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Model and Talent Agencies

This is an archive of relevant mail and our replies organized by subject. The date of the mail bag will be noted for each letter, with a link to the related mail bag. This archive is updated on the first of the month when relevant mail is posted in the current mail bag, and the newest letters are added to the top. Other sections of the Tampa Bay Modeling site link to this section so the mail and our responses can be used as reference and support content. We really like this way of archiving so great letters and our replies are not lost in old mail bags and can be easily researched. Enjoy!
~ Model Monica Stevens, Tampa Bay Modeling Mail Bag Editor

Models Who Diss Agencies Deserve What They Get - POSTED APRIL 2006.

These models thinking that they can book work without an agency and photographers telling models that they can book model jobs without an agency are the ones that are screwing up the industry. The people who want to do things on their own don’t really know what they are doing, and are in over their heads. People who reject professional advice and arrogantly do as they please are the ones who fall for model scams, too. Models who try to go around the professional way that the modeling industry is set up deserve what they get, and only have themselves to blame when they don’t work in the industry.
I am an agency booker in Tampa Bay, and I thought that you models would like to know what we think. We think that models who try to book work on their own are jokes. They provide much humor for us in the agencies. We work hard booking the professional models who play by the rules while filing away the freelance models into a file cabinet for humor fodder. Ever hear of a Christmas file? That’s where agencies put snapshots of amateur models who aren’t worth representing go. We pull the files for a quick laugh, and that’s also where we file the troublemakers who try to make a hard job more difficult. Agencies are not inclined to work with people who try to scam their way around the rules and the way the industry works.
By the way, who are you models? I looked on your staff section and don’t recognize your names and cannot find any pictures of you. It would help if we knew who to weed out. On second thought, you probably don’t have pictures up for a reason.
Give up. You cannot win.
-Jay

Jay? I don’t know of any bookers named Jay in any Tampa Bay model and talent agency, either.
I do, however, fully expect bookers who now find themselves competing with models for the same jobs to get pissed off and write letters like yours. Get snaked out of any model print jobs lately? Did any art directors tell you that they won’t be booking your agency controlled models because they already found professional models on their own?
Who cares what you think. You no longer call all the shots in the industry, and are now struggling to compete against the very models who used to depend upon them for jobs. The controls and manipulation tactics of the old modeling industry no longer apply. It’s called capitalism, baby, and businesses no longer have to depend upon agencies to get top professional models, either. We find each other without the conflicts of a middleman and save those agency fees in the process. Everyone wins but the agencies who cannot adapt and compete. Can’t manipulate models that you have no leverage on, can you? Many bookers in the shadier agencies find the nightclubs and their beds lonelier these days, too, and that’s sure to make anyone bitter. Well, that is, except for the models who are no longer taken advantage of. By the way, that’s not me or any of the models here. We are all good with playing both the old and the new industries. Model and talent agencies actually adore us, and our favorite bookers give most of the go-sees to us because they know that we book them. We also get work on our own, too, but are tactful about it. It doesn’t make much sense to call up our agencies and rub our freelance bookings in the faces of our bookers, does it? Likewise, we don’t send bookings to bookers so they can “protect” us from possible scams. We know what we are doing and refuse to do the bookers work for them. Would bookers respect us as professionals if we did their work for them and they realized that we were out here looking for work on our own and then were too dumb to figure out if a job was legitimate or not? Of course not! That would backfire, too.
You don’t know who we are. Too bad. Get over it. We make your agency money sometimes, and we will save you from yourself and your short-sighted ways by not being stupid enough to tell you who we are. Now, if you can excuse me, I will call you tomorrow and you can book me into another modeling job. That is, unless I haven’t already booked it on my own. Have a nice day, kind sir, and thank you for all that hard work that you are now forced to do as you work for the models.
Agencies today are working conflicts-of-interest. A friend of mine made a brilliant point lately, and I’ll say it here. While, on paper, it makes sense to have agency bookers working for the model and selling them to prospective model jobs, what’s the point if those same bookers are also selling our competition? It doesn’t take a genius to realize that models ultimately compete against other models represented by the same model and talent agency, and that’s a blatant conflict of interest for any professional model. I would love to have salespeople selling what I can do, but if they are also selling my competition, than that is a problem. Fortunately, I don’t kiss ass and am a professional model who bookers tend to respect from the moment that they first meet me. That’s gives me an advantage in agency politics, and the conflict of interest doesn’t hurt me as much as it could. To me, model and talent agencies are only one of many tools for me to obtain leads for go-see’s, and I don’t depend on them as a major source of the jobs that I book in my modeling career.
Feel free to write again, Jay. I look forward to what you might have to say. I’ll knock your booker-ass to the pavement every time you try to start a debate that you cannot, and will not, win. Show respect to the professional models who make you money when they don’t scoop your job leads.
~ Model Monica Stevens, Tampa Bay Modeling Mail Bag Editor

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