An InkTip horror story

Quite a while back I asked readers if they had any experience with InkTip. I didn't get many responses then, but recently a reader named Anne wrote in with her experience. It seems she wasn't terribly satisfied with them. I've heard anecdotially that other people have had better luck, so I'm not putting this in as a general "InkTip is a scam" post, but rather, to encourage others to post their feedback regarding the site.

Take it away, Anne...

The following is written without prejudice, based on my experiences with InkTip. I am not saying I am a great writer but some of my scripts were Quarter Finalists and few received Consider status. So this is just an educated opinion and not sour grapes.

I stayed with InkTip for almost four years. I had a lot of activity but no substance and definitely no results. Over the years, I had better results from one shot e-mail queries from Script Express and others. No kidding. Their producers are a bunch of young wannabees , or unemployed actors looking for a new gig. Some of them are not even listed on Imdb. There is no background info on them, anywhere. I seriously question their connections to the industry. I found InkTip's vetting process extremely lax, sloppy and irresponsible. They don't even bother to check for references. Name dropping is enough for them. Some of their "Industry professionals" wrote back to me after accessing the script on InkTip, telling me they liked my style of writing, etc. and requested the script with a release form. Afterward, either I heard nothing again or they wrote back to sell their services to me for script consulting. One even requested $10,000 to re-write the script without telling me what was wrong with it. When I informed InkTip of this, I was told that they were aware of it and the person was asked to leave and no longer was associated with them, although they were listing the services of the same person on their database. Go figure.

I drew the line when LA Film School (including scriptwriting) student posed as a producer and asked me how much I would demand for the production rights of my script. Upon checking, I noticed that she accessed the script many times over, on the site, and further queries indicated that she was indeed a student. When I asked for an explanation, InkTip treated me like an idiot, trying to convince me that they were producers as well as a film school. Further queries indicated that, although they did student productions, it was mostly for the work of their scriptwriting students. InkTip kept defending their actions, refusing to see the seriousness of the situation. That did it! Consequently, I cancelled all five of my scripts and subscription of the preferred newsletter and parted company. Thanks but no thanks. It was obvious I could not trust them anymore.

The whole thing in my experience was a bust. It's a useless money pit, only benefiting Jerrol and company and never the writer. I also witnessed that their loyalty is directed to industry members on their database and not to the writers, who pay dearly for their services. One is better off going to MovieBytes and subscribing to "Who is Buying What" and then pitching directly to those producers.

Lately, I have been getting a lot of e-mails from all over, advertising forthcoming InkTip Pitch festival. If we're dealing with the same calibre of producers, I'll say save your money. It's not worth it.