STV Studios Inks Deals for Two New Book Options

STV Studios has secured the television rights for two new books—The Accidental Influencer: How My Need to Get Likes Nearly Ruined My Life by Bella Younger and Tom Rasmussen’s First Comes Love.

“We’re incredibly excited about these projects, which will see us expand into a new space with particular appeal for younger audiences and which exemplify our clear commitment to new voices and diverse lived experienced stories,” said Sarah Brown, creative director of drama for STV Studios.

Brown added: “We’re thrilled to be working closely with Bella and Tom on the scripts—both are huge talents, and we feel privileged to be developing their hilarious, insightful and sometimes heartbreaking personal stories for television.”

The Accidental Influencer tells Younger’s own story—that of someone who launched a parody wellness Instagram account that became an overnight viral phenomenon. It follows the journey from the idea to the quest for more followers and ultimate burnout, ending with a stint at the Priory for social media addiction.

In First Comes Love, Rasmussen takes readers on a journey to wildly different weddings and examines the ways we live and love today through their personal lens.

Younger and Rasmussen will adapt their respective books for the screen, working closely with STV Studios Drama. The Accidental Influencer and First Comes Love will be developed by Claire Armspach, STV’s head of drama development, and Brown.

Younger said: “Anyone who’s read my book, or maybe even just met me, will know that telling my story on the screen has been a lifelong dream. I’m thrilled to be working with the wonderful team at STV Studios and grateful for the chance to put more words into influencers’ mouths.”

Rasmussen said: “While addictive and often therapeutic, the ways we have been shown love and other ways of being together on screen are, for the most part, deeply unimaginative. It’s thrilling to start from a place of imagination with the team at STV—asking for more from our love stories and expecting more of their protagonists. This will not be a show about how to find a man, how to keep a relationship, how to get married. That’s dull. It will be a show about what it means to make decisions about how to live in a time when options are plentiful, and yet judgments abound. It will be a show that interrogates the friction between politics and emotion, all with unusual love and hope at its center.”