What’s the difference between an agent and a manager? Technically, the agent is the one who’s supposed to get you work. So they will submit you for open writing assignments. They will try to get you on the staff of a TV show. If you have an idea for a pilot, they’ll help you set up the pitch meetings. They get you the work.
The manager, on the other hand, is really more about the long-term guidance and career advice to help map things out for the future. That would be particularly important for a young writer who really doesn’t know their way around the business. My partner and I, have been TV writers for 26 years, so we only recently had a manager, and that’s because we had risen to a level in our careers where we had different requirements. Particularly, we wanted more access to talent, so we found a big-shot manager at a big-shot company. They have a lot of clients, actors, writers, directors, comedians.
And so our manager teamed us up with a big comedian named Joey CoCo Diaz. And Joey had an idea for a sitcom about his life, but he needed writers to help develop it and pitch it. So we worked with Joey for many months, developing the idea, turning it into a show, and ultimately, we wound up selling it to the Fox Network.
So for more on what it’s like to be a professional TV writer and how to become one, follow me here. Subscribe, like, follow, share, whatever, all that stuff. Leave a comment. And on Instagram, I got exclusive content @michaeljaminwriter.
