What are you doing tonight? Stay by the phone.
John Gilstrap's million dollar payday. (Part One)
John Gilstrap’s agent, Molly Friedrich, had just sold his debut novel, Nathan’s Run to Harper Collins when she called him on the phone back in 1996. She told him she’d sold the foreign rights in Brazil, Great Britain, France, and twenty-two other countries.
She’d sold his book on a Wednesday and was calling two days later. “How does it feel to be the most talked about author in New York?” she asked him.
He’d never imagined anything like this.
“What are you doing tonight?” she went on. It was Friday and in the Gilstrap household, it was pizza night and a movie with the family. She told him to stay near the phone. Seven movie studios were bidding on the film rights for Nathan’s Run.
Gilstrap was dumbfounded.
Mathew Snyder, his movie agent with Creative Artists, quickly called to tell him two studios had dropped out of the bidding war. Phone calls volleyed back and forth all evening. Finally, the last studios, Fox, Disney, and Warner Bros., went head-to-head. Snyder called again to tell him Fox was out.
“A ridiculous amount of money was on the table from Disney, but it was good for only ten minutes,” Gilstrap says. Snyder told him he hadn’t heard back from Warner Bros. in the latest round of bids. “Then why are we talking?” Gilstrap responded, worried the Disney bid would expire.
Two minutes were left. Still no call from Warner Bros. And then it came.
They matched Disney’s offer.
“I just want to bounce it back and forth,” Snyder explained over the phone. “Mind if I keep trying?”
“Why would I mind?” Gilstrap couldn’t believe the amount of money on the table.
Soon, Warner Bros. won the auction. The check cleared and the movie was never made––not uncommon in Hollywood. But Gilstrap got the pay day every writer dreams of. The week before, he’d cancelled his subscription to The Washington Post because it was too expensive. Today, he was more than a million dollars richer.
“As my wife Joy said at one point when the numbers were going around, ‘okay, the book is good, but let’s be honest. It’s not that good’,” Gilstrap says. “It’s the nature of the entertainment business.”
“There are really a lot of talented people who don’t’ get the lightning strike…I think I’m good at what I do, but there’s a lot of luck involved.”
I’m Rick Pullen, former investigative reporter, magazine editor, and author of the best selling thriller Naked Ambition, its sequel Naked Truth, and a stand-alone thriller The Apprentice. I’m also a magazine columnist and feature writer. Currently, I’m working on my latest crime novel and a non-fiction book about many of the authors who appear in Idol Talk. Literary Agent Terrie Wolf of AKA Literary Management represents my work.
Thanks for reading Idol Talk! Subscribe for free or support my work with a paid subscription. — Rick Pullen