The Business Side of Show Business by Caroline Ravn

I’ve never met a magician who daydreams about email funnels. But turning great routines into a real livelihood usually requires the unglamorous stuff: business planning, pricing, and consistent marketing. Some artists I’ve met linger in their own “field of dreams” thinking, “If I build it—a good act, fooling tricks, an arsenal of sleights—they will come.” Keep dreaming. It took me years to learn otherwise, and my younger self wishes I’d had Caroline Ravn’s The Business Side of Show Business: How to Make a Living Onstage when I was starting out as a full-time magician.