Coverfly Is Shutting Down. What Does This Mean for Screenwriters?

Moments ago, I was forwarded an email by a friend. It was from Coverfly, informing them that the website was going to shut down soon. I'll add a screen grab of it below. It says the site will officially die on August 1st, 2025. If you have material on there, I would suggest removing it beforehand. The shutting down of yet another outlet that was designed to help screenwriters break in is a bleak and upsetting announcement. Let's unpack it together. What Does This Mean For Screenwriters? While I was a little suspicious about many of the screenwriting websites being owned by one huge company like Industry Arts, it was nice for writers not living in Los Angeles to have another place where they could post their work and try to find agents and managers to break into Hollywood. The email says it's part of the parent company's strategy. I do wonder if that strategy is just eliminating all of these sites so they can recreate them in one form elsewhere, but without inside knowledge, that's just speculation. These are the same people who shut down Screencraft, WeScreenplay, and The ScriptLab. Coverfly was useful for writers to post their work, show contest placement, and it was nice to have just another site available for that. It feels like the only ones left are The Black List and Stage32, but it's always good to have some competition. The people I am most upset for are the writers not living in Los Angeles, who wanted a safe website to post and share ideas. This just adds to the difficulty of breaking in. I also liked Coverfly's policy of peer-to-peer reading, which was a nice way to get advice and eyeballs on your script, with an incentive to read other's work as well. I also feel bad for the people who were constantly posting their achievements on Coverfly -- I actually did think that was a fun way to incentivize reps to read your work and at least separated the good from the bad at some level. All of those accolades you got, which I assume many of you spent money on via contests, will be completely gone. That really sucks as well. It would be easy to be snarky at this time, but it sucks to see another avenue into Hollywood shut down. Let me know what you think in the comments.

May 1, 2025 - 01:34

Coverfly Is Shutting Down. What Does This Mean for Screenwriters?

Moments ago, I was forwarded an email by a friend. It was from Coverfly, informing them that the website was going to shut down soon. I'll add a screen grab of it below.

It says the site will officially die on August 1st, 2025. If you have material on there, I would suggest removing it beforehand.

The shutting down of yet another outlet that was designed to help screenwriters break in is a bleak and upsetting announcement.

Let's unpack it together.

What Does This Mean For Screenwriters?

While I was a little suspicious about many of the screenwriting websites being owned by one huge company like Industry Arts, it was nice for writers not living in Los Angeles to have another place where they could post their work and try to find agents and managers to break into Hollywood.

The email says it's part of the parent company's strategy. I do wonder if that strategy is just eliminating all of these sites so they can recreate them in one form elsewhere, but without inside knowledge, that's just speculation.

These are the same people who shut down Screencraft, WeScreenplay, and The ScriptLab.

Coverfly was useful for writers to post their work, show contest placement, and it was nice to have just another site available for that.

It feels like the only ones left are The Black List and Stage32, but it's always good to have some competition.

The people I am most upset for are the writers not living in Los Angeles, who wanted a safe website to post and share ideas. This just adds to the difficulty of breaking in. I also liked Coverfly's policy of peer-to-peer reading, which was a nice way to get advice and eyeballs on your script, with an incentive to read other's work as well.

I also feel bad for the people who were constantly posting their achievements on Coverfly -- I actually did think that was a fun way to incentivize reps to read your work and at least separated the good from the bad at some level.

All of those accolades you got, which I assume many of you spent money on via contests, will be completely gone. That really sucks as well.

It would be easy to be snarky at this time, but it sucks to see another avenue into Hollywood shut down.

Let me know what you think in the comments.