In my rage of jealousy this afternoon I forgot to make note of the fact that in Mike South’s smash and grab of Kayden Kross’ blog the other day- the one that he carefully edited- Kross had the following to say about agents.

South being on the payroll and part of the corruption of LATATA and Derek Hay carefully excluded this portion of the blog which I now present to you from www.xcritic.com/blogs/blog.php?blogID=3810

“Here’s a big one: porn agents don’t actually know what an agent is. In the real world an agent is someone who takes a percentage of the earnings from the deals he works hard on with his clients. In Hollywood, that percentage rate is not more than 10%.

“In Hollywood, the agents are usually extremely knowledgeable and connected and can negotiate extremely case-specific things. And in Hollywood, people walk away from their agents at will. If they do this it is usually because they don’t believe the agent is working hard enough for them.

“In porn, a lot of the agents don’t know that they work for you. They will treat you as if you work for them. They will yell at you if they like, and they will talk down to you. All porn agents like to take 15% of your earnings, sometimes 20.

“Their idea of representation is to throw your pictures up on their website right next to your rates for the scenes you are willing to do. If they negotiate anything, it is a negotiation of your rate down, not up. The girls who don’t have their rates negotiated down are generally happy about this, completely ignoring the fact that they are giving up 15% of their earnings to a man who does nothing more than post their pictures and answer phone calls.

“Notice no negotiation is taking place for anything other than the dollar amount for the scene. In Hollywood, the carats in the gold toilet seats are up for negotiation. Not that I support lavish idiocy. Just making the point that regular agents will get everything they can. Porn agents will not lift a finger beyond the flat dollar amount of the scene—which is why it’s so confusing for me that they’d want their clients to sign a contract with them.

“Not all porn agents do this, but the most aggressive and cutthroat one definitely does, and I’m sure there are others. If an agent takes no risk in taking on new clients then why does he need a contract that locks performers in for multiple years? It’s perfectly fine to sign an agreement that states that you are going to be represented by a given agent, but the moment you are locked in for any significant length of time and can’t choose a new agent once the relationship stops working, the contract is no good.

“You will never regret not signing a long-term contract with an agency, I promise. And as you go through porn you will hear horror stories about the bad contracts girls have signed. I know one who doesn’t even know when she can finally leave the agency because they refuse to give her a copy of her own contract—and the list of reasons she’d like to leave the agency in the first place is a mile long. The fact is you really only need an agent at all if you’re new or not yet in very high demand as a performer.

“Agencies will keep your name out there as directors and producers search for performers to fill certain roles. But if your name takes off and your Freeones ranking is high the producers and directors will find you. If you’re trying to figure out which agency to approach first, here’s a hint: Go to Spiegler at Spieglergirls.com.

“He won’t fuck with you and he won’t let you fuck with him. So if you’re irresponsible or prone to diva shit don’t bother, but if you’re serious he’s the best there is. The last place I would ever recommend you go to is LA Direct Models.

“This is the agency headed by the aforementioned cutthroat agent. If you can’t get on with Spiegler there are plenty of others—Type 9 Models, 101 Modeling, etc. for boy/girl performers. If you’re looking to do only girl/girl I was a huge fan of Cam Smith’s agency but I don’t know if he’s still around.

“Matrix Models is also good for girl/girl, but I would argue doesn’t have the reach to keep you busy with boy/girl unless you’re doing a lot of your own PR work or just inexplicably wildly popular, which does happen. Just know that no matter which agent you choose, once you go with his agency you have given him a direct line to your livelihood.

“He has the power to boost the amount of work you do or to take it away, depending on his whims and/or what he wants you to do. And some agents will take advantage of that. Cutthroat ones will. Choose the agent without the evil whims.

More on agents: if they try to get you to escort, they’re wrong for you. They shouldn’t take you on if they don’t think they can get you regular-enough work that you can survive on porn bookings alone. This is another reason I’m a big fan of Spiegler. I don’t work with an agent, but if I did I’d want to work with him.