Agent Uses YouTube Clip to Land Seven-Figure Deal

by Rachel Deahl, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 3/5/2007

Curtis Brown agent Elizabeth Sheinkman knew she had a special proposal on her hands with Rupert Isaacson's manuscript-to-be about his inspirational journey with his autistic son. Yet The Horse Boy was far from your traditional memoir. It was pitched as an inspirational to-be-written memoir about Isaacson's forthcoming trip to Mongolia with his son to visit shamans on horseback. (Isaacson's son is mysteriously calmed by the equine presence, and shamans have, also mysteriously, had a profound and immediate effect on the boy.) In other words, pitched wrong, the book could sound like the punch line to a bad joke.

That the book had an added film component (see "Hollywood Reader" from this week's PW)—Isaacson is working with friends to film his journey and the project is in pre-production and set to premiere at Sundance in 2008)—gave Sheinkman an idea. She asked Isaacson, who was planning on putting some sample footage on YouTube, to hold off putting up clips until she had sent his proposal to editors.

Sheinkman then included links to a five-minute clip posted on MySpace and YouTube in the final pitch. She wound up selling the title to Little, Brown's Judy Clain for seven figures after a six-way auction. While Sheinkman won't say that the clip sold the book, she does think it helped. "It really contextualized the story," she said over the phone from England. "The book is at once a father-son story and an east meets west one, and so much more. And the clip really helped elucidate who [Isaacson] is and what his voice was."

The book is presently at auction in the U.K., and Sheinkman has offers in from 10 other countries.