Today we’d like to introduce you to Sanjay Burman.
Hi Sanjay, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I started at 14 getting coffee for a woman who was a high-up executive with Toronto Film Festival. She let me bombard her with questions and taught me about the movie industry in exchange for being an intern and running errands. That led to becoming a segment producer at 16 for the CBC Newsworld. By 21 I was an agent for Canada’s largest talent agency and headed up my own division called ‘packaging’. The job of putting a book, screenwriter, producer, and director together, and selling the whole package. This got me interested in the publishing side and how deals are put together. By representing authors, I was able to see how the industry worked. By 23 I had packaged E! Network’s first film, Best Actress. I left being an agent and found an orphaned script called Spider. No one wanted to make it, so it was given to me to see if I can do something with it. Seeing how dark it was and to be honest, a little weird, I knew only one director getting attached could breathe new life into it.
Now, having been suspended for selling my high school to Pepsi (which is not allowed apparently), I lack the typical social etiquette one is usually born with, and therefore not afraid to take an opportunity when it comes. I sat in front of David Cronenberg’s home on a Wed night for 1.5 hours waiting for him to come home. When he pulled in, I jumped out and exclaimed it must be fate! I handed him the script and told him Ralph Fiennes was on board (he wasn’t). I then raced home and contacted Fienne’s agent and told him Cronenberg was on board (he wasn’t). Luckily both loved the script and when they met in person, I gulped very hard. Luckily no one became the wiser as to how I got them both on board, but the film no one wanted went on to win TIFF and an award at Cannes Film Festival.
The film world was still exciting but it takes a very long time for projects to come to fruition, if ever. Johnny Depp’s people called me one night and told me he liked Spider and has a project he wants to get made but it has stalled. The project was about Shakespear and the idea that he didn’t write his own plays. I negotiated for a writer of mine to re-write the script. Everyone agreed. Suddenly the director asked me to look at an email. My client had gone around me to avoid paying commission on the job. I was hurt, mad, and betrayed. I told my father. He calmly told me that I had become very arrogant, deceitful and this was karma. If I continue to live life this way, these types of events will keep happening. At that point, I agreed, closed my laptop, and was out of the business.
The next day, sitting in a park, I meet a woman and we started to talk about my life being a waste as I had worked so hard and now at 24, was in a midlife crisis. She told me to take her class. What class? What do I care, I was unemployed. The next day I walked into a hypnotherapy class. Learning how people have taken control of their brain and body function, and have had open-heart surgery without anesthetic, or remembered things from childhood, floored me. I became obsessed with it. Learning day, nights, practicing on people I would approach in the smoking areas of malls just to get experience. I then pursued teachers in Chicago, New York, and UK. Still having the clinic today on weekends, I work with severe addicts, split personalities, and most recently brain aneurysms. But this got me thinking…why should people pay me, when they can learn how to take control of their bodies on their own?
I started a publishing company only for self-help books. I lost everything in the first year. Wrong cover prices, wrong trim sizes, wrong cover art. Back at square one, I was getting dental surgery. I thought $5000 x how many patients per year, this surgeon is doing well. He could be my savior! I walked out with a cheque for $269,000 and was able to restart over again.
Tip: when asked to go somewhere or meet someone, no matter how much you don’t want to, do it! Nothing to lose and something will come out of it. In this case, I was asked to go to a ‘raw food’ cooking party. The three McD’s I passed while going there should have been a sign, but nevertheless, walking into a black apartment, with black walls and ceiling, and some awkward space music in the background while a woman is in a rocking chair stroking a cat, should have made me leave, I walked into a party that would change my life… or end it. Friends had met me there and we were served a plate of what looked like grass trimmings. I could tell based on raking my parents’ lawn after mowing it. My friend, now drunk and trying to forget this memory, leans over and tells me we are eating ‘F-ing weeds on a Friday night’. I had to agree. We decided to leave and head to McD’s. Just as I was leaving, a woman handed me a DVD and told me to check it out. Two days later I saw it in my backseat and watched it. It was a bootleg copy of The Secret. I watched it again. Then called my lawyer/friend and told him to watch it. I drove it to him and he was liked it but was confused as to what I was thinking. I’m going to sign these people to my little publishing house.
Once Bob Proctor, Joe Vitale, John Demartini, and Marie Diamond signed on after relentlessly calling, emailing, or in one case, showing up at their home, The Secret went crazy and the authors were on Oprah, Larry King and every publisher was pursuing them. Too bad, we had them. This put us on the map. From there, I wanted to do something without the motive of reward, so we published the Making it in High Heels series. My answer to help girls deal with peer pressures and hopefully lower the suicide rate. It turned out to do more than that, the books were read by women of all ages, then turned into networking events and eventually we started to give women in shelters a night of motivation, networking opportunities and show their lives can change.
After 19 years, 320 books, I still enjoy it but also felt based on the changes with streaming, e-books, etc., I was drawn back to the film industry and started IndieVue.com. Streaming with an experience for the viewer, we now have 500,000 subscribers and focus my time on publishing and trying to raise expansion capital for IndieVue.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Anyone who gets involved with going against the odds, paving a new road, or jumping a hurdle they are physically at a disadvantage, is going to have the same struggles. Financial, opportunistic, and criticism. Even today, with successes I have had, raising money for a new venture is proving to be an uphill battle. Not even rich kids have a smooth road. They may not have the same challenges that one experiences, but they do have their own. I have learned to keep my eye on the goal. Don’t compare myself to others who have it better seemingly, or attained their goals quicker. It’s not a race, it’s a marathon.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about BurmanBooks Media / IndieVue.com?
BurmanBooks.com is a publishing house for motivational, health, and business books.
IndieVue.com is an interactive streaming site for the indie film and doc lover.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
Pizza. Being productive. Making my parents, friends, and family laugh. Helping those who are emotionally suffering.
I think Mother Theresa was correct when she said focus on helping others, and your problems will seem insignificant. It’s worked every single time for me.
Ok, that doesn’t apply with Pizza, as my problem after that is motivating myself to go the gym. Sigh.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: BurmanBooks.com / IndieVue.com
- Instagram: Burmanbooks
- Facebook: Sanjay Burman
- Youtube: Sanjay Burman
Image Credits
Burmanbooks Media
