Sorry, You’re Just Not Famous Enough

Posted on

I know it’s probably not fashionable to say so, but I have long maintained that social media is one of the biggest time sucks known to modern man! Some people spend a ludicrous amount of their life updating their timeline and responding to anything that takes their interest posted by others who they follow.

Now personally, I am very happy to use social media to keep in contact with my family and friends, but I remain unconvinced that as a marketing tool it is of much use to most performers. Continue reading “Sorry, You’re Just Not Famous Enough”

The Price Of A Zoom Magic Lecture

Posted on

I had an email out of the blue recently from an overseas magic club asking me whether I would be interested in providing them with a Zoom lecture as part of one of their weekly virtual meetings. Although it wasn’t a full length lecture they required it was still about 40 minutes.

I replied that I would be happy to put together a varied selection of my close up ideas to present to the members and I offered to do it for a reduced lecture fee, given that my normal lectures run for up to 2 hours. Continue reading “The Price Of A Zoom Magic Lecture”

Why E-Books Aren’t Just Annoying

Posted on

I had a customer who emailed me to enquire whether I had any of my books in printed format as he found e-books annoying!

Well, since everything I sell these days is digital, I was unable to help him with regard to printed versions of my books, and in  my reply to him I expressed the view that it was a shame that he found e-books annoying, since surely the contents were the important part of a book’s value, and they were exactly the same irrespective in which format the book itself was delivered. Continue reading “Why E-Books Aren’t Just Annoying”

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend Me Your Ears

Posted on

These days we seem to live in a very visual age where information is increasingly supplied in a graphic format consisting of drawings, photos or video.

Personally, I sometimes find pictures more difficult to quickly decode than words. You only have drive into some of the motorway service areas in the UK to be confronted by a barrage of clipart images purporting to make it easier for you to drive into the correct area.

For me, the interpretation of the drawings sometimes takes longer than a simple word would. Maybe it’s just me. I appreciate that a drawing takes away the need to understand language which can be helpful for overseas visitors, but if the pictures aren’t that good or accurate, they can be misunderstood or simply take longer to interpret! Continue reading “Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend Me Your Ears”

The Perils Of Fast Patter

Posted on

If there is one fault that is common to a lot of magic patter acts, it’s that the performer speaks too fast! I know this not only because I have witnessed it on many occasions, but also because I am definitely guilty of it myself.

The fact of the matter is, if you patter too quickly many of the spectators may miss the essence of what you said, and this can have a dramatic effect on how well your act is received. Just think about all the different ways that this could have a detrimental impact for a moment.

For instance, if you gabble out some instructions to an assisting spectator and the person mishears or misinterprets what you have said, they might do the wrong thing and completely ruin the trick. You might imagine that they have deliberately sought to mess you up, but the truth is they might simply not have heard what you said due to the speed of your delivery, and were too intimidated or embarrassed to ask for you to repeat it all. Continue reading “The Perils Of Fast Patter”

Making Magic New Year’s Resolutions Stick

Posted on

This blog post will be published on the 1st February, by which time the New Year’s Resolutions of many people will have long since been broken! We all start off with the best intentions to lose weight, or to go to the gym more, but life soon gets in the way and it’s all too easy to fall back into the old ways of behaving. It’s human nature.

But what about magic resolutions? Do you make any at the start of the year in the hope of making more out of your hobby, or of learning some new skill, or of catching up with your magic reading? Do those resolutions suffer the same fate as the more general ones? Probably.

So what’s to be done? Well, if you are genuinely serious about resolving to improve your magic life (or your general life, for that matter), there is a way of structuring your behaviour that may enable you to actually achieve your aims. Here are my suggestions. Continue reading “Making Magic New Year’s Resolutions Stick”

Commanding Higher Fees

Posted on

In the January 2020 issue of Magicseen I have written a piece on how to go about deciding on the right fees for your shows.

It’s a common worry, especially for those new to paid work, about where to pitch their fees. They don’t want to charge too much, but by the same token nor do they probably want to ask for too little, and finding the right balance and assessing one’s personal value as a performer is a challenging task.

In David Regal’s excellent book Interpreting Magic, there is a quote from Derren Brown on this subject. Derren was reflecting on how as a jobbing close up performer in Bristol, he was commanding £300 fees. Yet the moment that he was seen on TV, his agent hiked his charges up to £3000 per show—overnight! Continue reading “Commanding Higher Fees”

Online Marketing Checklist

Posted on

I belong to a business network organisation which is nothing do with magic as such, but which is a brilliant way for me to mix with local businesses in order to promote my corporate work and to learn more about what the challenges are facing those in business generally.

At each monthly lunch meeting, one of the members will get up and do a 10 minute presentation on a subject related to their business or expertise, and recently I saw an excellent talk by David Graves of GWS Media, a company which deals in website design and marketing.

David provided a 10 point checklist of things to help your online marketing, and it was so useful that I thought I would pass a summary of it on to you now. Continue reading “Online Marketing Checklist”