Magical Odyssey by Ian Sutz aka Magic Ian
In past articles I have written about magic conventions, creating magic, being a novice in a professional magic world, and traveling with Jeff McBride, Pete White, Bob Little and others. If you missed any of them, I have collected the articles on my blog site http://magic-ian.blogspot.com/ .
Those of you who don’t know that I create websites for magic shops and magicians can visit my sites at: www.tricks.ws , or www.stagetricks.com (just two of 35 sites I own). Some of the sites conjured from scratch are www.rabbitinthehatranch.com or www.rabmagic.com , www.magiccentral.biz , www.mrdavesmagic.com , www.policemagic.com . I specialize in magic catalogs that use flash graphics and innovative photo journals. See www.trickdecks.com for a flash example.
One of the unique services I provide are sub-domains for magicians as well as e-mail forwarding.
A magic sub domain is a name that is attached to a main web domain. For instance, http://ring170.blogspot.com/ is a sub domain of blogspot.com. So, if you are looking for a cool short web name to forward to your existing website, you can type www.anyname.tricks.ws and it will be redirected to any site you want (once its set up).
You can also have a magical e-mail of your own that will be redirected to your existing e-mail. Example: mail sent to ring170@tricks.ws could be sent to the clubs e-mail address.
Some great sub domains I have are: tricks.ws, mago.us, usmagic.biz, stagetricks.com, clowntricks.com, Tvmagic.biz, Magicians.TV, magico.biz, balloontricks.com, and others not related to magic. You can have both e-mail and sub domains. Contact me at magicians@aol.com.
Now enough commercials. You all know that Dan Stapleton will be your lecturer of choice this month at both Orlando and at the Leesburg, Fl group. Dan was responsible for booking me at one of my first lectures in Orlando many years ago and is one of the most supportive magicians and a superb talent. We in the Leesburg area intend to give him a great turnout on his arrival here.
So many times, the talent in your own club is overlooked and outside lectures seem to get preference over local talent, so its great to see our own people showcased.
Now, lets talk about magic effects and marketing. We are in one of the most unique businesses for inventors of magic. Although there is little protection against piracy of our effects, we also have the ability to go from concept to sale within days (unheard of in other industries). Your distribution of an original effect is available from local shops, their suppliers, or direct sales through lectures or eBay marketing.
Years ago when I wrote my first booklet “Best Dam Tricks” 1980, it took me a few weeks to write it, and 1 year to edit and re-edit due to the lack of word processing back then. Every time we typed* (an archaic form of keyboard entry with no storage) a page, it had to be proofread, then re-entered by the typesetter at the printing company who also (due to not understanding magical speak), caused additional typos. Consequently, that book finally went to press after being typed and proofed by Roy Fromer.
Your next decision is to anticipate the market response. I had enough confidence to invest in a first printing of 2000 pieces followed by a second printing of 5000 copies. But your decision to produce the product yourself should be based on the acceptance of your test market, not your guesswork or vanity.
I find that today, the best and least expensive way to sell a book or instruction effect is the e-book, CD, or if you are able, the DVD format. Production is cheap compared to the printing processes of yesteryear.
Next comes mass marketing. In todays world, the ideal market is to let the distributor have a bigger share of profits and let them promote the effect. Of course, until you get the effect sold to a distributor, you could try to market it at the club, or thru some of the magic periodicals. A website promotion will also work by buying banner space on some magic sites.
That, of course gets back to having your own web space (hint, hint).
Success of the effect is also based on its acceptance by your magical peers. If you can get someone who is a known performer to do the effect, your success will be exponential. I was lucky with some of my utility effects being used by Copperfield, Irv Weiner, Jeff Mcbride, Burton and others and ideally you may want to contact your favorite “known” performers and send them your effect to use.
What would normally go without saying yet must be stated is that your effect should be original or as non-derivative as possible. I have a new book/DVD coming out on original variations of the matrix. Of course I give credit where-ever possible to certain moves invented by predecessors. My point being, that more than likely your new effect will be an improvement of some effect or handling there-of, and should acknowledge the roots of its creation.
Contact me anytime about sub-domains starting at $10 yr, e-mail forwarding included. First level e-mail $10. Advice and help on marketing new effects is free to club members.
Good luck, have fun
Magic Ian
