IP Picksđ: âWhite Lotusâ in Rehab & âRosemaryâs Babyâ for Tradwives
â Whatâs old is new again: Donât overlook journalism archives!
Welcome to The Optionist. Thanks for reading along!
In todayâs picks, a blast from the past. Iâve got a fantastic article that was first published in the mid-2010s for you. It is the second criminally overlooked story from the archives Iâve come across this month. I was recently discussing this with an agent. They pointed out that thereâs so much competition to snap up the rights to the latest âhot new storyâ that it not only crowds out other great stories but also discourages people from exploring the back catalog.
I suspect that some of this is a âripped-from-the-headlinesâ effect â where too much value is placed on the newsiness of a story because it makes it easier to sell to the public. But Iâm convinced that âbased on a true storyâ has a longer shelf life than most people think. Some of it also comes from the fact that digging up backlist journalism feels like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Unless youâre looking for a specific story, itâs hard to know where to begin.
Thereâs a market inefficiency here. Thereâs a lot of great adaptable journalism thatâs being overlooked and undervalued, mainly since much of it can be acquired relatively inexpensively. Many legacy publications, desperate for every penny they can find, have become wise to the untapped value in their archives and are now moving to exploit it.
A few publications have been pretty successful at this â Texas Monthly comes to mindâ but, for the most part, these efforts havenât yielded the results they probably hoped for. Those who have been good at it are the ones who have devoted resources to searching through their archives, repackaging these classic stories for todayâs market, and really pitching them. It takes a real commitment to make this work.
I think the contraction of long-form journalism in magazines and newspapers actually makes these archival stories even more valuable. Many great magazines are either shells of their former selves or have disappeared. Newspapers donât do as much long-form reporting and the short-attention span internet doesnât value length. Take this piece which came out in a fantastic start-up magazine t from early this century thatâs no longer with us. (If you want to know which one, youâll have to upgrade to a paid subscription.)
I donât want to sound like some old guy shaking his fist at the clouds â change happens and Iâm cool with that â but the decline of long-form writing has reduced an essential supply of IP. Thereâs so much gold in these archives that to overlook them is to ignore a veritable treasure trove of optionable IP.
đ This Week: A fresh âWhite Lotusâ spin, a real-life Carl Hiaasen character and a tradwife horror tale.
On to this weekâs picks! I couldnât just ignore the fact that Halloween falls on Optionist day this year, so Iâve got a creepy horror tale that riffs on the current tradwife trend to get you in the seasonal mood. Plus, a terrific story from the journalism archives about a farm-country PI who feels like he stepped right out of a bestselling novel.
The full lineup for paid subscribers:
đ¤ A country-music murder-mystery comedy is precisely the kind of weird genre that makes you want to know more, right?
đŠâđź A Rosemaryâs Baby for the tradwife generation that centers on a young influencer who dreams of having a childâŚbut the devil turns out to be in the details.
đ A White Lotus-in-rehab limited series that follows three B-list celebs all trying to get clean and a mysterious dead body.
đľď¸ââď¸A Bosch-like procedural thatâs series-ready, revolving around a female detective in Northern California.
đ A procedural series with a fun twist about a farm-country PI who investigates cattle rustling and crop thieving.
