These days there are a gazillion sites offering casting and audition info and tantalizing promises to those chasing stardom. But how do you know if a site is legit and whether a casting will result in a booking…or maybe a terrifying encounter with a weirdo in a deserted hotel room?

Your best bet is to go with the tried-and-true websites that have been around for years—or decades—and have a solid reputation. Backstage.com is the gold standard, offering verified casting calls, as well as a talent database, forums, news, and great articles. You might be interested in 7 Signs of a Casting Scam, for one. I have a membership to Backstage—it’s pretty much a must if you want to research upcoming auditions and be on top of the biz (non-members can view basic info but not the details of auditions). This definitely applies if you are working as a freelancer, but even if you have a manager/agent, you may catch a casting that slipped through the cracks in their busy schedules. Several of my son’s recent Billy Elliot runs are the result of me setting up a Billy Elliot alert on Backstage. The people over at Backstage lay out the difference between their site and others this way: “Backstage.com is the only casting website that updates and verifies each and every casting notice before it’s posted, offering a level of confidence and security that no other website can match.” Backstage caters to actors, models, singers, dancers, and comedians.

Casting Networks is another credible site that established talent and agencies depend upon. It is easy to set up an account and post your photo, resume, stats, special skills, etc. If you are represented, an account is free; if you do not have an agency representing you, the cost is $25 annually.

Actors Access also provides essential services to both talent and casting directors. Setting up an account is free.

Combing through the castings and creating and updating your profile on these three sites will keep you plenty busy, so I’ll stop there for now.

Have a casting site or resource you love? Let us know!

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Wake-up call: that is not at all how it works. First, you have to figure out which agencies are legit and which just want your money for classes or fees (read 5 Warning Signs You Are Being Scammed by a Modeling Agency). Then you have to find out if the agency wants to rep your cutest kid ever, whose photos may arrive along with 100 other submissions of cutest kids ever on any given day. Should you “luck out” and land your tyke with an agent, then the real work begins (which is why I used the quotes; you may soon be wishing cutest kid ever got dumped in the trash rather than signed on).

Few clients book from photos alone. They will want to see your kid live, often along with 250 other kids from a 50-mile radius. Some clients will have callbacks, so you may have to schlep your kid two days in a row to photo studios in remote locales (try Union City, NJ, from CT, for example). Usually all for nothing. The odds just aren’t in your favor, no matter how CUTE, with a capital C, your kid is.

And all these castings cost money. It’s not that clients ask you to pay anything (turn and run if that happens!), but believe me, you pay. Here’s an example:

On Monday, both my 10-year-old son and my 3-year-old daughter had castings (for how we “lucked out” and landed with an agency: read More on Kid Modeling) in New York. We paid $25 for train tickets to New York, $16 for a taxi from Grand Central through midtown traffic to 31st and 11th Ave (we usually take the subway but there is no subway that goes close enough to that locale to not leave us all swimming in sweat on a 94-degree day), $17 for a taxi back, and $50 for a parking ticket (I know, this is a recurring theme; read Toys R Us Booking Equals Mega Bucks?) cuz there was a traffic jam on the way to the train station so I had to park in a 2-hour spot. I figured I could have my sitter move it, until I realized the second set of keys was locked inside it. Oops.

We have heard nothing from those castings, which is usually the drill. Especially when the pre-casting prep for the 3-year-old (“big laugh when they say ‘cheese!’”) did not work. She gave ‘em a half-hearted smile that would be unlikely to sell any Children’s Place clothes, even though she is the cutest kid ever. There are no do-over’s at castings. They shuffle the wee ones through the line like parts on a conveyor belt, shoot a Polaroid (time allotment: 10 seconds per kid), and out you go.

Still think it sounds like fun? OK, you may have what it takes then. Hopefully your kid does too. Keep reading. I promise to write more soon about the rewarding aspects of stagemomhood.

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