IP Finds 🔎: There's Gold in Them Thar Cons
Crypto bros, sweepstakes scammers and other miscreants abound in this week's picks
Welcome to The Optionist! I want to say welcome to the dog days of summer, but with L.A. schools back in session this week maybe “I hope you enjoyed summer” is better? I’ll never get used to how early schools open now.
Big thanks to John August and Craig Mazin for the shoutout on their excellent Scriptnotes podcast. I’m not gonna lie: It made me genuinely laugh out loud to be listening along to one of my regular podcasts, only to hear The Optionist pop up. If you’re one of the people who decided to sample the newsletter after hearing about us on the pod, welcome aboard! Drop me a line and let me know what you think.
As a reminder: Solo subscriptions to The Optionist are $250 a month (or $2,500 a year — that’s two months free if you buy the year upfront). Think about it as $62 a week — a great value for having an extra set of hands in your organization to find material. If you’re interested in a group subscription for your organization, email me at andy@theoptionist.community for more information. Or hey, how about making The Optionist the best intern goodbye gift from the team, or a “thanks for letting us use your beach house” gift to close out the summer? Your host promises to bring you on as a producer if they find a project through us. Pinky swear!
Anyway, that review of Jared Kushner’s new book in The New York Times was something else this week. When he’s on his game, Dwight Garner is one of the best reviewers around — witty, smart and ruthless when called for. Absolutely worth a read.
Also a couple of other items from the book world that I wanted to flag for your attention, both of which serve as a reminder about just how many people dream of becoming a published author. First, there was this story about how a crook is impersonating agent Julie Barer and scamming aspiring authors by charging them for “representation.”
Then there was this tweet from Lucienne Diver at the Knight Agency:
I’m flagging not because I think it’s unusual, but because it’s typical. (If you ever wondered why so many book agents have “closed to queries” on their social media bios, this is is why.) Most agents probably don’t get this many — Diver does a lot of fantasy and sci-fi, which probably has a bigger pool of hopefuls — but the general idea holds. If they open the door to it, book agents, who are really on the fronts of front lines in the IP race, can get overwhelmed with solicitations. And it is also a reminder of how much work and gatekeeping goes into a story before it ever lands in your local bookstore (or on screen).
Now on to this week's picks. This is one of those weeks where I wish I had a fund to option material myself because these picks are gold. Let’s start with the cons and crypto bros too bad to be true!