When I was 7, I came up with the idea of 'charm socks.' My mom would take me to buy bags of plastic charms, we would sew them on frilly white socks, and I sold them at school.
You must speak the vision of your project in a way that convinces people to pay for it. If they won't pay for it, that is the artist's fault. It is my fault. It is your fault. It is not the executive's fault or the world's.
Recognize that the great majority of us aren't trained actors and entertainers. Usually, it's not our faces, our bodies, our personas or our stage presence that sells our books. It's our stories, our visions and our voices.
In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.
I think most Hollywood meetings are silly and I truly despise pitching. It's insane to expect someone to come in and tell you the story before they've written it, and buying an idea from someone who can explain it rather than write it is like choosing a mechanic based on his ability to draw a picture of your car's problem.
I've pitched movies to all of the major studio heads in my time.
Being creative is having something to sell, or knowing how to sell something, or having sold something. It has taken over what we used to mean by being "wised up" knowing the tricks, the shortcuts.
To succeed at selling a losing product, you must develop seriously superior sales techniques. In addition, you have to be massively competitive and incredibly hungry to survive in that environment.
I first sold a cartoon for five dollars. I was in the fifth grade.
In short, you have only your emotions to sell. This is the experience of all writers.
I've written about 15 screenplays and they all sold - they were all sold on pitches.
I'm not a drug salesman. I'm a writer." "What makes you think a writer isn't a drug salesman?
Anybody who pitches a story or an idea for a film to an executive, whatever the latest hit is, is what you're comparing it to.
I'm not good at selling laptops. I'm good at selling ideas.
If you are opening a play, a play that's really about something, a play that's really about ideas, you have to find a way to sell that play.
People are doing what they can these days and looking for creative ways to sell music.
And so they pitched the show to me. It sounded like a good idea. We pitched the show back, and got it sold and got it on the air. And that's kicking the tail.
Talent is being able to sell what you're feeling.
