New Media Opportunities for Writers

Posted on January 3, 2006

As television and media continue to evolve in the digital age, opportunities for writers are expanding. This interesting article discusses how hit tv shows such as Lost and Nip and Tuck are expanding into a variety of new media, such as novels, blogs and cellphone downloads. Backstories are being written for minor characters on hit shows, webpages are being created for infamous characters as if they were real people (such as the Myspace.com webpage for the serial killer from Nip and Tuck) and a novel is being published by Hyperion that purports to be written by one of the passengers on Oceanic Flight 815 (the "author" was killed off in the pilot of Lost, after he had "just emailed his manuscript to his publisher").

Writers who now suddenly find themselves blogging for their characters, creating novels for them or sharing perspective on a website will eventually need to be compensated for the extra work, Cuse said.
"That is very much going to be at the forefront of all the new labor negotiations, particularly with the Writers Guild, because writers are at the center of television series production and all of these new ideas are ultimately writer-based," Cuse said. "Right now, our involvement in this is about being involved in the cutting edge of these emerging technologies and learning how it works."
Just as iTunes transformed the music industry by turning singles into a viable revenue source again, Cuse and Lindelof believe their show is at the forefront of the television revolution.
"We're exploring a new frontier here in a lot of ways," Lindelof said. "So it's best to see what it is first, as opposed to everybody walking up to the cash register and saying, pay me, and then we'll do the exploring."

This is nothing but good news for writers. And because of the aggressive stance of the Writer's Guild, all this extra work for screenwriters and novelists is going to be compensated. It's a good thing. Kudos to Cuse and Lindelof for being on the forefront of these exciting new developments...and for having an amazing show, as well.