Outing Outskirts Press

The “Hollywood” package marketed by the vanity press Outskirts Press to naive, aspiring writers is such a blatantly outrageous and predatory rip-off that I am posting Victoria Strauss’ excellent Writer Beware blog post about the shameful scheme in full to make sure the word gets out to anyone foolish enough to be considering it (or the equally worthless one offered by Author Solutions) . 

Self-publishing service Outskirts Press–home of some of the sillier “book marketing” services–is taking advantage of one of writers’ most fevered pipe dreams with its new Book Your Trip to Hollywood service. Of course, the press release doesn’t put it that way: 

These services solve a real problem for many authors who dream of making it big in Hollywood. In fact, just getting Hollywood’s attention is nearly impossible, but with the Book Your Trip to Hollywood suite of services from Outskirts Press, authors receive turn-key, full-service assistance with the push of a button. And with each option, authors receive the feedback and/or participation of a real Hollywood producer and production company; the final results are added to a Hollywood database that is perused by industry professionals for new projects; and exclusive efforts to option the author’s book are immediately set into motion. The author doesn’t have to lift a finger.

Except to pull out his or her credit card.

The first of the “suite of services,” the Hollywood Book-to-Movie Treatment, costs a cool $3,299. For that, you get a 7-10 page “creative adaptation” of your book written by a screenwriter. Which screenwriter? What are his/her credits? Sorry, that info is not available.

You also get an evaluation and a 3-year optioning effort from a Hollywood production company. Which company? What films has it produced? What further compensation might be due if it does manage to get someone to option your treatment? Oh dear–Outskirts isn’t telling you that, either. (The disclaimer that authors have to sign in order to buy the service mentions a “partner production company” with the initials “VM”; that’s too little information even for Writer Beware’s sleuthing superpowers.) 

The second service, the Complete Hollywood Screenplay, has a sticker price of $1,999. Hmmm, you might be thinking; why does an entire screenplay cost less than a 7-10 page treatment? Because the $1,999 is only a downpayment, you big silly! It puts you in touch with a screenwriter (once again, no info on identities or credits) to “discuss additional details”; if you want to proceed, you’ll owe an extra $9,940. (What happens if you don’t want to proceed? Can you get your downpayment back? No word on that from Outskirts.)

Since buying the treatment service is a pre-requisite to buying the screenplay service, the total bill for your Hollywood pipe dream comes to $15,239. Outskirts can even claim that this is a bargain: the very similar services offered by Author Solutions will set you back over $18,000. 

It hurts my heart, and my brain, to think that authors might actually shell out this kind of money for services that would likely net them zero results even if performed by skilled professionals at reasonable prices. Selling a book to Hollywood is one of the most fervent writerly ambitions; it’s also one of the most unattainable. And as much as you may roll your eyes and think, “Surely no one would fall for a scheme like this,” the fact is that people do–or the schemes wouldn’t exist.

 

Lee here again…
Remember, Outskirts Press is not a publisher. They are a printer. They aren’t making dreams come true…they are taking advantage of the gullibility and desperation of aspiring writers. And they have ZERO credibility and influence with the studios and networks in Hollywood. Give your $15,000 to the first homeless person you see instead… not only would it be a better use of your money, you would also have exactly the same chance of making a movie sale as you would giving it to Outskirts.

3 thoughts on “Outing Outskirts Press”

  1. Thanks to Victoria Strauss and Lee for pointing this scam out to me, I’ll pass along the info to anybody who mentions these outfits to me.
    The persons executing the scam will one day look in the mirror and experience a “dark night of the soul.” They’ll realize how they have hurt others, and what that makes them. The money is never worth it. The right path is the road of honest work that really benefits others.

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  2. Peter, we all go through it, why would they be different?
    Also, the worse the crime, the deeper the horror when the moment of realization comes, as Conrad proved in “Heart of Darkness.”
    But as Dostoyevski proved in “Crime and Punishment,” even a murderer can go on to become a saint, which is why nobody should be written off as condemned, but encouraged instead.
    Anyway, perfect people are boring. But all it takes to overcome a crime a person committed is to be sincerely sorry in their souls, and then to go on doing whatever good they can, so that all this goodness would never have come into the world without their first going astray. What makes a person good, is not that they are without sin, but that they overcome it. After the moment of realization, the horror, that’s usually when a person changes for the better. And the deeper the horror, the better the person becomes.

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