Ingram’s new service MediaScout connects film and TV professionals with books available for screen adaptation—and makes it easier for titles to get noticed Hollywood runs on stories—and needs great books to help tell them. But
getting books noticed by studios and producers is a challenge in a crowded marketplace.
MediaScout wants to remedy that. The service is a groundbreaking database and innovative research tool that makes it easier for publishers to get their titles discovered by film and TV industry professionals—quickly and efficiently—and considered for screen adaptation.
MediaScout was launched this past March by Ingram Content Group, a global leader in book distribution and innovation. With MediaScout, publishers and agents can upload rights information for studios and production companies to easily access and discover, simplifying the process of getting titles into the right hands—at no cost to them. MediaScout provides advanced search capabilities across millions of titles, including comprehensive rights information, and serves as a one-stop resource for managing and updating
rights information and streamlining the process of tracking and communicating title availability.
Headed by Margaret Hepp Harrison, VP of digital services at Ingram, the service aims to be a low-maintenance tool with
potentially high returns. “Ingram recognized the need for a faster, easier way for publishers to get their titles in front of studios
and production companies,” Harrison says. “MediaScout fits Ingram’s ongoing commitment to implementing technology and innovation in order to get more books into the hands of readers, connecting film and TV studios with screen-ready books.”
With the service, publishers can instantly increase the visibility of their titles, putting them, 24/7, in front of a network of Hollywood players who are actively searching for adaptation opportunities. When a title is added to the database, the publishers’ contact information is front and center, ensuring that film and TV professionals can connect with publishers in a flash if they want to snap up a title and negotiate a deal.
To build the unique technology-driven service, Ingram worked with BCG X, the tech build and design unit of the Boston Consulting Group, and consulted with leaders from media and entertainment organizations and beyond. “Ingram has a long history of
converting publisher, author, bookseller, and library needs into services that help them sell more books,” Harrison says. “The BCG partnership helped us to take that spirit into the film and TV market to help extend our clients’ reach beyond just traditional bookselling.”
MediaScout centralizes rights information and metadata for 2.5 million titles, Ingram says, including frontlist titles and independent and self-published content via IngramSpark, and is the largest collection of titles and rights information in a single service. It makes it easy to find top and undiscovered intellectual property and quickly identify the rights holders.
For any titles missing rights availability, Ingram says that it will track down the information from its extensive book-industry network.
This will simplify the work of film and TV professionals, who can now focus on content development “while MediaScout,” Ingram
says, “does all the heavy lifting.”
While there is no charge to agents or publishers to add their rights data to the service, for film and TV buyers MediaScout is a monthly
subscription. Introductory pricing and sign-up information is available through the company’s website, themediascout.com. The company also supports enterprise licenses for multiple users within an organization.
“MediaScout presents a unique opportunity for publishers and agents to market their available IP to a captive group of buyers,” the company says. Great stories are out there. Now MediaScout wants to help them find their way to Hollywood.
