You Only Need To Find One Champion Of Your Work

Like the majority of authors out there, I struggled to get my debut novel – The Reincarnationist Papers – picked up by an agent and a publisher.  I tried for over a year until I finally decided to self-publish the novel.

But I did more than just self-publish; I came up with a plan to incentivize my readers to act as the agent that struggled to find.

I accomplished this by offering a cash reward – the standard agent’s commission to be precise – on the first page of the self-published novel, to any reader who would introduce the book to a Hollywood producer or traditional publisher who would pick up the book and get it to a wider audience.

It seemed like a radical idea but I didn’t see any harm in it.  And it sounded like it could be a fun way to engage readers.

I received a few inquiries in the first year, but I got to that important first yes when Rafi Crohn, a junior exec at a Hollywood production company, found the book in a hostel in Nepal while travelling. Rafi loved the book and he contacted me about the reward offer. He was that first yes, that validation that I had been hunting for over two years.

Rafi took The Reincarnationist Papers to several studios to get it adapted into a movie, and like the true champion of the book that he was, he wouldn’t take no for an answer.  Eventually, Rafi brokered an option to Bellevue Productions who contracted screenwriter Ian Shorr to adapt the book into a screenplay.  In 2017, Bellevue sold Shorr’s adapted screenplay, INFINITE, to Paramount Pictures.  The movie stars Mark Wahlberg, Dylan O’Brien, and Chiwetel Ejiofor, and is scheduled to premiere on September 24, 2021.

I paid the reward to Rafi in December 2019, the same month that this journey came full circle when a literary agent approached me and helped me ink a book deal with a traditional publisher for The Reincarnationist Papers and others in the series.

Rafi and I are still friends, and he is a beta reader for other books in the series. Rafi’s tenacity also earned him an IMDB credit as Executive Producer for INFINITE.

We endure a lot of rejection as writers, but keep going – you may only need to find one yes to get your break.

D. Eric Maikranz

Author Website | Infinite Movie on IMDB

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