Michael Jamin is a TV writer/showrunner. His many credits include King of the Hill, Beavis and Butt-Head, Just Shoot Me, Wilfred, Maron, Rules of Engagement, Brickleberry, Tacoma FD, Rhett & Link's Buddy System, Glenn Martin DDS, Lopez and more. He's sold dozens of pilots and features to major studios. He's also the author of A Paper Orchestra, a collection of personal essays.
Read Michael's collection of personal essays michaeljamin.com/book
See Michael perform his one-man show: michaeljamin.com/tickets
Screenwriting webinars: michaeljamin.com/webinar
Substack michaeljamin.substack.com
Book a private session app.minnect.com/expert/MichaelJamin
Awesome advice! I couldn't agree more! For anyone looking, I do offer script coverage services (and I've sold screenplays); as Michael said, I work for myself (and had Michael on one of my podcasts, and he was awesome!)! I don't work for a company that takes most of the cut.
There is insufficient information to really show how much you make. You didn't mention if these were annual or monthly checks. Also, if these checks are per episode you really should give an example of just one show throughout time. For example, King of the Hill episode X made $5,000 all together. You can then create a ratio of time spent and total money earned with that. So if King of the Hill took you a week to write and you are getting $5,000+ residuals, then it is a great job! Even if it took you a month to write it, you are still a success.
Since you've been so open about TV residuals, I wonder if you would be willing to answer a sort of related question I have been having trouble finding the answer to. Your book is on the library app Hoopla Digital. I know my library has to pay them a few dollars when I borrow a book on it. Do authors see any of that money?
NO WAY Do writers REALLY work t8l 2IM GLAD HE AAID that shoudnt ne the case and writers can o ly work til 5 or 6 right and have a full.and satisfiyng personal life right?? Thanks for sharing
Could u at least give me some direction i have wrote a little but i am 50 year old man disabled but i take care of my mom she is 80 years old and funny as hell buti am no writer need some directions
Hay I have a good story I call it the last old man and it's a story about a small group of old people choosing live out there naturally life while every body else is now taking an anti aging pill I've got allot more but I think there is so much u can do with just that I don't want to ruin it with my ideas I don't really want anything for the idea and I am no brighter but would love to read the story or see it on tv
Can't wait for these idiot authors to learn that training AI on their work isn't copyright infringement. No work was taken which is why they'll lose in court like the dumb artists did when they couldn't produce any work that was actually infringed upon as an example. Learning discreet techniques from authors and applying them to writing isn't theft. Saying it is islike saying that AI stole the D chord from you because you use a D chord in one of your songs that AI was trained on.
Twilight Zone provided Source-Material for the majority of Feature Films for years-upon-years after… One of my favorites was the Episode with William DuVall and the early Episode with Burgess Meredith, the Banker who loved reading Books…
I wish it was that easy to brush it off when it's men harassing young women. There is a poet who now puts her dog in front of the camera instead of herself because those comments turned into a real world threats.
Good info! My wife and I have been watching Room 104. I'll watch it with a different perspective now that I know how much more challenging they are to create!
Ah Michael... let me preface first, that I spent 3000+ hours on building a startup that offers users tools for writing long form content leveraging LLMs... so I "come to this" biased already. But... I am, and will always be, PRO authors, creators, artists! And imagine, there was no convincing needed on your part, eventhough I am biased by default. And your "whole" video was built with solid arguments and delivery was on point... that is... right till the last one, when you kinda ruin it for me... so close, so close... The last argument (and delivery of it, ridiculing the viewers who side with computers) was off, in my opinion. And that is, because is not about computer rights vs human rights, AT ALL! It is about humans vs humans... or more precisely, authors vs people who want to use AI freely. So, from my perspective, I don't want MY RIGHTS to be infringed, that is, the rights to freely use AI, in its full capacity. I don't want some butt-hurt idiot sue openAI, anthropic, google and others, to limit the functionality of AI. Again, to be clear... that would be from my SELFISH perspective. And since I am human, and I care about fairness and absolutely understand the hard work and effort authors put into their craft I am all in favor in fair compensation... even not fair one (as in you guys being paid more that it would be fair). In the ideal world (which I absolutely think is possible, since these companies make enormous amounts of money - also spend a lot, but make much mroe) the authors would be paid very good, so they would be satisfied - the AI would work and deliver at full capacity, users would be happy... AND (this one is the most important - but really, really hard to do)... it would be obviously marked the AI work vs human ... I don't like counterfitting, nor the notion of it. Don't like to be deceived and would never want to deceive anyone. argument done.... but have some extra thoughts... you might continue reading if you done so far? :) it is related. So, yesterday I stunbled upon a tiktok about a girl looking for some inspirations and ideas to get a dragon tatoo. She was stating, that what she sees out there are either too cute ones... or too hard core... and there is not middle ground and she doesn't know what that would look like and was asking for some inspiration or ideas. Well, obviously there was influx of comments and naturally 2 camps formed... one was arguing to use AI for inspiration, the other to absolutely not (coz it is anti artists). I get it. Painters, photographers, song writers, music creators, writers, programmers, designers, etc... we are all soon be out of work... or at least waaaay less oportunities given, because AI is taking our place... I spent 30 years in learning programming, user experience, user interfaces, web development, architecture, data handling, and so much more... but all this knowledge and experience is soon going to be absolete... because nobody will hire me, because they can have all this, for much cheaper and faster with AI. And... tbh, is already happening, much faster than anticipating... Been of paying job since april, bills and dept piling up, moretgage payment missed, many bills missed and is taking huge toll on my mental health!!! but, I am still way more on the other camp's side - on the side of free use of AI. I want to be able to use AI that makes me 100x more productive... I don't want to spend a lot of money paying somebody to do design work for me, or programming work for me.... In my eyes... I now have the capability to do all these (with a tool like AI)... think AI democratizes knowledge and talents, and think this is to me waaay more exciting than being resentful towards it, because it is taking my job I spent 30+ years of sweat, and tears and countless sleepless nights on. Again - def. not saying authors are not entitled to defend their rights and am all for it! And I do wish they win and that a great way of compensation is agreed on... me, myself, I am paying at least $70/month for using AI... would love that at least 1/2 would go towards authors.
Your channel is full of such good real advice I love it! So quick and succinct- basically unheard of on here unfortunately. Clearly you’re used to making every word count.
