Buying Novel Rights for a TV Series

[assyrix]

I am in discussions with an author to buy the rights to produce TV episodes for a series of pulp fiction novels he produced in the 70s and early 80s. The original novels have been out of print since 1986 but a small publishing company has bought the rights to republish them and does so every other month. However, unlike the original series, these reprints can only be ordered directly from the publisher and are not available in regular bookshops

I have contacted the author and he has expressed a willingness to sell the (as of yet unallocated) TV rights. I checked with the publisher and they forwarded my email to him as he holds the rights to a TV/film version.

The million pound question is: how much shall I offer for the rights? I am pondering a deal of paying him some cash upfront followed by a share of profits. What percentage is usually agreed for authors of original work when their creation is being made into a TV series or film?

I would be grateful for any pointers.

[richard.fisher]

I suspect that if someone who knew the answer to this question replied they'd make some sarcastic reference to string and it's various potential lengths. Coming from a position of no experience I would imagine that there are 2 important questions and 1 not very important question.

Important:
1) How much do they want? I once read that the trick to negotiating on the price of anything is to get the other guy to say a figure first.
2) How much can you afford?

Less important:
3) How much have producers paid authors for similar work in the past? Like I said above, there is probably huge variation here, and so won't help you as much as a guide, especially if historically people have paid more than you have, or less than the author wants.

[assyrix]

Originally posted by richard.fisher:
1) How much do they want? I once read that the trick to negotiating on the price of anything is to get the other guy to say a figure first.
2) How much can you afford?
3) How much have producers paid authors for similar work in the past? Like I said above, there is probably huge variation here, and so won't help you as much as a guide, especially if historically people have paid more than you have, or less than the author wants.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">1) They don't say how much they want. A figure below EUR 10K was mooted so I'll try to offer that plus a percentage of profits. The question is: what percentage of profits shall I offer?
2) I do have budget for this venture but the more I pay for the rights the less I can spend on production. The monies should be sufficient to acquire the rights.
3) A friend of mine has acquired the global rights for a more popular novel where he paid a certain amount up-front (due to an NDA he unfortunately cannot disclose that sum) and then agreed a share of profits (again being blocked to communicate this by the NDA).

[Patriarch]

Very interesting.

I have no experience in these matters either, although my dad isin the process of selling a novel which some filmmakers are interested in. I'll try ask he what's going on with that (he lives aboard so I dont speak to him all the time). I'll post here with any info I can.

From an entirely other branch I can offer a bit of info - boardgames. I design board games and am getting one published now. From that I have gathered the following. Author fees are between 5-15% - low end of this is the most common.

Licences for IP range from 10-15%. For instance if you do a boardgame on Halo, Microsoft will cost about 10-15% of the production cost.

Admitted its a whole other industry, but use what you can.

ps: Whats the genre (other than pulp)?

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ June 01, 2007 09:52 AM: Message edited by: Christian Marcussen ]</font>