According to a survey published last year the most popular career choices of children today are: pop star, sports star and Hollywood star. Given the level of star-quality on show in TV programmes such as X-Factor and Britain's Got Talent, the likelihood is that most of these kids won't be realising their dreams. However, for the ones that do, there is one absolute necessity: an agent.
Agents are the true power behind the throne. They can make an artist's career and nowadays everyone from sports giants to literary geniuses, via Big Brother winners has one. What exactly an agent does, however, is the subject of myth. If you believe Jerry Maguire it's all about showing your client the money, while in US show Entourage, agent Ari Gold spends most of his time at parties trying to chat up the next big thing.
The reality seems to be a little less glamorous. In a recent Guardian article, literary agent Antony Harwood describes wading through 100 novels a week looking for one which might be the next Booker winner. Meanwhile, Ed Bicknell at the William Morris Agency laments to The Times that, "I got into this business for sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, now all I do is look at computer printouts of P Diddy's record sales".
In this Q&A our panel of agents will be sifting fact from fiction and dishing the dirt on what it's really like to be an agent to the stars.
The panel:
Peter Straus was a publisher for 20 years and left in 2002 to join Rogers Coleridge and White as a literary agent. He is now M.D. of Rogers, Coleridge and White and Vice President of the Association of Authors' Agents.
Jenny Dunster runs her own agency, Whatever Artists Management, specialising in light entertainment. She was previously president of the Agents' Association.
Sarah Camlett represents actors for the Independent Talent Group (formerly ICM).
Laura Longrigg has been a literary agent since the early nineties, and is now a director at MBA Literary Agents based in London. Her clients include Clare Morrall, Michele Hanson and Brian Keaney.
Duncan Reid is one of the scouts / recruiters for new talent at IMG. He manages six rising star golfers, including Pablo Larrazabal, Victor Dubuisson, Rafa Cabrera-Bello, Felipe Aguilar and Gaganjeet Bhullar.
Antony Harwood has been working as a literary agent since 1985 and set up his own agency in 2000. His clients include Louise Doughty, Peter Hamilton and Tim Parks.
Matthew Bates is a literary agent at Sayle Screen mainly representing writers of film and television drama.
Ed Griffiths, with a background in football, now specialises in celebrity management, he is an agent at the Jonathan Lipman International Group.
