Do you want to be a Wealthy Magician?

One of Roy’s main arguments is that a magician should be properly valued. So much of the first section of the book is a sustained plea to ask for higher fees, not lower, and to hold out for better quality gigs rather than being involved in a race for the bottom.

In fact, the first section is a little repetitive, and a significant amount of it could be summed up in the following two sentences. Richy Roy thinks a magician is worth $2000 (Canadian Dollars – for my UK audience – that is about £1100) for a gig. And if you want to earn that, you have to ask for it!

Much of that section is about self-belief – and actually asking for what you think you should be worth – rather than what you think they might be prepared to pay.

If you read any good books on business (negotiating, marketing, advertising etc.) then many of the concepts here will be familiar to you. What Roy so helpfully does is apply the principles specifically to the context of the performing magician.

Realistic and (mainly) up to date

It is filled with illustrations from his own experience which brings the book to life and eloquently make the points.

Part 1 – then – is about Price Tag. Part 2 is about Marketing and Part 3 is about Sales. Some of the ideas will need a little contextualisation for a UK audience – but most I would say are broadly applicable.

I found The Wealthy Magician  easy to read and full of helpful advice. There are some brilliant ideas here for diversifying and for building your brand.

It is ‘up to date’ in the sense that it does have an awareness of Social Media and the impact that is having on advertising and marketing. However, perhaps inevitably with a book, it already feels slightly out of date in that regard. Since I would say that the dominance of Facebook is already reducing – no doubt there will be another big thing before long.

With this small caveat notwithstanding, I would suggest this is compulsory reading for anyone contemplating the move to being a full time professional magician. If that is one of your aspirations then this book would greatly help you take the right approach from a business point of view.

I would recommend reading it alongside a book which might help you think through the more performance related side of things – and my top recommendation there would be The Approach (you can read our review here).

You can pick up a copy of the Wealthy Magician from the Merchant of Magic for £38.50 (at the time of writing).

Or possibly ever so slightly cheaper at Amazon.

Review copy kindly provided by Murphys Magic to whom dealer enquiries should be directed.

Richy Roy – The Wealthy Magician – review

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The post Richy Roy – The Wealthy Magician – review appeared first on Bicycle Cards.

What do you get?

A nicely printed book. In fact, two books in one, but more about that later…

Regular readers will know that I am a big fan of written instructions, rather than DVDs and so I am so delighted this has been re-released in this format. The explanation is very good and the book is well illustrated making everything clear.

The routine has been so well thought through and that shows. It can be done in the hands (this was a big selling point for me since I was keen to introduce a chop cup routine into my walkaround set) and makes sense. There are no difficult moves to speak of – though you will need a little practise to get the handling smooth.

The big finish will require an extra something – to enable you to vanish the cup full of liquid at the end – but if you don’t have the necessary or don’t want to use this phase the routine has a strong enough conclusion without it. This is just the icing on the cake.

What’s all this about Cups and Balls?

I hadn’t realised before it arrived that the book contains not just the Micro Chop Cup routine, but also the Loomis Cups and Balls routine. In a slightly quirky way the two thinks have been bound back to back and upside down in one volume.

The Cups and Balls routine, too, is excellent. Again, it is clear that careful thought has gone into the structuring of the routine. Reasons are given for, shock horror, departing from the Vernon way of doing things, and for me they are plausible reasons.

This will certainly take more work than the Chop Cup routine, but again it is clearly explained with clear photographic illustrations showing all the moves. I was slightly amused by the frilly cuffs in evidence in the photos – but that simply dates the original pictures I suppose!

After a detailed description of the whole routine there is a really helpful ‘outline’ of the routine in note form with positional diagrams – which would be really useful for practising the whole routine.

The Verdict?

This has clearly been a labour of love for Jamie – obtaining the rights and then re-publishing these classic routines – but it is not just an exercise in nostalgia. These are brilliant, effective, well-constructed routines.

I am certainly going to add the Chop Cup routine to my walkaround repertoire. I’m not sure whether the Cups and Balls Routine will replace my much loved (and rarely performed) Mendoza routine for a Chop Cup and Balls combination set – but that is more due to me being a little lazy rather than any comment on the quality of the routine which is excellent.

So this comes unreservedly recommended. You can get it directly from Jamie for only $27 (USD) and free shipping anywhere in the world. Many thanks to Jamie for re-releasing this great routine and for supplying us with a review copy.

The post Dennis Loomis Micro Chop Cup – Cups and Balls review appeared first on Bicycle Cards.

Unlike most of our reviews, The Approach isn’t brand new – it was published last year – but as I have written elsewhere I feel that it deserves a wider audience since it is such a unique and practical book. It styles itself “a complete guide to becoming a working magician” and it fulfils that brief very well.

The book is divided into 102 chapters – but don’t think chapters in a novel – think entries on a blog – since most are only a couple of pages long. It is incredibly practical covering nitty-gritty details from what tricks to use, how to structure a set, what to wear, what to charge (some real wisdom here), how to prepare, how to get gigs, how to respond to enquiries, how to ‘work the room’ – the list could go on and on. It includes questions that you feel too obvious that you could never ask anyone, and others that I would never have thought about – until you hit them yourself – for example there is a chapter on one-handed spectators!

Much of the information is anecdotal – in other words – you’re learning from Jamie’s mistakes (and successes). The book is also interactive – in the sense that there are practical exercises for you to fill out – which makes sure you are engaging with the material and taking it on board.

There is so much I liked about this book. But for balance I need to record a couple of downs. I may be too shy and retiring and British (actually, I’m not that shy and retiring!) – but some of the ideas and techniques feel that they fit Jamie’s incredibly positive personality, but might not fit everyone’s. That may just be the reality of needing to sell yourself – but you will have to evaluate this to see what it looks like for your particular personality. And on a similar note, bear in mind he is writing from a Canadian context. Whilst we share much cultural heritage with Canada, some things may not transpose directly.

That being said, these are in no way deal breakers – if you are worth your salt you are always going to evaluate this kind of content in the light of your own personality and context. So I have no hesitation in unreservedly recommending this book. Jamie seems to have a knack for putting out quality magic items (see our review of his Industrial Revelation for more evidence of this).

You can get your copy direct from Jamie (who kindly supplied my review copy) for $75 complete with free shipping (as I write).

If you’d prefer to buy from the UK, then you can buy it from Merchant of Magic.

The post The Approach – review appeared first on Bicycle Cards.

Merlins of Wakefield have a special offer on a nice little Wayne Dobson ESP effect called ESP! 30% off for a limited time.

The Bicycle Gargoyle Deck is reduced to only £6 at The Card Collection

10% off at MagicTricks.co.uk using the code ‘Halloween12’ valid until October 31st.

And in case you’ve never come across these, Jamie Grant does some great video reviews of magic tricks based on real world performing on a Friday! He now posts them all on Facebook.

The post Friday Magic Specials from around the web… appeared first on Bicycle Cards.

From the moment you open the package the trick screams ‘class’. It comes in an elegant presentation box, sealed with a real coin – in our case an ‘old’ five pence piece. Open up the box, and you are presented with a Bicycle Card box and a small black envelope sealed with a stylish clip. Although these things are irrelevant to the trick itself, they are signs of the great care that has gone into the production of this effect – in our experience a relatively rare feature in modern magic marketing.

The instructions are a simple A4 sheet with 8 stylish illustrations and clear text underneath. In addition to explaining the mechanics of the effect, there are some tips on keeping it working well, and each one appears to be individually signed and approved by Jamie. He also supplies extra thoughts and tips by email to any purchasers.

Jamie is clearly someone who loves his art (back in 2009 we raved about his wonderful Bicycle Cards in a glass bottle – which are still available) and he has taken great care to produce a wonderful product. It is based on the old (though still great) matchbox penetration – but is bigger and better and made of steel not brass.

What do we think?

For a non-smoker, using a card case rather than a matchbox makes much more sense for me. And it makes the whole thing more visual – you could use it at a table and folk across the table would be able to appreciate the effect.

It is beautifully made, and is certainly going to withstand reasonable inspection. The mechanism is already good – and I suspect will improve with use.

We struggled to use it with a coin, which feels a little wide for the working. But we like the idea (and it seems kind of logical) that we saw on the World Magic Shop review of this trick – using a folded playing card to push through the box.

Minor quibbles for the walkaround context which is my domain:

But all in all it is a lovely effect. If you switched in the box you could use it as a SPECTACULAR finale to any card routine. It comes highly recommended and is available direct from Jamie at http://www.sendwonder.com/ for $125 + shipping.

The post Industrial Revelation – Review appeared first on Bicycle Cards.