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The Artist as Agent

One man's View

by Alan Rowoth alan@folkmusic.org
The most recent version of this document will always be found at http://www.alanrowoth.com/ArtistAgent.shtml

To work as a professional musician encompasses far more than just being a good musician. It is really a dozen jobs rolled into one. Some of the less glamourous ones are business manager, driver, stagehand, publicist, sound tech, lighting designer, health care practitioner, accountant, and equipment repairman. Of all of the jobs that needs to be completed, booking agent is probably the most problematic for the struggling performer just starting to build a career. As your following grows, you should eventually be able to subcontract out most of these jobs to others and concentrate on the business of making music, but in the beginning, booking yourself may be the most difficult thing that you have to do.

Why?

Because no one in the world has less credibility than you when it comes to selling your music.

As a professional, you must feel that you have a unique and important contribution to make to the world of music. If you don’t, you should probably be doing something else for a living. You are the only one who stands to gain directly by lying to a venue booker. Compound that with the well known fact that some of the lamest musicians have the best business skills and you can see how it is problematic for anyone to buy you from yourself. On top of that, even if they book you, it’s hard to press for your best deal when you are also trying to build a friendly personal relationship with them. Sadly, for the musician grossing less than $1000 a week, you will most certainly have to do this job for a while. It probably costs $25-35 dollars and 90 minutes to book the average gig. If you are paying the agent 15 percent, they don't even start to make a salary until you are averaging at least $400 gig.

Agents are, arguably, the most reviled cogs in the mechanism of musical performance.
This is not to say that all agents are bad. In fact, there are some very good ones (Like Fleming/Tamulevich,) but there are more horror stories about bad agent moments than anything else that I can think of and I'm sure that there are even people out there with bad stuff to say about FTA. Agents are sales people. Their job is to "close" the sale. Someone good at selling uses a variety of tools to make that happen and some of these tools can be pretty distasteful. If you are really interested, I'm sure that there are books out there talking about the different types of "close" that sales people use. It's not for the squeamish...

Bad things about Agents

They lie to you.
They lie to bookers.
They lie to absolutely anyone else who will listen.
They forget to call people back, or to send contracts and promo.
They’ll book someone else to a venue who called to book you.
They’ll trade off your popularity to further their own agenda.
They’ll undersell you to extract booker loyalty.
They may book money gigs over exposure gigs.
They may think less about strategy, routing, & expenses than gross income.
They’ll expect you to pay 10-20% even on gigs you booked yourself.
They’ll expect you to pay them for months after you start booking with someone else.

If Agents suck, then why do we want them?

Selling sucks far worse than dealing with agents.
Agents have more credibility than you will probably ever have.
Agents have broad telephone accessibility during business hours.
They may double as manpower to do publicity, mailing list, and advance duties.
They often have better telephone and computer skills.
You can’t succeed as an agent if you aren’t a “closer.”
Playing “Good Cop - Bad Cop” by yourself seems schizophrenic.
Who wants to play & drive all night and then work all day??

There are a few advantages to the combined artist/agent role

Less communication problems. You know what the agent knows.
No conflicting agendas. You prioritize your business strategy.
No commissions. An extra 15% of anything helps.
You are in total control of every aspect of your career.
You didn’t want to sleep or have time to write songs anyway.

Before you make a concerted effort to start making a living as a musician, job one is to be sure that you are, in fact, good - really good. You need a night’s worth of strong material that has popular appeal while showcasing the talents that make you unique and memorable. You need to be able to sing and play in tune, and get thru the night with no glaring musical mistakes. You’ll also need to be able to make some eye contact, and establish audience rapport, and generally entertain a group of people. If these things are a problem, then you need to step back and spend a little more time in the woodshed and the open mike circuit. It’s easy to want to get out there and start doing gigs of your own, but trying to headline before you are ready can put you into a hole that it’s hard to dig out of when it comes to trying to book repeat gigs.

Assuming that you really are great, but nobody knows it just yet, you need to assemble a set of tools that will help you succeed as your own booking agent. The most important may well be your...

Credibility tools.

Organization and dependability.: You must be unfailingly honest and consistent with buyers.
Professional demeanor.: You need a firm handshake, good phone presence, winning smile, & good eye contact.
Don’t lie to anyone.: Everyone knows that agents lie. Nothing distinguishes you more than not doing it.
Strong promo kit.: Bio, photos, references, recordings, and maybe a web site to augment.

you’ll also need

Organizational Tools

Accurate and up to date Artist Mailing List: Your most important tool. Target anyone who can help you build to the next level.
Contracts are your friend.: More for clear information that defense in a lawsuit. Contracts prevent misunderstandings.
Current Technical Rider: Prevents misunderstandings about power, staging, sound system requirements, etc.
Tipsheet for venues on how to make the most of your gig with them.: Or you can use the one I developed with Michael Cooney
Contact Manager to help you remember to do callbacks and send promo.: I use the Palm MacPacII for Macintosh that syncs with my Palm IIIx handheld.
Accounting program: To keep you legit with the IRS and your creditors.
Regular Telephone hours: People need to know when they can call you. I suggest at least 2 days and one eve.
Find a good travel agent.: And check out my Touring On A Shoestring FAQ

Booking strategies

Innovate Exposure opportunities
Network with the industry movers and shakers
Geography building. Plan your assault. Think concentric circles...
Alternative venues. Create opportunities like House Concerts and split gigs.

The promo kit

The single most important thing about your promotional materials is that they should look expensive, but not cost you an arm and a leg. Materials should be up to date and concise. Don't use a 10 year old photo of yourself on the cover.

Typical elements of the artist promo kit include:

Artist Bio: Not "since you were a baby," just capsulize your professional artistic past.
References: Nothing supports you more than quotes and references from impartial media and industry figures.
Photo: Suitable for publication and to show a bit of your personal style.
Audio and or video recordings.: A good audio recording is essential, but be wary of amateurish videos. Quality video production is very expensive.
Sample promo materials: Poster, press releases, etc

All promo materials should bear your telephone number, email address, and URL. If you have different people doing booking, publicity, record distribution, and road management, list all the contact info.

Once you have assembled the necessary tools that you need to do this, then you need to do a little strategic planning.

Look at gig opportunities is your area. Find out who books each appropriate venue and decide how best to approach them.

The approach

There are a variety of ways to approach a venue booker. None works best in all situations. Many local venues are best approached by performing at an open mike, getting a good response, and then hitting up the booker for a night of your own, or at least an opener. (This works best if you had a good, responsive crowd that evening. It couldn't hurt to have a few friends in the audience.)

Normally, it’s good to call before sending a promo pack to ask if it’s allright and who to send it to. This also gives you a good excuse to call back a couple of weeks later to see if the booker has evaluated it. Don’t send materials if someone tells you not to. It’s just a waste of money and time.

Word of mouth is a useful adjunct. If the clientele of the club has been asking when you are going to appear there, you may get more interest when you call to send promo.

Opening acts. Some venues will let some performers bring their own opening act , or even create their own split bill to develop an audience in a new market. Other venues like to program their own openers to develop artists that they want to build a listener base for.

House concerts are an increasingly popular way to break into a new area and get a few names on your mailing list. A small showing in a local club can make it very hard to rebook a date. The microeconomics of the house concert make it almost impossible to have an unsuccessful one. If you get enough people onto your mailing list. Your first gig in a "real" club is liable to be unusually successful instead of remarkably unsuccessful. Perception is very important with bookers.
Showcasing and contests. Professional organizations like the North American Folk Alliance, NACA, and AFIM offer numerous showcasing opportunities at their international and regional conferences. Most of the festivals now offering emerging artist showcases or troubador contests that also yield valuable exposure. Both of these routes also offer valuable press and industry networking and some guerilla exposure opportunities. (like late night song circles or informal hotel room showcases.)

Split Gigs are a fantastic way to break into a new market. (maybe the best.) Find a compatible musician who is strong in an area that you have targeted. Make sure that they want to break into a geography that you are established in. Then arrange to do a number of gigs together, in both areas so that you can each expose your large and enthusiastic crowd to the great music that you are bringing to town. Done right, nothing works faster or better than split gigs, but be sure to do them with someone whose music you genuinely enjoy. Now, rinse and repeat.

Fan mailing list.

A professional musician really needs two unique mailing lists, one for fans and one for industry contacts. It is most often advantageous to integrate them into one file, but the things that you’ll use them for can be quite different, so be sure to tag industry contacts somehow.

The single most important promotional tool for an independent musician is their mailing list. The single most important promotional tool for an independent musician is their mailing list. Should I say it a couple of more times??

People get lazy about mailing lists because they are expensive to use and time consuming to maintain. Trust me though, properly used, nothing returns more on your investment than your mailing list. Don’t miss an opportunity to enhance your list. If you want to make a living making music, you need to build a firm audience base for your music. Whenever anyone hears you that “gets” you and loves your music, it’s important that you identify, enumerate, and engage them. Get them onto the mailing list and tickle them at least twice a year, even if you aren’t working anywhere close enough for them to come and see you. They may have family or friends who do live near your gigs, or they may buy your latest recording by mail. Don’t let them forget who you are and why they liked you. For mailing lists under 1000 names, it's likely that it will be cheaper to do all the work yourself. As your list expands, consider a professional mailing service (like the Heyman Mailing Service, I'm hard pressed to think of any more supportive folks than Vic and Reba, and their service and prices are unmatched.) who can do it much more efficiently than you can.

I’ve seen people use a variety of tricks that I disagree with to get people on their mailing lists. I don’t suggest giveaways or other enticements that will make people who wouldn’t ordinarily sign your mailing list get onto it. You want a list of folks who genuinely enjoyed what you do. I also don’t suggest trading or sharing email lists with other artists and venues. You may be able to highlight them in your mailings and vice versa, but don’t give away those names, as your fans may not appreciate the junk mail.

Be sure to get fans email addresses as well as snail mail addresses. Email is a far cheaper, faster, more efficient way to communicate with people that postal mail. Be sure that your web page has an email signup form linked on the very first page. Many people don’t change their postal and email addresses at the same time, so if one fails, you may be able to reestablish contact with the other. If you are taking student addresses, I suggest a form that also asks for their home address, so that when they leave school, you run less of a risk of losing track of them.

You can collect the addresses in a variety of ways. Many artists use spiral notebooks or journal books. These can be fun, but they run the risk of getting lost or damaged. If you can afford it, you may want to use table tents. The ones we used to carry had a tear off postcard so that people could mail it in later if they wanted and no one had to wait for access to a book to write down their info. They also had a tear off half of the tent that the fan got to keep which had our name, logo, and contact information on it. Some people like souvenirs of a good evening of music and this provides a cheap reminder of what fun they had.

Fans don’t just come to gigs and buy your recordings. They are walking billboards when they wear your T-shirt. They also request airplay for you on the radio and they promote your music by playing recordings for others. Fans are your "outside sales force." They want to work for you, let them.

Career Development

What gigs make the most sense for you?

Obviously, if you want to make a living, you need to make some money, but, ironically, the money is just about the last thing that you should worry about. Your single most useful career building tool is exposure. To get in front of as many people as you can, showcased in a light that is appropriate to what you do is crucial. Once you have a following, they will pay money to see you and buy your records and, if you are true to your audience, they’ll be true to you.

It’s easiest to gig close to your home, and that’s probably where you first need to begin building, but it’s easy to overexpose and lose the momentum that a building “buzz” creates. There is also a well known phenomenon in the media where local artists seldom get the respect that a visiting superstar does. Despite all of this, you’ll most likely find it easiest to build a following in your hometown first. You’ll probably also want to continue building your sphere of influence in concentric circles outward from that hometown. Conventional wisdom holds that you shouldn’t play more than a couple of times a year in a town, or people will get sick of you, but I think that you can do quite a bit more than that when you are first breaking in. I could see performing 6 to 10 times in a city in the first six months trying to build an adequate mailing list to support further gigs there. Some of these gigs might be openers or other little paying exposure things. Try to work a couple of openers, then maybe a house concert or two and a couple of split gigs. As much as possible, if you can work different venues in the town, you stand a better chance of seeing different faces on those early gigs and adding more different folks to your mail list. You’ll also have a better gauge of where your future gigging “home” should be in that region.

Once you have established a foothold in a town, don’t squander that investment. Find a way to get back and revisit those fans. Make it a point to analyze your mailing list periodically to be sure that you aren’t ignoring anyplace that you have a reasonable following. If you can’t find a venue to support that pocket, create a gig in a local restaurant, church or home. If you can’t figure out where, then ask some of those fans for suggestions.

In addition to building outward from your home region, you may want to develop other regions for other reasons. If you are writing with other writers in Nashville, you may want to build some rooms in Tennessee and Georgia. If you are actively pursuing a record label in NYC, LA, Austin, or Seattle; you might be well advised to work on creating a media and audience buzz in those areas. Some areas offer other enticements. Massachusetts offers the best folk radio and more folk clubs per square inch than anyplace else in the world. Though it’s highly competitive, it’s also a barometer of the folk industry. (“If you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere, it’s up to you...” Philadelphia is another musical hotbed and, to a lesser degree, so is the San Francisco Bay area. All can provide enough gig opportunities to support a two week regional tour if you build them up. To do two weeks in the midwest, you ‘ll probably have to book half a dozen states and do a lot of driving. That can also be a useful strategy, but it buys you less in terms of national media and overall career building. Alternative markets like Alaska, Australia, Europe, and Japan each work for certain artists and enable them to further limit their availability stateside and drive their price up here. In general foreign touring only works for very mature artists with a reasonable product catalog or vagabond performers with no appreciable expense structure.

If you are travelling too far away to commute home to sleep, budget your expenses before you start confirming dates. Understand that you often have to sink money in a region to break it open, but 18 months later, if a region isn’t paying you back, you may want to rethink your strategy there. 10 day tours covering two weekends are a good way to get away without feeling like you are always away. If you are your own agent, you need to get telephone messages every day. Consider a personal 800 number that you can route to wherever you are this week during your “official” telephone hours. When booking travel, remember that triangular flights are often not much more expensive than direct flights and you can spread the flight expense over two gigs. Don’t be afraid to fly out and back in the middle of a car tour, but remember that airplanes and car rentals can really eat into your salary. I have tons of links for saving money while travelling in my Touring On A Shoestring faq.

Don’t miss out on unique booking opportunities. Find matches with who you are. Consider playing for religious organizations, environmental or other action groups, 12 step programs, professional associations, Elks clubs, Ski clubs, and other groups. Anywhere people come together is an appropriate place for music. Some groups have more money sloshing around than others. A radiologists convention may be able to pay more than the local food bank. (And they’ll love that song, “I can see right thru you, baby.”)

College gigs are reknown for their great budgets and poor attendance. If you can book into that arena, it can be very lucrative, but those gigs require much more advance work to avoid wasting the night artistically. If you are young, attractive, energetic, and broadly accessible, it may behoove you to join NACA and attend their conferences or find an agency who can represent you at them, and hopefully secure you valuable showcasing.

Advance your dates

It's not enough just to get gigs. You need to promote them.

We'd all love to believe that the person who booked you (often referred to as "the promoter") would, in fact, promote and publicize your impending concert, but the sad truth is that they have grown so used to musicians taking on this responsiblity that many have abdicated completely their involvement outside of putting your name on the chalkboard by the muffin rack. It's ironic because the promoters are the ones who are poised to identify and cultivate relationships with local media figures. They are the ones who don't have to pay long distance bills and lots of money to ship stuff out to the local newspaper guy. It seems like a nobrainer that they would do the promotion, but mostly they just don't.

As head of your little entertainment conglomerate, what is your job description? "Everything that needs to be done that you can't get someone else to do..." This means extracting a media list from the promotor, or the local yellow pages, or the internet. Then get ahold of anyone who can help you get the news out to your potential listener. This usually means sending a bio, photo, and press release to the newspaper and any other concert calendars about 6 weeks before the show. Four to Six weeks before the show is often a good time to send your CD to the local music reviewers and also invite them out to hear you perform. This is also about the right time frame to mail out your posters and be absolutely sure that you have received your signed contracts and rider back from promoter. Call a few days later to be sure that they got the posters. And call a week before the date to verify that they actually opened the package of posters and hung some up. A week before is also a good time to chat with the house sound person if there is one to make sure that there are no questions about your needs and stage setup.

Be meticulous with your promotion and it will pay you huge dividends. It's worth the time, energy, and money that you'll have to put into it.

Ready for More?

Jeri Goldstein has written the best book I've ever seen on booking. It's called "How to be your own booking agent and save thousands of dollars - A performing artist's guide to a successful touring career." Buy it, read it, live it.

This is a living document and I look forward to your suggestions to improve it. Please email them to me alan@folkmusic.org Thanks! Alan

Or the whole internet:

FindingThings | Computer Tutorials | For Musicians | My favorite online tutorials | Cool Folk Music sites

Alan Rowoth
P.O. Box 307
Liverpool NY 13088-0307
alan@alanrowoth.com
or
13948 Magnolia Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 91423
(818) 907-0523