents Really Mean •|•|•|•
“Don’t even ask me about it
for another three weeks.”
“I hounded them to read three
pages and they may begrudgingly
sit down with you as a favor.”
“Go ahead and write off
the rest of this year.”
“Because we’ve got nothin’.”
“If I read another ‘forced to
live together’ comedy, I’m going
to blow my brains out.”
“We never read the last sample
but it’s already stale by now.”
“Start over.”
“Be better.”
“Suck it up and take the show.
You’re not Matt Weiner.”
“It would be better if you were
black. Or at least Indian.”
“Wait, did you send that script?”
“Please do my job for me.
But you still have to give me
10 percent, though.”
“Now’s a good time to file
for unemployment.”
What
They Mean
What
They Say
Vs.
Marcy Drogin | Maximum Films & Management
Hot Clients DreamWorks, Illumination, RatPac, NBC TV
Biggest Gets Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch for
RatPac; M.L. Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans
(Michael Fassbender stars in the upcoming drama).
Craziest Thing I’ve Done to Get a Book to a Client “Back
in the day, when there were only hard copies of
manuscripts, I literally flew across the country to
hand-deliver a hot book.”
Hot Trend “In YA, grounded, realistic fiction. For adults,
psychological thrillers with unreliable female narrators.”
Maria Campbell
Maria B. Campbell Associates
Hot Clients Warner Bros. film and TV
Biggest Get Michael Crichton’s
Jurassic Park for Steven Spielberg’s Amblin.
How I Got Into the Business “I grew up
in Italy and New York with Italian as my
first language and was educated in Paris.
Books were my first love and continue to
be my everything. I first worked for Italian
publisher Mondadori and then started my
own company in 1987. Amblin was my first
film client.”
Can’t-Miss Book Fairs “London Book Fair.
Frankfurt Book Fair. I sometimes attend
local writers’ festivals and book fairs in Italy,
Brazil, Mexico and France.”
Jayne Pliner | JP Literary
Hot Clients Paramount, Imagine Entertainment,
Color Force, Walden Media
Biggest Get The Da Vinci Code. “I was scouting for
Imagine and Columbia Pictures. What a thrill seeing a
marriage between two companies.”
Where I Find Material “Book fairs are really about
networking with agents and editors. If I’m doing my
job right, I already know going in what the big books
are. Book Expo [in New York] is a good place to meet
and greet, Bologna [Book Fair] is the place to be for
children’s publishing, and Frankfurt is the grand-
daddy of international rights fairs. The London Book
Fair has become the go-to event for … the kinds of
quality commercial books my clients are looking for.”
Drew Reed | Senior Literary Consultant, Fox
Biggest Gets Gone Girl (“When we realized the deal hadn’t
closed at Universal … [Fox’s] Emma Watts made a phenom-
enally fast and aggressive move to land it”) and The Devil
Wears Prada.
Books Read Per Week “Easily five to six. More on weekends.”
How I Got Into the Business “My mother was a children’s
librarian; my father was a film buff. It was the perfect marriage
of the two worlds.”
How I Read “Hard copy or on my iPad, which was gifted to
me by producer John Davis, who gave me my first job.”
Y
“I’m excited to read it!”
“They really responded
to your material and
can’t wait to meet you.”
“Next development season
is going to be big for us.”
“Do you know anyone
involved in that project?”
“There’s a lot of this in
the market right now.”
“We need a new sample.”
“It’s a great, great start!”
“It’s very competitive
out there these days.”
“Work begets work.”
“They’re looking at more
diversity at your level.”
“I’m super excited to read it!”
“We’ve got a lot of
irons in the fire here.”
“You’ve got to work
your contacts.”
David Katz is a writer for TV Land’s The Soul Man (Wednesdays, 10:30 p.m.)
who loves his agents and swears these aren’t about them!
Studios and producers desperate for
the next Gone Girl lean on this small
group of NYC tastemakers By Tatiana Siegel
By David Katz
John Delaney | John Delaney Literary Consulting
Hot Client HBO
Biggest Get Ryan Gattis’ All Involved, a crime novel
set in South Central Los Angeles in the ’90s that HBO is
developing as a series in the vein of The Wire.
How I Got Into the Business “My first job was in Scott
Rudin’s office in development. It was the best introduction
possible. It was very theater-and-book-centric, and the
caliber of material Scott was developing was fantastic.”
How I Read “I like my Kindle for convenience but I feel
like I’m faster reading a printed manuscript or a galley.”
Erik Palma
Wheelhouse Films
Hot Clients Jerry
Bruckheimer, A&E,
Escape Artists
Biggest Get Legally
Blonde. “The book
needed a lot of
work but it had the
bones of a story and
an incredible title.”
Hot Trend “The
explosion of TV in the
last few years. It has
increased the outlets
for literary content
exponentially.”
Craziest Thing I’ve
Done to Get a
Book to a Client “I will
never forget the
hysteria surrounding
the partial manuscript
of The Horse
Whisperer and how I
had to stand over
a glitchy fax machine
to make sure
my colleagues in L.A.
got every page.”
These Book
Scouts Will Do
the Reading
for You