Todd at 2012-07-11 16:24:04:
No, it's much less. If there's no bidding war and it's an unproduced writer, who are the people usually writing on spec, it's almost always closer to scale. Which is now 87k, not 119k -- the 119k number includes a treatment which doesn't happen and isn't part of a spec sale. Also, remember these aren't really sales, they're optons. They don't buy it until it goes into production, which is extremely rare. So they could option is for 10k, and pay you scale plus 10% for the one step rewrite -- something like 35k -- so you're spec "sale" is really a 45k against 125k (if it's made) deal. I'd say a much more realistic average "spec sale" for an unproduced writer is 45-100k, with a bonus of another 100k if it's one of the extremely few that ever gets made.