GUIDE TO AGENTS FOR NEW SCREENWRITERS

GUIDE TO AGENTS FOR NEW SCREENWRITERS

by Philip Gladwin

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Stuff the Lawyers Insist On The author has created this Screenwriting Goldmine book using his best efforts. The author and publishers give no guarantees or warranties as to the fitness, applicability, or completeness of its contents. There are no warranties, either expressed or implied, as to the effectiveness or fitness of this Ebook for any purpose, and the authors and publishers shall in no event be held liable for any damages or other loss/damages resulting from following all or part of the information contained herein. It should be read for entertainment only. There are no guarantees of earnings, or success resulting from following the advice contained within this book, nor any guarantees of the duration and effectiveness of the strategies and information included. The material contained within this book is protected under international and British copyright laws and treaties and as such, any unauthorised copying, distribution or reprinting of this material is strictly forbidden. Find out more about the Screenwriting Goldmine at

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ESSENTIAL AGENTS

Notes

This is our best list of agents who are of interest to the new screenwriter here in the UK.

There are more agencies in the UK of course, but some of them are very specialised, or essentially closed to new writers ? and some who are happy to read new work don't really have the standing or connections to seriously advance a new writer's career.

The agents in this list are strongly recommended as having both a reasonable open door policy to new writers, and serious standing in the industry.

Which means:

You stand a reasonable chance of actually being read by them in the end. (I say good chance - nothing is guaranteed. Obviously things can change at any time, and at any time an agent may decide that their list is full and they are no longer looking for writers.)

They are real industry players who can properly advance your career.

There are tens of thousands of new screenwriters in the UK, all looking for representation, and perhaps in the low hundreds of literary agents, so please that in mind before you get frustrated.

Just because an agent is on this list does NOT mean that you will definitely get your script read - every single agent on this list will be already bombarded by new writers, and will be working incredibly hard to get through that pile of reading already.

Being an agent is more than a full time job, and that means that it is standard not to hear back.

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The converse of that is that if an agent IS interested and they want to take things further, you will know about it!

The best mind set is this:

Follow the instructions on how to submit here. Chase gently with a short, polite email after eight

weeks. One more short, polite email nudge after twelve

weeks, then after that consider the submission dead and move on.

Are you ready?

If they like your first writing sample, an agent will always want to read more. They will want to know that the first script wasn't a fluke, and they will want to know you are a creative person who has a lot of ideas.

So please hold back from launching yourself on this quest until you have at least two scripts written and polished to a high standard, and make sure you have a couple more ideas for more work you are passionate about too. If you are called in for a meeting this will be a key area of discussion, so make sure you are ready for it.

Personal recommendation

Notice how many agents in this will only read work that has been recommended to them by people in the industry.

Even when agents don't specify this, you can be sure that you will attract more attention if you have this kind of recommendation. So a huge part of finding an agent is finding supporters of your writing among existing professionals.

Make it your business to get fans of your writing and get these recommendations.

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Covering Letters and CVs

Every time you write to one of these agents you will have to write some kind of covering letter.

And there's a whole can of worms.

How DO you attract attention without going over the top? Sell yourself without seeming arrogant? Sell yourself if you have no writing experience?

It's a fine art.

There are no rules of course, and everyone will do this differently - and that's as it should be. It's your personality that needs to shine through, after all.

But if you DO want some guidance, I go into this whole area in detail, and give some examples of how to do it, in Open Door Issue 4, available from the Open Door archive when you subscribe to Open Door here: open-door/

Multiple submissions

It's received wisdom that you don't approach multiple agencies at the same time.

It's my view that life is short, and approaching one agency at a time and then waiting three months for no reply will actually send you mad!

If you are truly ready, then I see nothing wrong with approaching more than one agent at a time.

Just don't go on about it, or try to play one agent off against another. That's a recipe for losing both of them.

Reading Fees

None of the agencies we list here should ever charge you a reading fee.

That's because no legitimate agency works this way in the UK.

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