talkmagic.co.uk

The Effect

This is not an effect at all silly, but a book about the business side of becoming an entertainer.
Here's the blurb on the website selling the book:

Created BY entertainers FOR entertainers:

With over 50 years of combined experience as professional magicians, entertainers and businessmen, authors Elliott Smith and Ian Quick have put together a proven business system that works. It will equip you with the knowledge to successfully set up, operate and thrive as a part-time or full-time professional entertainer. Ideal for any type of entertainer whether you are a musician, magician, clown, singer, dancer, actor, juggler or any other type of performing artist. From basic business structures to legalities, from advertising to booking the show or closing the sale, this must have proven system is based upon tried methods and practical experience. It will refine your business savvy and increase your clientele putting more money in your pocket.
Easy to read and use:
This full-colour, glossy, 176-page book is easy to read and apply to your business of being an entertainer and entrepreneur.



Cost $39.95 from happymediumbooks



Review

When I ordered this I expected, as it was a very specialised book, to receive a paperback that was more close to a bound manuscript but was pleasantly surpised to find a glossy book in full colour and very well set out.
Upon opening and past the contents page you are given an introduction and brief history of the authors and why they've written said book.
The book uses the idea of a car journey as an analogy to the path the reader is wishing to take and although I find that a bit gimmicky this is mostly confined to the chapter titles.
The Chapters themselves cover pretty much everything and I'll list a quick list of the kind of things it covers:

1) What you need to set up
2) Daily running of the business
3) Promotion and Marketing
4) Paperwork (contracts, taxes etc.)
5) Budgeting and How much to charge
6) Client care
7) booking procedure

This is not by any means a full list of all the book contains but a very brief overview.
I found the book to be very thorough in each of the subjects it covers and pretty much covers everything I can think of in a manner that educates but doesn't scare or overbear the reader.
One really useful idea the authors had was to have what they call an 'extended warranty' which is a free download to purchasers of the book. This warranty contains helpful materials such as contract templates, sample bios, telephone scripts etc. all of which are very handy things to have.
Overall this book is a great introduction to anyone who wishes to go pro and has never run a business before and will help you not make silly mistakes.
I found that none of the material contained within the book is revelatory in the way that as reader I thought ( damn I didn't know that) and the vast majority is common sense but it is incredibly useful to have such things pointed out to you so that these things are thought about properly.

I suppose the only question I was left with was one that a general book written abroad cannot cover completely and that was one of paying income tax and such things but I'm sure a bit of research will sort this out.

Finally I would heartily recommend this to anyone thinking about going pro or semi pro but really hasn't much experience or idea on what the reality of being in business as an entertainer entails.

Overall


8 / 10 A very good read and had me thinking seriously about the undertaking of go pro and what I need to do to achieve this.

Sounds like a good book (though not of much use to me), but are the legal documents (and indeed the sections on law and tax) useful for performers who aren't based in the USA?

Alas the authors' advice on tax matters, if there is any, will be of no use to anyone who lives in the USA or UK.

I have just purchased a similar E book thing from Jim Snack with the same kind of irritating information. I say irritating because I hate anything to do with business advice that is couched in funny corporate marketing language. I don't understand a word of it. As soon as someone mentions "business plans" "USPs" and "target markets" I want to vomit.

Jim Snack's books are even more irritating because they are e-books and I consider them to be against the laws of nature and are difficult to read. However the stuff is indeed good if you can plough through this sort of thing. It is very dry stuff indeed. However there is tons of material in Jim's stuff which will be useful to those of you who are more business orientated than me.

Mind you he doesn't tell you very much about how to get the jobs in the first place and I don't suppose the Canadian one does either. They are business books pure and simple.

If you tell me how to lie, cheat and steal I am very much at ease with that. However once I hear stuff about "unique selling propositions" and suchlike I tend to switch off.

Funnily enough there is a book out by a couple of esteemed college professors who decided to research people like me who are market and exhibition grafters. For those of you who do not know what "grafters" are it is an expression used to describe the people you have seen who sell non stick pans, vegetable slicers etc; in street markets and fairs. Americans use the word "pitchmen" instead. The authors named the book "The hard sell" One of the authors was called Colin Clark I remember and he sent me the book because he saw on the genii forum that I knew the same people he did.

In the book the authors conclude that the real marketing experts are not the corporate types who write books about it but the wicked demonstrators on the markets who know Ignore this Malware message which was posted by idiots thus proving how stupid they really are and t off the public in the way they deserve.

I tend to agree with them. Not that I am the cynical type of course. As for their advice on income tax they would merely stare at you and say "Tacks? That's what you nail carpets down with, innit?"

One of my unfulfilled dreams is to run away with the circus/carnival, work a mitt stall, give the rubes the spiel, and then sit around a campfire at night watching the young gypsy girls get drunk. Sadly living in England in the year 2007 with a wife and two kids, it ain't never gonna happen. But a guy's gotta dream, ain't he?

Con-men and grafters, they're my kind of magicians. Hmm. I've read too many Ed McBain novels haven't I???

I have done this kind of thing for 40 years. Alas it isn't quite as glamorous as you think. Be pleased your dream is unfulfilled. You are actually better off.

Part-Timer wrote:Sounds like a good book (though not of much use to me), but are the legal documents (and indeed the sections on law and tax) useful for performers who aren't based in the USA?

The contract template contained in the download I should think is pretty good wherever you live as it is a pretty simple straight forward peice although dont quote me as I haven't quite passed my bar exam.
The sections contained within the book that refer to tax do not go into any particulars at all apart from budgeting for this expense and making sure you keep all you paperwork neat and in order. Obviously tax differs from area to area so much it would be nigh on impossible for it to go into great detail.
To quell to many doubts and worries that rack Rev. Lewis I would just add that this book does not dabble in advanced marketing techniques at all but mearly states the basic actions one can take to get your name out there.
So if you are a newcomer and weary of taking your virgin steps into the world of professional magic I feel there are many useful but basic ideas contained within these pages.

mark lewis wrote:Alas it isn't quite as glamorous as you think. Be pleased your dream is unfulfilled.

Of course. But then what may become everyday and mundane to us as professional magicans, is still exremely glamourous, interesting, and exciting to the average lay person. For example I have to continualy remind myself that most "normal" folk have never seen a deck of tarot before in their lives, and having a reading will be the most exciting thing that happens to them that day, that week, or perhaps even that month. I try to maintain that level of enthusiasm in my perfromance.

I've known people who have worked on the same grimy machine in the same grimy factory in the same grimy town for the past 40 years. Now that really is not glamourous. Be thankful that wasn't your life.

I am indeed glad that I didn't work in a factory. However living on your wits is difficult especially when you have no wits left. It is indeed glamorous to everyone except the fellow that does it. However I do remind myself that it is does have a veneer of glamour to it and it has certain attributes to it that are quite advantageous. There are benefits as well as drawbacks.

John Booth wrote a book called "Forging ahead in Magic" and it is a very good book indeed. There is a chapter therein devoted to manufacturing your own glamour as a magician and I found it illuminating.

I am at present writing a book myself about my lives. It is called "Lives of a Showman" and it is geared for general sale to the public rather than magicians exclusively. It is called "Lives" in the plural rather than the singular since I have led four lives as an entertainer, grafter, psychic and now writer.

No doubt I shall fail at this last profession because I am afflicted with procrastination and it can take weeks before I write a single paragraph.