Guess we’ll just have to… read the books then?

If you’ve been waiting for a favorite book to be adapted into a TV show or movie, you miiiiight need to wait a little longer.

That’s per a WSJ report, published yesterday, that states major Hollywood studios including Netflix and Amazon have paused most book-adaptation deals. The decision comes amid the ongoing writer’s strike that has left studios with no screenwriters to adapt books into scripts.

Here’s how book-adaptations generally work:

1. Optioning the rights: A studio will pay for the exclusive right – or “option” – to turn your book into a movie or TV show. Fees vary widely from $1,500 to seven figures.
2. Exercising the option: The studio exercises its option to buy the rights for your book for a fee that’s usually 2-3% of the total budget for the show/movie. So if the movie’s budget is $20 million, you’d get $400,000 at 2%.

Almost none of the books that are optioned by studios end up making it to the screen. But despite this, thousands of authors still make part of their income on their books’ film rights being optioned or bought.

🍿 Coming soon: One book adaptation you won’t need to wait much longer for is Flamin’ Hot, an Eva Longoria-directed biopic about the man who claims to have invented the Flaming Hot Cheetos. The movie hits theaters and Disney+ on June 9, and is based on the memoir A Boy, a Burrito and a Cookie: From Janitor to Executive by Richard Montañez.