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Dr. Atchity is quick to point out that AEI is not
a literary agency, and he is not a literary agent. The technical
difference is that literary agents can't produce movies. But there
are other significant differences that prompted Atchity and his
partner Chi-Li Wong to eke out a niche in uncharted territory.
He knows of only one other, but he predicts there will be many
more editorial, production, and management companies like AEI
before long.
"There are many editorial companies out there, but many of
them also have a bad reputation. They want to edit books, but
once they're finished, the writers are on their own. There was
no one out there helping authors write salable work and helping
them sell it," Atchity points out, "What makes us different
is that we help writers along until they're ready to publish and
then we manage their careers."
AEI is actually two distinct companies: the original representation
company, which manages writers and produces films, founded in
1995; and The Writer's Lifeline, 1996, a one-on-one coaching and
consulting service designed to help writers reduce their learning
curve from ten years to a year and a half or less. "We know
writers will figure out how to write their books so they'll sell,
we just help them cut down on the time spent doing it."
For these services, AEI charges from $75 to $120 per hour, depending
on the editor assigned to the project. They will also make flat
deals for whole books, which can cost from $6,000 to $20,000,
"though the high figure reflects the need to translate it
from a foreign language and other unusual editorial services.
Now that we've been doing this for nearly two years, we have statistics
on which to base our rates. Coaching a writer through a complete
rewrite takes about 180 hours. If my editors do the re-write,
they usually have to spend 500 hours on a book. This is an incredibly
time- and emotion-intensive business, which explains why there
aren't a whole lot of people out there doing it."
If Atchity likes an idea, but the writer doesn't have the money,
he will also cut a percentage deal. "But this is usually
the worse deal they've made in their lives," Atchity notes,
"Steve Alten paid $6,000 for consultation in the Writers
Lifeline program. If we'd made a deal for 50%, he would have lost
one and a half million dollars when we sold MEG."
Both companies have hit pay dirt for the savvy entrepreneur. Having
produced twenty television films, with twelve more television
and feature films in production, Atchity and company have also
found publishers for numerous books and scripts for AEI's clients.
Half of Atchity's many successes have been with authors who have
had no need of editorial services when they signed with AEI's
management company. Half have been with graduates of his Writers;
Lifeline consulting company, which employs a host of talented
editors and film consultants, including story analyst and senior
editor and director of development David Angsten, Executive Vice
President of Editorial, Andrea McKeown, and Executive Editor,
Monica Faulkner.
One of AEI's most recent success came with the sale of the film
rights to Mark Gardner's Columbia Malignancy, a non-fiction
expose of America's largest for-profit hospital corporation. Atchity
drew attention to Gardner by arranging for a Page One article
in The Wall Street Journal and a featured interview on
"20/20." Another recent non-fiction sale is Dr. Jerry
Blaskovich's Anatomy of Deceit an inside story on the atrocities
committed during the war in Croatia and the worldwide conspiracy
to cover them up.
AEI has had monstrous successes with graduates of the Lifeline
program. This was the case with first-time novelist Steve Alten.
Under AEI's expert tutelage, Alten re-wrote MEG (short
for Carcharodon megalodon), a thriller about a prehistoric shark
thought to be extinct. Atchity and Wong partnered with Warren
Zide to sell the book. Atchity then sold the completed novel to
Walt Disney Pictures for an estimated $700,000 on a "partial"
manuscript. Atchity then sold the completed novel to Doubleday
for $2 million. He then sold the film rights . Released last month,
MEG hit most of the major bestseller lists before arriving
in bookstores and has sold over 100,000 copies after Allen appeared
on the "Today Show". At last year's Frankfurt Book Fair,
MEG garnered $1.2 million in advances for foreign rights
in eleven countries.
The successes for Atchity and company don't come close to ending
there. Other recent masterstrokes include Cheryl Saban's novel,
The Sins of the Mother, which AEI will co-produce with
Saban Productions, the producers of the incredibly successful
Power Rangers TV series and features. AEI signed Saban to a three-book
deal with Dove Books. After a nationwide tour, and radio and TV
sweeps, The Sins of the Mothers hit the Los Angeles Times
bestseller list in July.
A virtual success machine, AEI has sold the film rights to Sign
of the Watcher, by Brett Bartlett after twelve studios passed
on an earlier draft. (Purchase price: $750,000). AEI has also
found publishers for books by many other Lifeline graduates, such
as James Michael Pratt's The Last Valentine, which went
to St. Martin's Press for a princely sum in the high six-figure
range and will be offered to Hollywood in the Fall. Rick Lynch's
novel 180 Seconds At Willow Park was sold to Dove Books,
and is now in development at New Line Cinema (purchase price:
$450,000).
AEI is also becoming widely recognized as a top-notch freelance
development company. Atchity often takes referrals from major
publishing houses and film producers with good ideas or raw manuscripts,
and turns them into salable products. The list of successes for
this literary and film production powerhouse goes on and on. And
there's no sign of a slowdown in sight. Indeed, it
looks like all works with a glimmer will continue to become gold
for AEI and its entrepreneurial wizard, Ken Atchity, his partner
Chi-Li Wong, their staff of literary alchemists, and, most importantly,
their talented clients.
Atchity makes no secret of how he spells success. "We see
ourselves as story people, not just novel, non-fiction, or film
people. Another thing that makes us different is that we help
clients optimize their chances for commercial success. We'll steer
the writer in the best direction, whether that be a screenplay,
a novel, or in television. What we do is try to do is provide
a bridge between the writer and the business world. No one else
is doing that, and any writer will tell you it's a very big gap.
We also try to prioritize a writer's career. So many times I see
writers spending years on projects we can't sell. When writers
come in with several ideas, we'll advise them to work on the one
we can sell."
In today's difficult marketplace, there just isn't any percentage
in writing books for yourself. Atchity encourages writers to find
their audience first. "I tell authors to write a book we
can sell. Then once they find their audience they can write the
books they want to write. It irritates me when writers take the
attitude that because they wrote a book they should be published
or rich. 'Everyone is writing a book. They get discouraged or
angry when they spend years on a project and find they can't sell
it. They get mad and believe the system is against them. Well,
that's just the way it is in the modern marketplace. We're not
crusaders, trying to change the system. We try to make the system
work for people."
Dr. Atchity is himself the author of thirteen books. The most
recent is Writing Treatments That Sell. Co-authored by
his partner, Chi-Li Wong, this is the very first book that deals
with the basic idea of the treatment, the concept of a story in
its shortest salable form. Treatments are particularly important
in Hollywood, where multi-million dollar deals are struck to make
films from nothing more than a raw concept. Here again the entrepreneur
stresses the importance of presentation.
As noted in his book on career change, The Mercury Transition,
and in his book on writing, A Writer's Time, Dr. Atchity
says it takes four things to succeed. "The first is persistence.
Steve Alten sent out thirty-nine queries. Ours was the only positive
response. That's the thing, though. It only takes one. You don't
need to find ten publishers or producers, so if you believe in
yourself, it's important to be persistent."
The second element is access. "You have to have contacts.
A writer needs help to access the system," Atchity notes.
"Thirdly, it's important to be a fun person. You want to
stay off everyone's "Life's-Too-Short" list, and present
yourself and your work in an engaging and powerful manner."
"Talent is the last thing you need." Surprisingly, Atchity
says it is possible in today's world to get by without a lot of
talent. "The idea is everything, and it can be developed
into a salable book or script. When I hear people say, I wrote
a better book than this or that one that got published, I know
they either got discouraged and gave up, they didn't make the
right contacts, or they were too obnoxious to work with. That's
why there are so many books out there that aren't very well written
or that aren't effective. The author may not have had talent,
but he was persistent, had access, and he was a fun person to
work with. Of course, our dream client is someone who has all
three of these elements plus talent and don't misunderstand, we
love and appreciate great writing if it's conveying a great commercial
story."
For writers interested in contacting AEI, Atchity recommends a
query. Though he will accept very brief email queries, Atchity
says, "They're only good for asking if we're interested in
a certain type of material. Email is not good psychology for writers.
For one thing, it suggests an air of immediacy that demands a
prompt response. But it doesn't work that way. Even if a novel
is ready to publish, and most aren't, it probably won't come out
for a year. So what's the big hurry?"
This is a pet peeve for Atchity and others in the industry. "It's
the same with authors who send us a disk or tell us to visit their
website -- as though we had browsing time. It gives us a bad impression.
It's a sign of arrogance or laziness. It forces us to take on
the expense and to do the work of pulling it up and printing it
out. Time is the same as money. I have to pay someone to do these
things. It's real money. I can't tell you how much it bothers
me when authors, uninvited, do things like sending email with
attached files. With computer viruses and the time and expense
involved, we just delete them unread. I had one guy send me a
whole novel from Italy. It tied up our high-speed download server
for an hour. Someone needs to formulate a system of Internet submission
ethics. This is really very important. The best thing about this
business is the writers, and the worst thing about it is the writers.
If writers would just take the time to figure out what it takes
to be a pleasure to work with and do those things, they'd get
a lot farther faster. And they should get advisers who know the
business inside out. Every month we see a deal ruined by an attorney
who has no idea what he's talking about."
Although writers often hear about the film producers, agents,
and publishers who search for new talent, Dr. Atchity says AEI
never surfs the Internet searching for new authors. "It's
just not possible. In a business that up and running and responsible
for a hundred people and careers, you just don't have the time.
Perhaps if someone is just starting out, they might take the time
to look, but we never do. I'm sorry if we sound grumpy, but the
time we're forced to waste eats into our selling time. Writers
should find out how to present their work properly."
Atchity does, however, see the Internet as a valuable tool for
authors. In fact, he says he could see himself recommending Internet
publishing to some of his own clients for the exposure. "We
have two books coming out later this summer, Anatomy of Deceit
by Dr. Jerry Blaskovich, which chronicles his experiences in Croatia
where he went to verify the alleged atrocities, and the best "southern"
novel I've read in years, The Cruelest Lie by Milt Lyles.
I could see publishing excerpts of this work on the Internet."
Indeed, the entrepreneur says he'd consider publishing some of
his own work on the Internet. "For instance, I might be interested
in publishing books like The Mercury Transition, which
is out of print. I'd also consider publishing my book, Cajun
Household Wisdom." Half Cajun, the Louisiana native says
the rights to this work reverted to him when Longmeadow Press
went out of business. "I want to do something with it, but
I just haven't had the time." Atchity adds that AEI is also
very interested in reference works like those he has written and
published several himself, including The Renaissance Reader
(Harper Collins); The Classical Greek Reader, (Henry Holt;
Oxford University Press); and The Classical Roman Reader,
(Holt).
A wealth of information on Dr. Kenneth Atchity, his books, AEI,
and the types of work the company is interested in seeing can
be found on its Website at aeionline.com. AEI will accept email
queries of fifty words or less at jp@aeionline.com. We will delete long
email queries unread.
Written queries should be sent to:
Submissions Editor
AEI
9601 Wilshire Blvd. #1202
Beverly Hills CA 90210
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