Jason Scoggins at Protocol (featured on Nikki Finke) has put together a rough list of spec screenplay sales for the year. It’s not good. Everyone in the business knows it’s not been good. These aren’t the figures I heard, but they’re pretty close. (For those who don’t know, a spec sale is where a writer writes a screenplay first and then tries to sell it, as opposed to how a lot of movies are made, where the studio has bought material based on a pitch, or property and then commissions the screenplay)

436 spec scripts came out in 2009, of which 72 sold (17%).

• 373 specs went out wide in 2009, of which 19 sold (5%). Of those 19, only 3 sold after April 30th, out of 178 attempts during the period (1.7%).

• As for spec sals by genre, comedies led with 32% of sales, thrillers 29%, action adventures 21%, while dramas and sci-fi/fantasies tied with 10%.

Think about that. 72 spec screenplays sold in a year.

Still want to break into this business?