Dear Sarah,
The question of agents is a perennial topic among people looking for more work.
I have never had an agent but do know several people who do. I have also met a
few agents and been on a workshop run by a music/entertainment agency for
aspiring artists in London.
There are different models of "agent" from a simple diary and booking service
to what amounts to a personal assistant to a fulltime one-to-one agent.
Some are paid as a flat rate, others on a commission percentage of your
earnings, so they should have an incentive to help you find work. A good agent
will put together a plan for promotion, marketing, development and engagement
with fans etc. Equally, this means that they are only really interested in
finding new talent or artists who have a certain amount of existing work and a
fan/client base on which to build. Generally, the more work they have to do to
find you work, the more they will charge or the less interested they will be in
taking you on in the first place.
As someone in a relatively small town, my advice to you and your friend would
be to research (if you have not already done so) your competition. Who else is
playing the venues you want to play, singing the music you sing, writing
similar songs to you. If you are going to make part of your identity your
visual impairment, do any of your competition have a similar back story? Once
you have done this, try to find out who, if anyone, represents them. This will
generally be made clear on their website, especially on a contact page. If none
of them are obviously working with an agent, you may well deduce that they
don't need one, or that there was nobody suitable who had the local
knowledge/expertise/availability to take them on. Now, if you think you have no
competition for the work you wish to do, you may deduce that there is no market
in your area, so try going further afield, or you may think you have found a
niche and an agent may be very interested in helping you to exploit this.
Speaking to the few agents I have met, the biggest misunderstanding is that
they will wave a magic wand and you will have an overnight career. They can
only work with what you give them. It should be a two-way relationship that is
mutually beneficial. Ultimately, you have to have something that people want to
pay for at least once, preferably twice! A good agent will start by getting you
to write down what you offer, what you consider your USP to be, who you think
your audience is, who you think could be the audience that you are not
currently reaching. They should work with you to put together a short, medium
and long-term plan. They will want biographies, photos, testimonials, social
media links, sound and/or visual media they can use. So, better to have these
ready before you approach an agent, rather than paying for their time to tell
you. It also shows them that you are committed, proactive and have some
potential.
Not knowing your friend, it is difficult to offer specific advice, but as a VI
musician whose work will hopefully see you going round unfamiliar venues, you
may want to enlist his assistance as a personal assistant/guide. It's a tall
order for someone with no experience to act as your agent, and you may prefer
to take responsibility for your own business dealings.
I hope this is of some help. Others on here may well have firsthand experience
of being managed by an agent which would be helpful to hear.
Cheers, James
-----Original Message-----
From: vibe-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:vibe-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
Sarah Mellor
Sent: 15 May 2015 02:08
To: Peter Bosher; vibe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Mary Paterson
Subject: [vibe] In Reply To: [vibe] Next VIBE event
HI Peter and all,
I wouldn't know of a place where I could suggest as I don't live in London so
don't know where is easy for most people to get to but would certainly be
interested in singing and taking part.
IL hope this is OK but I' wanted to share it with my gentleman friend as he has
said on many occasions that he would love to be my agent if he knew the
industry as he is extremely supportive with my career even more so than my own
family. I have thought for a while about looking for entertainment booking
agents but never really known where to start but I wonder if there is any way
he could find out more about how to become an agent or if there are any courses
in music management or anything like that. Any ideas would be very much
appreciated.
Many thanks.
Sarah
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