Last month, mediabistro.com threw a party at chic L.A. hotel The Standard to celebrate the publication of its latest media industry handbook, Small Screen, Big Picture: A Writer's Guide To The TV Business. Author Chad Gervich (left) mingled freely with the crowd; in an interview with our own Jason Boog earlier that month, he talked about the book's approach to its subject:

"I wanted to begin at first giving readers a bird's-eye view of the entire industry. There are six or seven media conglomerates that control everything. They are making the financial and commercial decisions that affect the shows that get on television. I begin by explaining life in television at the top of the food chain, and I slowly go deeper and deeper into the system. We talk about how networks function, then studios, then production companies, and finally, how production companies and writers create shows. After that, we literally follow a show from the moment it's pitched through production. We follow it from doing the deal to developing the show as a pilot; through the pilot pickup to shooting the pilot. We watch that show get picked up, as the show runner hires his crew, what happens in the writers' room, how the show is physically produced every week, and how the show is marketed."

Read an excerpt from Small Screen, Big Picture about the fundamentals of great television writing.