getting an agent

For many composers who are just starting their career getting an agent seems to be one of the most important things to do as they hope that these agents will get them high profile jobs and it is more impressive to have customers communicate with your agent first. In reality neither of both is true. Your agent will only be able to get you jobs more or less on the same level of jobs that you are having already. So if you only do semipro productions with low budget, don’t expect to be getting a big project through an agent. Also, many customers hate to communicate through agents so if you only have a contact to your agency on your website it will also scare off a few people. These days (especially with networking becoming easier through the internet) quite a few composers even quite high up in the game don’t have an agent and handle these things themselves. At a certain point in your career it might be a good idea to have an agent just to keep away excessive paperwork but this is a decision that everybody needs to make for themselves. If you just start out, rather invest your energy into finding jobs and networking instead of finding an agent. Also, at a certain level agents will come to you and not the other way around. However, in the long run, there is one upside of having an agent (besides the obvious ones like keeping paperwork away etc.) which is that you don’t need to play the “bad guy” when it comes to negotiations about payment. If you do this directly there is always a chance that this negotiation leaves a negative trail into the actual project (especially when negotiations get quite tough, which is the case from time to time). In these instances, having an agent who can play the “bad guy” will help to separate the nasty business side from the creative work you do, but as I stated several times before, any professional should know that money negotiations can become quite tough but shouldn’t be annoyed/frustrated/aggressive beyond the point where things are settled. However, it can happen from time to time.