Running the Show takes you inside building a show from the ground up and what a showrunners life looks like in Hollywood. This unique job covers aspects from the creative to the managerial and everything in between.

Seasoned showrunner Jeffrey Melvoin shares his fascinating insiders perspective on how to call the shots and make the final decisions when choosing and writing scripts, hiring staff, casting, making the budget, and juggling schedules. Along with the managerial responsibilities that keep the show afloat, they are also the visionary for the series and the characters. Melvoin describes how to confidently communicate abstract ideas so they can become the shows reality.

Running the Show reveals the ethical side of show running and writing with humor, integrity, and wisdom.

As a writer/producer/showrunner, Jeffrey Melvoin has worked on over a dozen series including Designated Survivor and Killing Eve. He has taught courses at USC, UCLA, and Harvard, led workshops at the Sundance Institute and the American Film Institute, and chaired the Writers Guild of Americas Showrunner Training Program. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

As a writer and producer, Jeff Melvoin has worked on more than a dozen series, contributing to over 375 hours of one-hour drama as a showrunner. He’s worked in every platform on Emmy-award winning shows. He has taught at USC, UCLA and Harvard, and led workshops at the Sundance Institute, the American Film Institute, and Northwestern. He speaks at professional conferences around the world, and for the past twenty years, he has chaired the Writers Guild of America’s Showrunner Training Program, a six-week master class for emerging writer-producers.

Running The Show is as valuable to would-be showrunners as it is fascinating to veterans. Jeff Melvoin offers that rare combination: up-to-themoment accuracy about a changing television landscape and an insightful historical perspective. Theres great advice in every chapter.
— Michelle & Robert King, creators of The Good Wife and The Good Fight

For me, this was the best book on showrunning Ive ever read. Its for anyone who wants to run shows or just know how theyve been run across the years, even as the medium has changed greatly. It captures the many changes our business has gone through and the larger-than-life personalities and vast challenges one has to navigate and be successful at if you want the dream job of telling stories for TV.
— Greg Berlanti, Executive Producer of over twenty television series, including The Fllight Attendant, All American, You, Supergirl, and others.

Jeff Melvoin is the oracle and Yoda of showrunning, and this book demonstrates his decades of hard work and earned wisdom running award-winning one-hour drama series. Melvoin is also the founder of the Writers Guild Showrunner Training Program, now entering its 18th year, guiding hundreds of top showrunners through the unique challenges and rewards of becoming a successful showrunner. Each compact chapter offers his experiences in the trenches, along with practical advice on developing, pitching, selling, getting staffed in a writers room, and, ultimately, running a show -- all with candor, nuance, humility, and humor.
— Neil Landau, Executive Director, MFA in Film, Television, and Digital Media at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Georgia

A wonderful ride through the raging waters of creating television. It’s a book full of sharp insights, great advice and legitimate wisdom.
— J.J. Abrams, Jeffrey Jacob Abrams, American filmmaker and composer

Melvoin has done pretty much everything in this business. And, more fundamentally, thought about everything. I recommend this book for any writer, or aspiring writer.
— David Shore, producer and writer, The Good Doctor, House

There’s no one in the field who has mentored as many young writers and contributed more to this generation of showrunning than Jeff Melvoin. A powerful and necessary read.
— Veena Sud, Showrunner (Seven Seconds, The Killing, Cold Case)

Whether you aspire to produce a television series or just want to know how it’s done, there’s finally a book with the answers. Invaluable!

It’s rare that a “how-to” book is also a page-turner, but Melvoin has great stories to tell and invaluable skills to share.

An essential book for anyone interested in the form. RUNNING THE SHOW is mandatory reading.
— Edward Saxon, Chair of the Peter Stark Producing Program, USC School of Cinematic Arts; Academy-Award winning producer (The Silence of the Lambs)

An insightful, entertaining, insiders look at the entire process of showrunning written by one of the foremost practitioners of the craft. Jeff Melvoins book is a gift to anyone whos ever considered pursuing a career in television or wondered what a showrunner actually does!
— John Wells, writer-producer-director (ER, The West Wing, Shameless)

Whats it like being a showrunner?" "How do I break into writing television?" "What are writing staffs like?"

Doesnt matter what the question is--from now on, anyone asks, Im just giving them a copy of Jeffs book.

All television is personal" according to Jeff, so Ill get personal. I always knew Jeff was a great teacher--the appendix alone is more valuable than any class I ever took. I also know hes a great drama writer--just look at his credits. I find it annoying that hes so funny. It pains me to say, but its rare that a book this educational is so damn entertaining.
— Bill Lawrence, writer-producer, showrunner, director (Ted Lasso, Cougar Town, Scrubs, Spin City)

Ive spent the last 23 years of my life trying to understand all the tricks, nuances and pitfalls of being a television showrunner and Jeff Melvoin just goes and puts it all in a book for anyone to read? Where was this when I created my first show? Not only an indispensable guide to the mysterious art of creating, selling, staffing, casting, shooting and posting a television show, but also a humorous and humble journey of one mans Hollywood career through some of your favorite shows. For any aspiring television writer, this is just about the most affordable grad level education you can get.
— Shawn Ryan, Executive Producer (The Shield, S.W.A.T.)