Should an Illustrator have an Agent represent him/her?

To have or not to have, that is the question!

I am often asked this question and to be absolutely honest, I don’t think that every illustrator should have one. Its like marriage, it’s not for everyone. But if you are an artist who has been working in the industry for a while or someone just starting out, then having a rep might be the right thing for you. It is important to fully understand what an Agent or Rep does in order to really know if you need one or not.

At AGM we handle all the business end of the business, allowing our illustrators to concentrate solely on creating and illustrating. We do all the business development, read and negotiate all contracts that come in, create, produce and distribute group promotions and promote their work via our highly visited website. AGM also does quite a bit of PR for the artists that we represent as well as taking care of all the accounts payables and receivables. Like I said, basically we do everything but the illustrations themselves. Thank god we leave that to the real experts, our illustrators.