 Hi, welcome, everyone, to this Contracts 101 seminar. This one will be on e-publishing, so if you're not here for e-publishing, you're in the wrong place. My name is Terri Stratton. I'm Director of Education and Outreach here at the Guild, and I'm happy to see so many familiar faces and new faces. Thank you, my mother's watching, so she's great. Let me just remind you to please turn off your cell phones. Please, no pictures, no posting on Facebook during the event. We will be taking questions at the end of the evening, so hold your questions until the end. If I do call on you for a question, please stand up and ask it so that our internet and our audio recording audience can hear the questions. I'll be sitting outside, actually, to let the cameras in to disrupt people as little as possible. So without any further ado, I'm very happy to introduce Raul Sevesh, our Executive Director of Education here. Thank you, Terri. Thank you, everybody, for coming. I just wanted to welcome you here and welcome this estimable question around up here. And tell you that republishing, like a lot of other issues, is an issue of concern to the drama school council. We'd like to develop more information about it so that we can help you think real clearly about it and have as much information as possible. And that's the reason for tonight's seminar, so that we can gather the information with you. We've given you some materials for that end, and we're hoping that this panel can generate some more conversation, some more ideas, and some more thoughts about it. So I'm going to leave you in the capable hands of our Director of Education, Sarah Davis-Cowley. Thank you again for coming today. Just some quick housekeeping. If you're watching online, if you're watching the live stream, we are going to be referring to some sample contracts and some sample handouts that we gave out. They are available at www.dramatiskill.com, forward slash business affairs, or the drama skill Facebook page. So dramaskill.com, business affairs, or the Facebook page. And I have one of, this is one of the best panels I've been on, and I've met David Nimmer. We're on copyright. So I'll just go down the line and introduce everybody. This is Jonathan Loma. He's an agent with WME. This is Ken Dingle-Dyne. He's with Samuel French Publishing. Arthur Coppett. He has three. And there's Michael Thelmuth from Drama Displaced Service. And Tom Chelberg from Calendly with Lottmann. And you can meet their full bios. Super impressive panel. You're all very lucky to be seeing this tonight. And I can tell you from my point of view, I'm excited about this subject in particular. Very lively, very timely subject. There's a lot of what I hear when I'm at the business affairs hotline. People are calling me saying, what are the standards? I just wrote a musical. We get two, two and two, right? Or, you know, what's my royalty? What sub rights do I get? They want sub rights. What do I get? Well, these aren't questions that have a steady answer independent of your situation. These are all interrelated issues. Just like how much do you get for a commission? Well, if you don't write the play, you don't get anything, right? You have to write the play and then you get something. And if I write a play, I get a lot less than if Jeff or Arthur write a play. So there's a lot of give and take in these things. And this is a unique opportunity because all of these contractual provisions, whether you're talking about billing, loyalties, advances, subsidiary rights, publishing rights, future options, all of these provisions, at one time they did not exist. They had to be born. And, you know, you can learn a lot about something by, generally, by watching something of this type being born. For example, you can, astronomers learn more about stars and celestial bodies by watching stars and solar systems being born. Biologists learn a lot by just watching different kinds of biological creatures being born. So when you're, as we're going through the discussion tonight, I want you to keep that in mind because you're, with electronic publishing, you're watching contractual provisions being born. And this can inform your knowledge on any contractual provisions when you're negotiating anything. No term, no provision exists in a vacuum. All contractual provisions are subject to evolution and all of them had to be born. So starting with that, I wanted to address Arthur and Jeff and ask, in terms of this, the new issues being born that are coming into office contracts and republishing, how did this start becoming an issue for humans? The issue is the possibility of what it really is. Could be quite far the most, most extraordinarily positive aspect of being able to publish electronic is that it means that a writer can correct mistakes that are in those acting editions, which are impossible to correct. And can make amenities which are impossible to make now because you just get a denda and nobody can write them all in and they're not done. So you have an acting edition which is not your friend. The ability to see your play performed or music performed and be able to realize, oh, wait a minute, I can cut this scene if you want and be able to inform your publishing house that I would like to add an addendum which says if this happens, in a certain sense, the director can cut this or move this or if you have this possibility. So it enables the author to continue to learn from his other play which is what we do all the time. This is a huge change and for that alone, to be able to publish on demand whether the acting edition is printed out or Jeff says that actors are going to use their, as I can't imagine that, but maybe they will. But be able to have the theater have the updated version and to know that a new version is out and, in a sense, communicate with the author. This is a great advantage. It's potential disadvantages my colleague Jeff can talk about. I can talk about some of the advantages and disadvantages but this arose from me because I got to start getting letters from my publishers. I got plays published by Samuel French on his play service, play scripts or question the university press and somebody else. MTI, I don't know, I got a lot of different things and I'm starting to get notices about, you know, do you sign this writer so that we can make something available electronic? Well, I don't want to sign a writer yet until it's all been shaken out until I know whether there are industry standards of some sort. There's what my rights are, what their rights are. I also don't want to sign a writer if it means, for instance, here's one thing, this is not an unintended consequence. I've got an anthology of plays published by the request of the university press. If they put out the edition, why on earth would an acting edition be, why should somebody have an acting edition in the same play? Or if their acting editions are coming out, why would anybody ever produce, you know, in an indie version? Why would anybody ever come out with a library edition with an anthology of plays again? Now, so that has to be shaken out. Another thing is something that Arthur talked about, which is terribly exciting, is that there's sometimes not just one version of a play. For instance, A.R. Daring wrote a play called Sylvia, and there's one scene in which the language is very rough, and there are people who wanted to do the play, but the one scene in the park is a very hard scene for certain audiences. So he wrote a GP version of that, or is it PG? I don't know. So anyway, this gives him the opportunity to, oh, you want to license the PG version. Or there are different versions of, say, Greece now. There's the version that we know that's on Broadway. There's the original version that was done in Chicago, which is much rough, which was just revived in Chicago, and some people want to do the rough version. And then there's the version that's suitable for high schools. So you have all of these things. Plus, something that Arthur and I are both interested in is the idea of this opens up the possibility of FAQs. If you're having production after production of the same play, the same questions are going to keep coming up, and people keep asking you questions about the play. Well, why have to crank out the same answers to the same questions? Why not be able to post online this school asked me about this, or this theater asked me about that, and build up a body of FAQ's answers to questions? You may not take an intermission there, for instance. Stuff like that. So we have all sorts of interesting issues. Arthur says he doubts that the actors are going to be carrying iPads in rehearsal. I don't doubt it at all. The question is, how will they make notes in the traditions and still keep everybody on the same page as they're in rehearsal? I don't know if the technology is here for people to put those kinds of notes in the end. Yeah. But then, if one actor adds something in notes, is that going to make the page longer, which means that the... So we've got all sorts of standardization, which has got to kick in. I don't think that it makes any sense for each house to have their own standards, because it means that actors and writers would have to adjust to different standards at every house. And it was like all websites are done on HTML, there's a standardized language there. Anyways, these are some of the issues that came up. The other question is, I'm getting a new program from a new edition of Word Perfect 6, which has, as one of its features, the ability to instantly convert to something which can be uploaded to Amazon and sold on the cable. You know, if I know how to market, why on earth do I need a publisher? If I can... Now, I gather there are reasons why I would need a publisher. But if my word processing program is going to give me a perfectly adequate material to be able to upload to Amazon, and I could collect the entire order, what are the publishing houses going to give me that I can't get on my own? Let's talk to Ken and Michael about... You brought up two concerns. One is the acting versus trade divisions. And the other one is, why not self-publish? And I never thought I'd say this, but the acting versus trade edition is actually the easier problem it seems. Do you guys have thoughts on that? This must have come to the fore in your respective companies already. Michael, let's make a few distinctions, first of all, between a digital file and an e-book. There are standards in e-books. And they're different based on the distribution platform. So if you're on Amazon, you have the mode format. If you're on Barnes & Noble, you have the e-pub format. And the e-pub format is the digital standard for e-books. It's an open source digital standard. So I also want to add another twist on that, which is the digital rights management, DRM. So DRM is applied on top of an e-pub format to protect the play from being distributed freely. So it's not the same thing as a PDF. And there's no bilateral communication. So the idea that you can, for example, make a change and have it instantly proliferate around the world doesn't exist. It's much more similar to buying an acting edition, and then you have the acting edition, and then that's when you download it. So if you make changes to an e-pub, somebody would have to go and re-download it again or re-purchase the e-pub again. So it's not... It isn't that you haven't downloaded it, but if you are downloading the current version of this play, or you are getting it as print-on-demand, and now there are changes to it, then the current version is now an updated version. Why is that not possible to be published e-on-demand or to be available to a theater to download it on their own? It is possible. The problem that sometimes occurs is that certain numbers of a troop will download one version, and then you update it, and then other members get the other version, and now you have mismatch. Then you have the Indians 2.3. Indians 2.3. But they have to purchase it. They would have to purchase the new version, unless you buy a 10-year subscription to that play, and you are able to get everything. The technology through that doesn't exist. This is a reason that playwrights will be very hesitant to sign anything that commits them down the line, because for me, at least, an only real advantage is to be able to update your plays and go back and correct mistakes that are in the active editions of my play. That would be just... I'm just trying to add some complexity to it. It's not a bilateral thing. Can't make an update with this... Oh, no, no. That's what I understand. Somebody has it, and if I want to get the script from you, and I sign a contract, I want the current version. Now, I could possibly say, could I see the previous version too? I mean, could I choose which they are, or what do you got? You're dealing with the author, but it's there, and you control it, and it's no more costly to send version 5.4 than 5.3 or 5.2. You have the version. This is the version. This is the public domain. This is the parental control version of it. Let me qualify that again. Why would you assume it's no more costly? In other words, every time you have a transaction, there's a cost involved. Every time you convert to a different... when you make revisions to it, it's the same thing as mental revisions to a flat. You're not producing books and inventory, physical inventory, but the same work goes into it. So there are costs involved. Well, it's a minimal cost, because what you're doing is electronically there is a change to the script. There is the script. And the advantage to the authors and the advantage to producing organizations, they can get the current version. So while it would cost something, everything would cost something, it would cost something to get down here by subway. But it's minimal compared to producing books. We haven't done that. We haven't done that to be true so far. Yeah, what's your experience with that? Well, that will be when you play an apple, right? Well, I mean, I think the flexibility issue, which I think is what you're saying here, is something I'd like to draw a distinction. The world of even printing print books nowadays is not the world of, oh my God, we got to print 5,000 copies. We put it up on some shelf in a warehouse and it's going to take 20 years to work from it. Man, you can't make a change to it. That's the one. The days of that in the print world are gone. So there is actually, from our perspective, whether it be print on demand or whether it be an EPUB, it's now a much more flexible file. So our goal is that they match, right? You get on and you buy a print book, it needs to match the EPUB version. There is the current version of the play. So absolutely in theory, because there is no tangible property, it's an easier update, but quite frankly it's the same as updating the print book for us nowadays. In other words, you want to update it? Absolutely. I can't tell you how many in-revision titles we have right now because often we're like, oh my God, it's a scene. I finally know what to do. So that's where we've opened the gates on that. It's a different world. What else? I'm sorry. Where do we want to go now? When I buy software, if there's a new version of the software that's going to be issued, there's something within the software that says, hey, there's a new version you want to update. Your license says that you're going to have three updates. And I have updates. I don't see why if one is able to similarly download a script and there's a new version that the notice wouldn't go to the purchase. Great. What you're asking for, I think, is a subscription-based reading service. What you're asking for. What this is, and what Michael is aptly describing, is these are actual products that someone downloads, keeps on their device, and there's no more interaction. And this is just the way it's set up. This is, I mean, Random House and Stephen King, and this is the way it is. So that model is a very interesting model. I couldn't agree with you more in terms of this subscription-open kind of thing. You get subscribed to the play, and when there's a new version, you're instantly notified you can download. A traditional e-book is not that. A traditional e-book is a product you've bought, and it's not going to change until you buy the new version. The... Great. I've read Jonathan Loma's list of clients. So I know you have the power to make the future. So given these kinds of tensions and some of the things that you probably have to negotiate, again, we didn't quite address the trade versus acting additions or the self-publishing issues. Obviously self-publishing would present a problem for not only the publisher, but agents could be relying essentially on an honor code at best if you're included. Well, someone would still have to negotiate the deal between the client and say Apple. So we wouldn't be the ones out in the cold, but we need the publisher. People often say, well, why can't the clients just talk directly to Apple? And the reason is that we need two things. The client needs two things from the publisher. They need the promotion that the publisher invests in, does heavily, to sell the book, advertising it. And what they need is the trade edition. And the publisher is... We're getting to a place where there's like, between a dozen and two dozen authors who can still get a trade edition book. And in a way, it's the payment for giving over the e-writes because they've got to be sold now as a bundle. We're going to only dispose of both things. A publisher is never going to say, fine, we're under anthology, but we don't need... You don't want to give those e-writes, that's fine. And by the way, for years, we were able to say to publishers, we will hold them off and say, we're not giving e-writes. It's a... It's a strange part of the business, it's not important, and we could get rid of that easily. But now it's such a substantial amount of what they sell that we have to give up. Did you say that e-publishing, the electronic publishing rights were something the author is in your experience willing to give in exchange for still having a trade book? Yeah, because from many of my authors, the most important thing is that book on the shelf. To be able to walk into the drama bookshop and see an anthology of their plays, or their latest play that they have on Broadway. That's still very important to them. And it's going to be very hard for a publisher to put that out without the e-writes. It's important because, as Arthur says, actors are still going to have to rely on hard copy. It has a certain accessibility that hasn't been replaced yet. Or it's important because that's the way we grew up. And that's how we measure the economy. I'd be speculating, but I think that there is an emotional feeling that one has seeing their work of art in concrete form available to people. When you talk about a work of art created by pixels and dots, it doesn't have the same feeling. Now, in the Pocket Book, of course, it's going to be more important because you talk to the next generation of kids coming up and they don't care about their collection on the shelf. That was how we defined ourselves. This is who I am. Look, I've curated this collection of books, this set of albums. This is who I am. They don't care about that. They don't care about having anything. Why would you ever go back to something, like $24 or something that you only might read? You're almost certainly never going to go back to it in terms of a hardcover book. And it's going to take up space when you're done. We weigh that against having this thing in your device. And by the way, you could have the library of Alexandria in that one device and never have to worry about anything else. That's where we're going. We're going to a bookless world. And increasingly, we're going to be storing the stuff that we buy in the clouds. We don't even have to keep it on our island. We just sort of, wherever we have Wi-Fi, oh, I'm going to read this. I've already bought it. It's there and getting it. And so we don't even have physical possession of what's already on there. Was someone agrees to produce, they want to produce a play that you are controlling? Stop managing. When they get the electronic version of it, are they downloading it and also getting an acting edition bound copy or is it just electronic and do they print it out for themselves? If they want to do the old fashioned way and hold the script in there. What do they get? There is no requirement for them to buy a physical copy. Right now, there are, going down to Ruby may experiment with bundling where you get the e-version and the print version. We can experiment with that. But right now, we're seeing the e-books are being bought to peruse. And then once you actually get cast in the show and you do it, then you buy a print copy as well to hold on stage and have other lines. Again, that's coming to be able to read off of a digital reader. It's just not there yet. And I think, you know, years from now, it will be much more common. Again, I have been in the classroom and I have seen high school students do an entire Shakespeare piece from their iPhone. So it can happen. It's just right now what we're seeing is it's approval versus there still need, majority need the hard copy. I wanted to ask Tom, you have, from your perspective, you probably see how these new copyrights are being spliced up. These new ways of thinly splicing copyright are being, are developing. Cloud e-publishing, that's probably going to be a differentiation. Can you speak to that a little bit about what your clients are dealing with? Well, everybody's dealing with it, you know, with the question of, you know, electronic rights and, you know, how that's, how that's going to be handled. I have not, I have to say that this, the reluctance to get into electronic publishing that I kind of hear expressed here is not my general experience in general publishing. It's pretty much been embraced. At worst, it's a necessary evil. Now, there may be some real, you know, unintended consequences, you know, as has been mentioned, that we are, you know, getting into a world where, you know, we may be letting, you know, the genie out of the bottle or, you know, Pandora's, you know, box may be opening up in terms of getting our stuff out there and out of our control, you know. And of course the question, you know, is often posed rhetorically, is the book publishing industry, you know, in a position analogous to that of the record business in about 1995, you know, and are we going to drive off of the cliff, but I think not. I think that the, first of all, you know, we've had the opportunity to learn from the stakes of the record business. Also, you know, what was mentioned over in the green room, that the fact that the law is always behind the technology, or the more positive way of looking at it is that it's constantly adapting to new technology, you know, until there was a printing press who needed copyright law, you know, until there were mass media who needed the right of publicity, you know. It was really, you know, it would be a right that nobody could exploit. But I think the law has been, you know, catching up, you know, remedies and also, you know, the Apple experience, you know, the fact that Apple is not the most profitable company in the world, and a lot of that is from selling digital music files, you know, that was all about legal. Legally giving people, you know, finding a price that people were willing to pay rather than steal it, make it convenient enough that people will pay the 99 cents or the 89 cents rather than steal it, and then you can do business with it. I'm just going to say my reluctance, which I'm surprised by. Part of my reluctance is reflected in what I see here is current e-publishing terms, which is the terms are varying from house to house. By Sam French, according to this, the offer gets 25% of all. That's all, that's all reversible. Okay, and then they're drawing this place. That's what they're going to start with when they call you on the phone. Jonathan, it's negotiable to Jeff and Arthur, because we're not negotiable to the other 6,000 members of the, you know, it's 20% of some of them. And I don't mean that as a claim against... Well, if you're asking, is publishing going to be a buyer's market? Yes, there's always going to be a buyer's market, but if you have something that someone wants, you can test that market and you can move these numbers around. If someone really does and doesn't want what you have, it's better you know that before they buy it and don't sell it. Arthur, yes. I want to mention where I think it's one of the legal reasons why even if you can self-publish wants Sam French GPS and TI or whoever, and it has to do with police. You self-publish your own play. Anyone gets it and they're doing it and you don't know. Now, Sam French and TI are not going out and monitoring every production, but and I hope it's not just an illusion. There are actors who love writers and will let you know that if there is a production that is done at a university or a theater they're charging admission and they don't have the rights, they've just taken an addition. I'd like to believe that you are never going to be able to get it to your best play. And so that ability to make sure that the play is done and you charge admission and you're paying royalty is an essential aspect of that. We need them to buy the book, too. My friend, we need them to pay to license you to be, too. That's why BMI and ASCAP, why they are able to do it. If you try to get around this you may get away with it, but you can be in a lot of trouble. One of the things that's a quarter way or so out of there is that we run very regular reports. Which check all cast size orders and see if we cross reference the licenses. So if there aren't there's a cast size order and there's no license we will have to leave. So this actually with e-plays makes it easier because everything's digital it's already instantly recorded so it makes it even easier for us for digital players to go out and find out if they've secured a license or not. When this first came up in the theater world in the last two or three years the reluctance was based on the idea that what if what playwrights wrote the sweat of their brow became worthless in the clown that there'd be sacrificial pals that this first generation of playwrights would be like Edgar Allen Poe who died of pauper even though he was a best seller in France and caught up and wasn't getting royalties but the people in ten years later were all fine that was the concern and it was expressed in two ways the first is that we're on authorized productions because if somebody calls Samuel French and buys 26 copies of the Great White Hope you say to yourself what's this cast size that they might not buy that gets 26 well we better check on this and get our license so that was the first thing and the second thing was printed copies what if somebody buys you know I want to leave you out a one copy of Robert Sherwood's Idiots Delight which I think you guys sell and the next thing you know they print out 25 copies they've essentially stolen 25 scripts for the cast members and I think we're convinced now that both of those things have been solved and that the Kindle traps the e-book in itself you can't print out from the Kindle you're not going to be giving your Kindle away you're not going to be doing that and although BPP is a problem they sell CDF and the other thing is the internet the technology sort of gave people the ability to have 13 Kindles by different addresses I didn't know you could track it but the internet gave us the ability to google search the title of a play and all you need is one person putting it in their church flyer that's online and you know if you've got an unauthorized production so the two things that were the biggest thing in the agent's mind about doing this unauthorized production and the scripts printed ad infinitum both of those seem to have been surmounted and with that as long as you have the unique Kindle to put into the search engine I've run out of here unauthorized with the production in Germany where I was able to get a dough from but yeah Michael are you guys comfortable of this switch to being businesses that will publicize and police I mean policing has been easier for you in the past I think than it is now I would say it's just the opposite actually with the search engines it's easier for police well first let me say that it's surprising how honest theater producers are want to secure the rights and pay for the rights there are a couple of bad apples out there and frequently somebody who's disgruntled and cast will report them to us as well as others there's people policing there's actors who like authors and there's actors who hate their producers someone always didn't get cast the enemy of my enemy is my friends so in addition to that our ability to run reports on all this digital data is much easier than it was in the past when everything was on paper and you were writing out orders on paper and filling orders up by paper now everything can be queried through databases and we can create reports in literally 2-3 seconds they used to take a week to reply so 12 people by skin of our teeth kindles how can you see that that's all this 12 people in the cast I'll give you an example the play service will be launching in plays in probably early June and one of the apps we use is called Zoom Partner it's an iOS app which is for Apple operating system and they have the way they divide their customers is either by actor or theater the theater can sign up with Zoom Partner and then what they can do is purchase a cast size number of scripts which then they give their actors the password to and then the actors can download the script so whenever there's a theater purchase we get a report that tells us that that purchase has been made and we can make sure that they secure the license now just because they make a purchase doesn't mean they don't intend to secure a license sometimes they'll purchase in advance it's not always a matter of catching somebody it's just a matter of reminding them you know you bought these you need to apply for a license if you don't tend to do it in reaction it's such a different matter but they print out the version they print it out of hard copy it's disabled to print it so it's going to be on the iPad so how do they they got to read it from the device or they buy the prep edition if they get cast correct and then they're auditioning to have it on the iPad but then when they're cast and they're going to rehearsal well it would be up to them I just actually got an email yesterday from a theater that wants to do their first production obviously and they want to do it all on iPads so people are transitioning to this new way and I think they're excited about it they're actually excited about it they break some of their iPads you know a few tumble scenes that we hope so I think that situation could be the producer or the actor this would be the negotiator there's an actor in the production and he says if I'm cast I want to be able to hold my one scene in my hand you may have a cast that half of them want to use it I mean ideally it should be an option where you can I want to start getting down to some of the standards and this is very lawyerly very unartistic because people don't come to me for any artistic reasons they only come to me for cold hard facts Tom can you speak a little bit about what are the standards for your basic novel you seem to have said that your average book publishing non-theater book publishing it's embraced the electronic world are there standards in terms of percentage I assume it's worldwide is the term it's sort of bandied around that 25% has become something of a standard 25% of the publishers gross which would be after the 30% commission if it's part of it well there are just publishers that are so are we looking at the theater world approaching that model well I mean look I'm going to take a very different position than my friend to my left who has the worst deal of the people here I just want to add one thing as you said of course everything is negotiation and leveraging if you're talking about John Grisham or if you're talking about me we're not going to get the same terms we want 50% of the publishers not for the author it's what we've been getting it's what we've been getting so if you have 10 let's say it's a 10 dollar book let me clarify I'm talking about this script we want let's say it's $10 $3 goes to Apple and you've got $7 left that goes back to the publisher now we want half that so basically we want 35% of what you paid for the book to go to the author which is an increase from the 10% that the author used to get in retail publishing but we think the increase is justified we don't have much anymore beyond the advertising and beyond doing the trade edition they don't have any manufacturing costs the publisher has no warehouse costs as you wrote Mr. Dingledine said they have no shipping costs and they have no returns you can return the book but there used to be a cost associated with returns in that the publisher would destroy the book which they don't have anymore so it's essentially pure profit we see in music publishing we think it should be in the author's pocket not the publisher's pocket a few years ago 10 years ago that was a lot more common in a trade book contract with a smaller publisher a less well known author that you'd see that 50% rate for electronic for some reason I don't know why he's offering 40 so he's almost there don't change the defendant himself since he's here and then Michael thank you, thank you and I totally hear it I totally hear it two things I'd like to just kind of couch the conversation with I think we have to look at the models here DPS and Samuel French are taking two very different models right now we're taking a retailer model where all of our distribution is through the Apple iBook Store soon it will branch out into Kindle it'll go into the Nook these are major retailers that offer huge distribution and huge visibility for the author's work every retailer will as you mentioned take between 30 to 40% of their retail cut and that gets down to the publisher net right that's why in comparison I know we want to compare between the models it's not a comparable model it's a different model DPS is doing theirs in-house how do you do that you've got the neighbor's kid on a computer just pumping out the electronic it's the distribution model it's the distribution I'm being facetious I want to come to Ken's defense as well they're a very different model Ken Samo French is distributing through major retailers the place service is distributing solely through our website and through a few select third-party such as School for the IOS so it's a very different model Samo French plays for example will be available on the Kindle eventually and the place service plays will not be available for the Kindle they're taking a very different approach both in I was talking about trade versus acting addition is different depending on whether a play is published for French or with you with you it would make sense for a play of mine that's published for DPS to then be able to also sell a trade edition through electronic auction but there is no reason to do it through Samo French because you're going to be selling it through Kindle anyway well it also I mean as we move into this moving world it also depends on what you call an E-book so for example and I'll let Ken talk about French contracts but in our contract we're looking solely for the acting addition essentially it's an E-acting addition we're not looking for an enhanced E-book which might include audio or video or interactivity of some kind you have the FAQs then you're turned out directly on the book there's all kinds of possibilities where it becomes more of a multimedia experience so that's not what the play service does that's not our function our function is to provide a script and to license that play and collect licensing for the author on behalf of them so that's our role and that's what we want to do and if a trade publisher wants to publish a trade edition of their play we have no problem with that but the trade publisher might have a problem exactly they will and they do we've had those conversations with the trade publishers we would love nothing more for them to coexist but I get it when you possibly would I think but in the E-book store you have the TCG version of race and then you have the same French acting edition version of race and yes from the consumer's perspective they're pretty equal and ours probably sells for $9.95 and theirs probably sells for $18.95 or what you know if that's there is that aspect so that's the other thing you have to realize here is that we are intentionally keeping our price points at that acting edition price point which also affects the whole dollars and cents of it what I'm saying is that there's no motivation for TCG to publish a trade edition if they know that the acting edition is going to be cheaper than making the trade edition absolutely so we are very sensitive to that this is not about us taking I think TCG needs to still exist they need to still do trade publications one quick thing I would like to just say of the 6500 titles that we publish there are trade publications for about 300 of those titles so this does not affect the vast majority of the titles that we publish we are often the only publication of this and so again it's what I so it's keeping spirits alive and you know quite frankly if there's a relationship with a trade edition publisher we will sell their e-play on our website if the trade publisher doesn't want us to you know it gets in the way of our idea and again we just want to make the content available to the consumer that's what we are coming from but yeah I mean it is an issue that concerns the trade publishers for sure yeah can we talk about cost can we talk about cost seriously because the assumption is I know it's not paper so go ahead there will be some creative the pathology is true it's true listen it's still not as bad as the music industry so but let's talk about cost this pathology is sort of unsubstantiated rumors that the cost of an e-play is somehow less expensive than producing an acting edition and we haven't seen that to be the case so far now it may prove down the road that that's the case but so far the cost has been quite high and there's first of all conversions are extremely complicated the idea that you can click your play and have it come out a perfect e-book is just not going to happen it may suffice for you but it's not going to be up to our standards our standards are very high the e-book format has no provisions for example for simultaneous dialogue there's no provisions it has to be hand done they didn't know what to do with it it really freaked them out they didn't know how to handle it it's important because you understand it's a recloable format so depending on your device the pit text has to be able to stretch depending on how wide the device is so it's much more complicated than it is converting to say a novel where there's one paragraph of the text are these things like with the now in the music industry one thing that was famous in music contracts is when the industry was transitioning from cassette tapes to CDs they insisted that in their contracts part of the musicians royalty they would take it there's sort of a clawback on the musicians royalty saying well you have to pay for that conversion from cassette to CDs because we had to build new companies we had to build new machines there's a parallel that you're saying well there is cost because there's a conversion cost and I'm wondering if once these problems are figured out do those costs go away because there are still music contracts that have that clawback for transitioning to CDs they don't go away because the technology continues to evolve so the digital catalog has to evolve with it and we don't know where that's going yet but I guarantee you every five years there's a revolution in technology and we're going to have to convert all the titles we've converted already into some different format literally next month Apple could say the file that you said before it doesn't quite work right now we need it in this new file format because if you update it, we're perfect so Apple needs this this is an incredible maintenance to keep these files current for the retailers, for whatever device the other thing is this is a new product this is a whole we have a whole library now that we must manage this is a whole new library yes the content is the same but to keep the content the same between it, to keep the distribution there's channels to manage to gather you could sell a print book and you could know five things about it and you could sell it now to sell an e-book you have to know 25 buckets of information that gather and must be continually monitored and updated and maintained and this is not I mean it's a labor I'm not saying the cost of this no be very clear I've said that it's not for example right now an average print book is about $2.35 that's the cost to create, to maintain, distribute the print book, $2.35 the average e-book right now is $1.35 so yes it's different however the it's not nothing there are costs the expense to store it the format is an expense it's less of an expense than to put it on a shelf in a warehouse but there is still an expense in fact just since I said that that person was probably the most important when do you want to submit some new play there's a new play that they've just written so you don't worry about it do they submit it to you in word or Jeff or a PDF or do they change their format so it's more adaptable for you well we get submissions in all different ways sometimes from the older authors they're typewritten and sometimes they're in for instance plain old draft format sometimes word perfect, sometimes word it will be pdf, pdf all different kinds and what do you prefer when you well for us it doesn't really matter what type set it works and so they go into a type setting program like Quark or Adobe's type setting program and then from the type setting program then they're converted after their type set into I know that for most authors in this country the character's name is in the middle and then you have a stage direction but that in the acting editions they use the British format but is the author responsible for changing that or you just take the script as it is that's the type setting process so what happens during the type setting process is the script is submitted to us usually in one of these formats it goes to our type setter who type sets it according to our style guide all the stage directions are set according to our style guide unless there's some request excuse me, we're in parks for example in regards to our style guide if somebody creates their own style guide it's sometimes very hard to replicate that in an e-book that's another issue for example if you've written most people probably don't write it I have a pentameter but if you've written a verse play and your pentameter line finishes on the next and you've got an indent you can't do that on an e-book because the screen again reflows so there are some interesting challenges and the second question is what has to do with Smith and Kraus who publish on demand the scripts that are in the rehearsal and I think that they do that from PDFs so they do it very quickly so my terrible question to you both is why don't saved costs and why not print acting editions that are done the same way from PDFs because they're different from the trade publications the actors want a script and they would prefer I know that they would prefer the regular print size with the actor's name in the middle where they can put all of their there are a couple of reasons the first one is that print on demand is a very expensive model so when you can offset the print but we're talking about print books we can offset the print 5000 units and bring the cost of the book substantial if you're printing on demand also if you use that particular format you're adding maybe 50 more pages to the book so that becomes more expensive as well so it's a cost because a lot of what I said in the beginning of my assumption was that since it's electronic publishing it should be fairly simple you get a script here it's a PDF format there it is, we can download it we all download scripts that we see in PDF format as we replace on our iPads I don't care if an actor reading that looks in this format I want to be able to be active which pretty much is the old fashioned way that studio publishing what a printer used to do in studio duplicating in the middle there is dialogue in the book it's hard for me not to see that it might not really save the cost it would be easier to buy there is a standard that may type your scripts very well and you may be very or different and it may be very clear but that's not necessarily maybe the norm it is also our job to create a usable product that's in a consistent, recognizable format for our customers but the scripts that I write in Jeff in that it is in the standard format and it is what is used when actors do a first production they are getting their script directly as I did it and that's what they do very easy for them to work from lots of space to add in lines stage direction, stage management that's a very simple way and you haven't been in rehearsal to see actors pulling their hair out trying to work from the acting addition why has the acting addition involved to what it is it is probably to do it in that format there is fewer pages so it is cheaper to do but it is not aesthetically the same experience it is not as easy to work from and also if you are talking about an e-book and you have centered character tags you have to remember the screen size is very we don't know what the screen size is so somebody is working on an iPhone an iPhone where the screen is this big we are going to get three character tags and that's a big that's their choice we will not work very well we have about 5 minutes before we start a Q&A and I wanted Arthur to ask you this is my renegade comment it seems to me that this world is absolutely prepared for someone to come in with a format for acting additions inexpensively create acting additions for actors that are in the format that they are most familiar with and it is possible you have chosen a format to match the format that you have been using in the past maybe because of the potential electronic publishing you can go to a more actor friendly and writer friendly format and that is it but actors normally doing stock and amateur will only be familiar with the DPS French their agents show them that if they really do well they don't have agents well then they can be printed in a different it's not hard for us to reformat our plays putting characters on the left you want this version you want the British version and quite frankly the way we publish now it's not hard for us to redo the format now your characters are now tagged in the character field and we can just move them you want them in the center exactly next one let's try it we have no you know what I think this is the beginning of an era it's a really crucial era and information and generation and learning about it because we're moving into something and it's going to change the way people read, see, distribute literature, access so I think that it's wonderful to have this kind of discussion and six months of discussion will be different it's an evolving form and it will be fixed in stone let me ask a third question so I've got a few plays from this play DPS and then these plays are not available in kinder formats and so what's to keep meaning from the reformatting in kinder format piggybacking on the publicity selling my own copies of my other performances working with Amazon is not fun but that would be your contract I would say your contract allows you to do that people say you're saying that you're not distributing stuff on camera and if I think I could sell my books that's what JK wrote he did not dispose of any rights if you were to sign any playwriter and ask for a result then it would be great but lack of that that would be your prerogative my understanding is that the publishers the licenses for the live performances and the actual sale of the individual text one of the things that I'm interested in is the idea of being able to to get people interested in the scripts for instance if I write a new play and I put it up for people who can download it to their Kindles for a buck to see whether or not they want to put on the new play and then subsequently after it's been produced they'll be revised version this might be a cheaper and easier way by sending physical copies out or individual files to various different theaters Jonathan has about two minutes before he's got to bolt out the door and I promise that you'll be able to do this so before you go I do want to get your advice and Tom your advice to the lawyer to our membership these are people who are at varying levels of their career some of them have agents and some don't and some day somebody's going to send them an email or call them on the phone and say we want your e-publishing rights and they're going to be in the moment and that's always stressful I would just say remember that nobody up here would have jobs if it weren't for you and that it's great to be grateful but never just sign something you get in there because the thing is going to be the absolute base contract that is really in favor of the person have the dignity that needs to come with authorship you created something where before there was nothing and don't let it get devalued because so many people are dying to have something published but nobody's asked them before to publish something there well now they have and it's time to push back and ask for something more favorable I'm just saying do what all of us are used to engage in a negotiation test the market test the market to see where you are because some of these sample contracts that I think you have handouts for I mean there are this one on top it's badly drafted I mean 20% is too low I don't know what this data base is I don't know how they're selling it you know if you were they want everything you understand it's understood that you will get proper billing and it's understood that you will get statements but it's not in there right and it looks like Smith and Krause is actually I know the name's not on here but I think that's what it is it's just not enough info and something that is good here is it's not on a proportionate basis I mean my problem with this from my clients might be different than your problem if you're starting out I don't think Edward Albee returns to now your AR gurney should engage in a contract that's proportional to the model odds I think the ones that won Pulitzer Prizes or that have been done on Broadway should be getting pro rata a little bit more because maybe they've earned it over their time in their work how would you advise the people who aren't going to go to a county that you would flatten to hire an attorney one question I would have for you is that something that the drum is killed off well we have this the business of and the songwriter's killed off well yeah we do contract review and we compare but since we're not a union we can't represent individual members what I can do is I can make notes saying here's how the contract you were handed compares to industry standards now electronic publishing that presents a problem there are no industry standards to compare it to I can't make strong comments about Samuel French like Jonathan can because it's still blurry up in the air I can't say too much bad about DPS because it's the wild west so what do you say to people authors especially authors without leverage without a strong bargaining position those authors making bad deals it's such an old story that it's actually built into the copyright law that if you make a grant of rights now it's terminable it's not terminable for 35 years but it's terminable you can say well you or your heirs if you're not around anymore you can say okay publisher we want those rights back or else you make a new deal with us that gives us you know a fair return on this work that may have become very valuable and you know much more valuable than anybody anticipated it would be when the contract was made but you know that sort of small comfort I think I would just you know nice for your heirs maybe but I would you know everything is negotiable that you know you can push back you know you may think you're you know you're powerless that you have very little leverage but you do have some leverage they're interested in publishing your work and they're not going to give you their best deal off the top of the you know on the top I think that when we're further down the line when we have some when we have a history of what the deals are we can compare ourselves to what other people have got right now we don't have those no objective correlators for us so Jeff that brings up a good point that's the last question I wanted to ask you and Arthur there was a time when you guys would be getting playwrights you're getting authors and you were offered contracts and you were pressured to sign contracts that maybe you look back on today and you say wow I can't believe I signed that what what kind of you know when the phone rings in my office I remember a lot of desperation somebody wants to publish my play somebody wants to produce my play but they won't they'll only do it if if if I give up this these things and I say well that's not standard well what do I do well you've got all I can say you've got a choice to make but I'm not there I don't know empirically what they've been through you guys do what would you tell them well that's one of the reasons why I was interested in this panel is that I don't know what the new standards are when it comes to you it comes to you publishing I don't know what to hold out for I mean in the odd situation most people group their place with one publisher or another as it happens some of my stuff's with French some of my stuff's with DPS some of my stuff's with you know other other different places and I don't at this point have to figure out where it's my advantage my greatest advantage to have my stuff I mean it's the system it hasn't shaken out I have this comparison it's useful but I didn't know for instance that DPS doesn't mean to distribute to Amazon just this conversation and that Samuel French is and that that since I would like to be able to have my friends buy my scripts on Amazon that that may impact something may the advice I have to give if you need to write or sort of let you know because you need to go to find out and very often our agents don't even know what is going on out there what is the standard and this is very important that in fact nobody knows now what the standard is so knowledge is power so for a writer to know there is no standard right now and then you can come into the guild and let me know what it is let me try to make an informed decision what do I do what is possible in this for a writer having an offer for a play the first time oh my god they want me to do the play and they only want me to wash the walls once a week and I'll give you money no no no I'm going to pay for play actress to come out and you know and your heart breaks because they want it done so you need a neutral knowledgeable source to inform you on what is there and then you make a decision and in the guild many years ago when we were backing in with the Lord theaters we had many very powerful members of the prophetess guilds who got that through because they were willing to say if you don't do this deal for all playwrights you can't do my play and that was very amazing because the playwrights were saying you can do my deal but that deal has to be I can go above it but there has to be a standard which the prophet skill members will have and it took enormous courage for playwrights to do that so that was because they had information so just this and then maybe the guild then we could publish or online what is the current information what are the differences between DPS and the French and Smith and Kraus what are the disadvantages what are the pros and cons how is it evolving you have to get the information and that's what it's about and I'm hoping that one of the things that we get is an augmented version of the handout here so that we have a greater basis of understanding well if I get a bit if I have a new play and I have a bit from the French play service aside from who's offering more what different services will be attentive on growing with one or the other and which is which do I judge is to be more than my advantage with this particular play right now I have got very little way to determine that but also I hope that out of something like this that it evolves for you for DPS for all of you you understand and this is what playwrights want this is how to do it if you want to sell the plays you want to produce the plays nobody just means that this is not doing various film deals we love you and we know that you're there and you police it and you care about theater and you do this so it's very important so how to make it the best for you and you and us and everyone is we're feeling you're on it you're working in isolation you're in an ecology where there are various different habits that have to exist and they can't undercut each other so that's why I keep saying that some kind of standard has to evolve and I do want to make clear that what Arthur is talking about how the drama school members discussed what the standards were at the Lord level and made certain demands not talking about any sort of anti-trust issue what we're talking about no let me say what I know this was complete what was so phenomenal this was writers individually saying I believe in a guild and I think that we should all get this and they didn't have to do that the guild was able to provide the information of this is the standard of behavior that we've seen in producers in the past and if you see this changing then you know that that's not to your advantage and you know it doesn't have to be that way that's that's sort of the more legalese version of what Arthur was saying it is actually very very important because we are not a union we are a guild and the guild depends upon writers believing that the strength comes from the members and you don't have to do that and some people stood up and said this is what we believe and it worked and I did not have a production then to set a precedent and that's something that I told a lot of our very beginning writers when they had their first contract and they say well I think I want to do this anyway and I don't see how it's going to affect me because maybe this is the first play and I have five more plays you know lined up to go so it's really not going to affect me in the long term and I always say it might affect the next author at that theater and that's really what the drama skill tries to be about how you affect each other as a community of authors we're going to start the Q&A Miss? Thank you all so much for being here Actors are loving the App Scene Partner Scene Partner App I understand that they can highlight their lines they can erase their lines they can use it for memorizing their lines for them Actors shows for the Fringe are already being rehearsed with everybody using an iPad it's already here so obviously at Collaborate Park under Desert Cities these plays, the newest plays coming out will be available in those kind of editions I assume. What about for one of the better works at Backlist what about the plays that were published ten years ago when will those be available for people who are wanting to put it on Screen Partner? It has to be author in the last part I'll jump in there because it is very much of a pipeline and right now we currently have about 715 titles in the iBook Store right now that you can go in we have about another 200 we have about another 300 titles in the pipeline so we will have about in the next three months about over a thousand titles available we are making no distinction between the Backlist and Frontlist we are whoever is on board for ePublication doesn't happen overnight as we discuss this very much of a process but any at all absolutely any at all Michael? We're rolling them out because we're doing everything in house it takes some time so we're rolling them out and we're moving towards and backwards simultaneously and I think you were mentioning that last time the NIPROC is in digital format so it's easy for us but a lot of the plays that are say ten years old or older have never been set in a computer so we have only the film at the printer and the hard copy of the book so those plays have to be again this goes to COPS those plays have to be retyped, retyped set, re-printed read and then converted to an EPUB and then digital rights marriage and software ads are all done so it's a process it's settled in I just wanted to say I'm sure that this is already happening but it seems established writers started in some way a database of their negotiation processes and all the problems involved with getting this on to the internet and so forth because unlike a book, a poem or an essay or something once the script is there it has to go out to actors, directors, designers and so forth because it's not just the words that's why it's a putt so I'm assuming that the established writers at the guild I don't know, you've probably already done that, started thinking a database of their experiences with what they've done so far but they think might be fair because then it could trickle down to people and maybe they'll be different you know what I'm saying, that's the idea so that that way you've got databases started so you can have some facts that will get to a point where there are standards we actually have an E-publishing committee and Arthur and Jeff are spearheading that if you update your work they make significant changes does that change the copyright date? interesting Tom should be able to answer that the word significant is the key it would be a revision if you correct a couple of words and change a couple of words but if there's a scene, a whole scene then we change the copyright you could register a new copyright in the new actually what I wanted to say is on E-publishing okay well E-publishing copyright should follow it's easy to change on E-publishing what you should remember is when you copyright a flag whatever you've submitted to a letter of congress, that's the text that's copyrighted there are such cool revisions when you are copyrighted by a second outfit well we have to distinguish between registered copyright and common law copyright the revisions are going to have common law copyright you have protection but it doesn't change the date well it's actually it's not common law copyright anymore it's copyright and copyright registration they're two different things copyright subsists in any original work of authorship from the moment it sticks in a tangible medium of expression you have a federal copyright from that moment so if you write a a few notes there you go to your significant other you know I'm attending a seminar at the drama skill I'll be home probably at 8.30 there's something in the freezer put it in the oven you want a copyright from the moment you fix that in the tangible medium of expression generally what you see in the book when you see copyright 2008 you have an initial copyright that was followed by a letter of congress in 2008 revisions were made then a second application was followed but the important thing I would say to you is that registration is a different thing and also copyright notice when you see copyright in 2007 so and so it's pretty much an irrelevancy it really doesn't matter it lasts for your lifetime plus 70 years so really it's more it's less the date that that was written and more the date that you died yeah I just want to add a couple of things first of all we have copyright on those I'm from Abrams Art School we put together the initial comparison we got permission yes so just teasing and we're going to continue to do sort of look at the other things just diffusion is all kinds of other factors you know the ability to pull back you know the rights to literary copy I do want to say that I advise placecripts.com their early part in terms of like you know that the authors didn't notify as soon as the copy is sold they know where productions are coming up there's total transparency one of the things that we also talked about was the idea of manuscript copies they do that you can get a copy either in a book edition or in a manuscript because I thought that was a really great idea too and I would say that in terms of the setting of who sets the standards I kind of have to agree with my departed friend there that I think the authors should be you know setting the standards so sorry no no no okay in the back I've been working on a graphic novel for about four years I'm currently publishing essentially what we're going to be doing is going to Amazon we're doing it ourselves so biasing you mentioned that going with Amazon is no thing you know what exactly should I know that I'm not going to get into either Amazon or Vaughn is the only one well the first thing I would note is that the ebooks are still in our embassy and I'm not sure how you're converting your graphic novel but I'm not going to get you technical but there's a fall format called SVG Stable Vector Graphics which is the best way to publish a stable image such as a graphic novel would be and unfortunately the EPUB format as a source supports that the device is different so there's so many devices out there right now from the Kindle to the Kindle Fire to the Sony Reader to the Kobo Reader and then there are apps which work on Android platform and work on the iOS and work on the Windows Kindle platform so there's just so many different devices right now and that really goes to the standard that you guys are talking about it doesn't exist but it doesn't exist because each of the device makers is trying to carve out their own real hands and so the EPUB format is a standard how it displays on each device is different so in other words if we deliver it to Amazon let's say for example we can't just assume that they have their own format that they're going to transfer it into we have to have the that format ahead of time well this is a little off topic but if you're publishing images the PDF is the best way to get a PDF and send it to them and this would be born to normal people if you want to I have a comment I just wanted to say that as a playwright publishing is so important for me because getting place produced is so hard and you want your play to have a life so publishing is a way that your play can have a life at least in the literary world so when I published my first play with iUniverse I guess what was attractive to me is that they said it's not exclusive you can publish with us but you can publish with somebody else too so I didn't feel like I was someone was doing something to me that I couldn't get out and recently I've been asked to publish one of my plays with indie theater now and they're saying in six months if you want to withdraw you can't and so I guess I'm feeling like it's okay to do this because there's a sunset clause whatever you guys call it that's exactly how we're approaching the ebooks is we do not want anyone to be unhappy with having their book we need you to be happy we want you to have we want you to want to have your book with us so absolutely you can pull it at any time you can take it out of your play program you can go and have you put it on a self publishing platform as well I mean we just want we're very confident that people come to Samuel French for a reason we're very confident that we have our highly trafficked website and people will license the show and we can police it we can market it and we can do all those things and that's what we're investing in so absolutely more the merrier is this included in the first negotiation with the first situation would you say that I would doubt a qualification of that which is if the police service for example were to make an offer for the play it would include an advance and that's one of the reasons why we would want exclusivity is to be able to not advance the program what is exclusivity in the licensing rights so performance licensing is exclusive versus putting it on different platforms for publication these are two very distinct things performance license again if you're advertising if you have it on a platform again we may not recommend that you put it on a self publishing platform first of all we got a coordinate to make sure we got the same versions all the time we got to do a lot of that also we can control we can track who's bought the play and we can police can you, will you, maybe anyway there's coordination but again we're not limiting in that it's just we got to be smart about it too I'm very fresh I have no idea I don't know anything about copyright I just first I wrote a screenplay I said no that's not the way to go I write a play no this is not the way to go I want to do it in one man show so I write in one man same thing but somebody wants to publish it and I said well somebody said if you sign the contract again then you have to get permission for your movie screen to be somebody wants to do it then you have to get permission from the publisher for the movie screen and for making the film as well so I just explained everything well that might be something I can help you with as business affairs director of business affairs because it's going to be contract dependence the industry standard is publishers will ask for the audio visual you know 10% of the audio visual rights a lot of times when you're getting your basic print is that fair to say you guys you want to have some you want to have the 10% of the product service doesn't have this you guys asked for the audio visual it's totally some do some don't so I think what you need to do is send me the contract and I can look at it and tell you what I've seen recently publisher to publisher every time anyone sends me a contract you keep it in the confidential membership file so if you send me a contract from somebody and I might have 50 other of those contracts with my comments and how that contract is involved over time so get in touch with me Robin I just signed with Indy Theater and they're publishing my place and I just wanted to as a point of clarification they're not publishing the place they're an online library I think it's very exciting they people go there and they can read it but they can't download it and they will act as the intermediary if you ask them to I love it if somebody inquires about wanting who wants the script and then they'll get a hold of me and I can print out that nice print out copy that the actors will want except what are the chances that people are going to say I need a play of this cast size and this genre I think I'll go to Indy Theater now their first stop is going to be one of these publishers DPS or Stanley French they can read the play for about 29 on Indy Theater now and see if they really want it it's getting them on the first very interesting it's a pretty great and they're cutting I also have one piece on Indy Theater now I'm just sleep with everybody but what they're carving out particularly is like fringe and off off Broadway stuff so people who are looking for what was hot in the fringe that may not be practical for you to do but you know it's interesting well I was hoping that this would be attractive to you guys and you'll play that was done last year off Broadway and it's been on the library because that's a different publicity for you this is again so new I asked Morgan is there a reason not to do it no reason not to do it I did it on the basis of Martin Denton's reputation a good play is a good play a producible play is a producible play we want the ultimate of the one we want plays that will be produced and done and that's follow the money trail one question in order to contact you do we need to have an agent and a production schedule or can we just contact you and say this is a good play great question in terms of submissions and acquisitions it we highly recommend a production or has had legs it's going to go through a development process it's going to change, it's going to find its way it's going to evolve we do have certain and you can talk to me afterwards and I can give you some information we do have certain contests and festivals and those kind of things that we accept on produced work again we can always send it to us but the fact of the matter is the more development it's had the more it's going to stand out and be something that we can actually go with Michael DPS submission guidelines we accept unsolicited submissions but I agree with Ken the focus as far as I should be on getting a definitive production of your play, that's really the focus and usually we'll find you we're looking you go into meetings like fringes we go every week we have time for one more one more do we have anything from online we don't actually great, thank you all very much I'd like to thank our panel applause thank you Terry if we didn't sign in with me