Agents—2

Last week I talked about how finding an agent is such an individual thing there’s just no clear path that tell you how to go about getting one.

I know there should be a way to do this—logical steps you can take to land that agent—but it’s not that easy.

True, the WGA [Writers Guild of America] maintains a list of signatory agents—it’s not all inclusive in terms of agents that represent writers, but it’s pretty good. Here’s the link: https://apps.wga.org/agency/agencylist.aspx 

You can go to the list and follow the WGA’s advice—to write a query letter to an agent at the agency and ask if they’ll read your work. Believe me, none of these agents will accept unsolicited material unless you have queried about the possibility of them reading your work. The query letter should be superbly written, VERY short, and have a sentence about who you are, another sentence or two [at the most] about the script you want them to read, and a final sentence about why you think the script is right for today’s market. This should be the best letter you’ve ever written.

You’ll note that the WGA also lists the phone number of each of these agencies. So if you’re better on the phone, call.

But for either of these alternatives—writing a query letter or calling—you’ll be much better off if you have the name of a specific agent. This is where the Internet can help. You can usually track down names of agents and clients they represent by doing a little Internet sleuthing. It would be great if you can find their email address, but that may be a little more difficult.

That’s the logical way to try and find an agent.

Another way that can work is to enter an important screenwriting contest and place high enough that you get noticed. You don’t have to win, but if you can say you placed in the top 10% that can be an incentive for someone to read your work. And some contests post their top contestants and include a logline for the script they’ve written. Agents often look at this list if they’re looking for a specific script—say, a thriller—because a particular studio is hot for thrillers at the moment. You could get a call this way from someone who wants to read your script.

Be sure if you go the contest route that it’s a well-respected contest—Sundance and the Nicholl Fellowship are the crème de la crème. But others like Scriptapalooza, Austin and Slamdance might be right for you. Just be careful out there because all of these contests require entry fees and you only want to spend your hard-earned cash on contests that matter. Take a look at previous winners in each of the contests and get an idea for the kind of script they find appealing. If you’re more of an independent film writer, maybe Slamdance is for you. Go for the popular films? Then maybe Scriptapalooza.

But before you spend time searching for the right contest, make sure you have a killer script written so you can show off your writing chops.

A few final words about agents next week…

Copyright © Diane Lake

11Jun17

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com