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Players in the Short-Story-to-Film Pipeline
The reason I’m on Substack and the question driving my account: What do we do when self-published short stories are selling for film but there’s zero interest from trad publishers?
Recently, I wrote there’s people trying to fill this gap. Many of you asked for details. Here goes:
SWEATER LA Founded by manager Thuan Dang, they curate a short story newsletter that goes to film industry insiders.
NEOTEXT Founded by producer John Schoenfelder, very smart idea but more for established genre authors. Neotext pays them to develop new IPs along with their producing team and then they publish.
ASSEMBLE ARTIFACTS Founded by producer Jack Heller, they publish a magazine with film-forward short stories. (They published my first story “retro” years ago.) Last issue was Fall 2025. Unclear they’re still going, but finding out. Website out of date.
EPIC MAGAZINE and TRULY ADVENTUROUS These are both journalist-based companies focused on longform nonfiction with an eye to film & TV, although the guys at Truly Adventurous told me they’re possibly venturing into fiction soon.
12:01 BOOKS Manager/producer Scott Glassgold has worked with Verve agent David Boxerbaum to have the most impressive short-story-to-film sales track record of the decade. Scott launched a horror book imprint recently at S&S/Atria. Not sure they publish the short stories they’ve sold big for film, though.
This is hardly exhaustive. But what it says most to me is: there’s a huge opportunity in this space. I’ve begged Substack corporate to pay attention. (Got nothing but crickets.)