The Agent-Potential Faery-Tale
Every day someone asks me how they should get an agent. If you are asking that question, you don’t really need one. I want to be honest with you, without being too blunt. Unless you have considerable experience, training and ability, you do not need one. You’re simply not ready.
Do you have anything to offer an agent? Most people reply that they have POTENTIAL. I do not question for a second whether you have potential or not. That’s not my place to say.
But I want to warn you that the Agent-Potential Faery Tale is a story that will break your heart.
There is a Faery-Tale that goes that if you could only get to an agent, if you could only talk to them, if you could only convince them, if they would give you a break, then you would prove your worth, prove your potential.
Now maybe that’s true. But the Agent-Potential Faery Tale is just that: a fantasy.
We have bought into the fantasy that it doesn’t take training, or experience, or knowledge of the industry – but luck. Right place, right time. That lucky luck of the lucky protagonist in the Agent-Potential Faery Tale who gets lucky and is allowed to shine.
Just because So and So got picked up in an airport lounge and put in a movie, does not make that an approach you should invest in. They were lucky. You can’t invest in luck. You can only make it.
If you want an agent, you’re going to have to earn it.
Earn their trust, earn their belief, earn their respect. And yes, people do get signed in shopping malls and airport lounges, but they are the exception, and they are a faery-tale that you must not invest in.
You must invest in experience, in training, in knowledge, in skill, in personal development and growth. And when you do that, a professional agent may invest in you.
Do not break your heart believing in faery tales.
When you need an agent, you’ll know. And if you don’t know, ask someone you trust, someone in the industry. Not got industry contacts? Then that’s your answer.
When you are ready to have an agent, you’ll have that combination of experience, skill, knowledge and character that will make you attractive to an agent.