It's Rip-Offs All the Way Down, Mr. James
Every so often, maybe once or twice a year, somebody comes up and asks something along the lines of, "Hey, remember when you were pitching that great idea to Joe the Local Moneyed Producer* and he shot you down because it was a stupid idea he said would never work?"
"Yes," I often say. "Yes I do."
"Yeah, well... Don't look now but he's doing it without you."
I should be angrier about this sort of thing than I actually am, but I find that it typically fails to raise my ire for a few reasons:
1. Whatever it is he's doing only resembles the idea I pitched in superficial ways. Maybe because he tuned me out after the part that translated in his brain from whatever I was actually saying to the words cash and grab, or maybe because he thought he could take my basic idea and do it better.
1a. So far, I've only seen it done worse.
2. Which is probably another good reason I'm not upset. The only reason I'd pitch something is because it's too much work or too expensive to do on my own. Knowing that his money and resources would have entitled him to a great deal of say over the final outcome, but that I'd still have been putting in all of the work, I'm actually pretty glad he chose not to involve me.
3. Most of the ideas I pitch are based on something somebody else already did, successfully, and proved could work. All Joe the Producer is doing by trying and failing without me is showing that he can't take a proven formula for success and do much with it.
4. Given points 1 through 3, I kind of like watching Joe the Producer fail.
All that said, I'm probably going to pitch fewer things in the future. Probably going to focus on just a few projects that will resonate with my existing readers. Probably going to do Kickstarters in order to fund them. Probably going to put them on a small stage, preferably with little or no cost for you to attend.
So, I'll let you know when I'm ready to make the next idea happen.