How to Make It in Hollywood: Second Edition

By Linda Buzzell

Book Overview

Renowned psychotherapist and career counselor Linda Buzzell is the expert in knowing how to create and develop a career in Hollywood. With this book, she shows you how to look at your personality, your strengths, your weaknesses, your special skills, and your talents in order to target your personal goals and maximize your career success. She then explains all the jobs in Hollywood and how to find them, get them, and advance through each stage in your career. How To Make It in Hollywood includes everything you need to know about agents, managers, lawyers, the casting couch, chutzpah, schmoozing, networking, Godfather Calls, rhino skin, Power Rolodexes, handling rejection, constant unemployment, and keeping yourself on the track to your dreams when real life keeps telling you to give it all up and move back to Cincinnati!

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0062732439
• ISBN13: 9780062732439
• Release Date: February 1996
• Publisher: It Books
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.3" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Buy this Book

If you are serious about a career in the entertainment industry, this book is more valuable than a college education. I can honestly say that this book gives you all of the advice you need to be successful in almost any given field. More importantly it doesn't sugarcoat anything. If this business isn't right for you, you'll know by about 40 pages in. My one complaint, and it is a small one, is that some of the information is a little dated. Specifically the sections on CGI and the internet. As far as the rest of the fields go, the information still applies today. Buy this book. Read it cover to cover. Do what the author says, and you will have a career in Hollywood. I cannot recommend this enough.

More than just Hollywood

This book was required reading for an exploratory class I was taking on Entertainment Technology Careers. It proved to teach me a lot more than just that, it gives you insightful and helpful tips as well as the exercises within the chapters that assist you in finding out what it is that you really want to do and where your motivation comes from. I think it is an invaluable book for not only people seeking work in the entrainment field but for people who aren't really sure which way to go about it or which end they'd like to be in.

Great Advice for Any Market!

A great book for anyone in the entertainment industry, not just the film industry; covers in depth topics such as how to network and how to handle rejection, and how many attempts one can expect to make before securing a position in the industry. Also great advice on entertainment resume writing; I'm already looking forward to the next edition!

Buying & reading this book = a smart career move!!!!

If you only have enough money to buy one book about show-biz careers, this should be the one! Buzzell brings her background as a career counselor to the table, as well as her stints at various film studios. She knows what YOU need to know and she share that knowledge in an accessible way. I would recommend this book to anyone considering ANY job in the entertainment industry. It's not just for actors or other so-called "talents", it's a must-read for technical/crew people as well.

Essential for anyone in the entertainment, or creative, biz

Buzzell's book is like having a personal career counselor at hand 24 hours a day. This is not about headshots or mailrooms or union dues, but about the self-marketing skills necessary to get and keep working in a highly competitive, volatile field -- and keep sane! She homes in on the critical business skills necessary, including positioning yourself, developing a presence and industry image, tested networking techniques for the creative fields, and much more insightful career planning for all areas of the entertianment industry -- above and below line. She also helps you put your goals, triumphs and falls in perspective; a reasonable, attainable strategy to keep working; and honest cautionary tales and motivational techniques. The secret to "making it" is out. But I recommend this book not only to people pursuing Hollywood dreams, but to friends seeking careers in Silicon Valley or any other field where marketing one's self and "soft" skills (e.g., programming, art, design) are critical. Whenever I feel lost in my career, I go back to this book.