Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Q. After lots of writing into a void, my writing partner and I got recommended to a lit agent. We sent her a few scripts that she liked quite a bit. Her words were 'I'm interested in taking you on.' So at the beginning of August, we're going to have lunch.

What are some questions I should ask? Or items me and the writing partner should have straight before talking face-to-face with her? Do we pay for lunch, does she, or do we go halfsies on it?

Agents and producers should always pay for lunch. It's just a thing. "The writer is the girl" in the relationship, as someone said.

Before you meet, you should know what your partnership is. Do you write everything together? Or just some things? You should have an agreement stating that you share all revenues 50-50.

If you don't have another agent offering to rep you, then you are almost certainly going to accept her offer. (Unless she's crazy, or weird, or isn't signatory to the WGC.) So the meeting is about you proving that you'll be a great client.

I'd ask her, "What do you want us to write next for you to sell?" "How can we make our current scripts better?" "Where should we focus our efforts?" "What aspects of our writing are weak that we should try to strengthen?"

Ask her about herself. Everyone likes that.

Show enthusiasm. You're not judging her; you need an agent. You're essentially pitching yourself to her.

After all, if she rubs you the wrong way, you can always call a day later and say, "We've decided to go another way." But if you've been too reserved in the meeting, you can't call back later and say, "No, really, we're excited!"

1:19 PM

1 Comments:

That is awesome that you got a meeting with an agent. My question is: how does an unsolicited writer get anything in front of an agent, let alone a face to face?

thanx
Marco

By  Anonymous, at 11:50 PM  

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