Jack Rhodes was a nuclear engineer. He may mention that once or twice with flippant abandon in his Unclear Guide to Magic, a raw and fast ride through the inner workings of his processes and career as a successful (no, really) internet content creator and live performer.
He spills his magical and content-creation expertise with a mixture of self-effacing humor and hard-earned confidence that propels the readers forward, making us enthralled fans rooting for his every achievement along the way.
The first half of this rugged, full-color, thick-paged volume comprises a veritable step-by-step tutorial on how to, and perhaps why not to, delve into the world of monetized internet video creation. In unapologetic and gritty detail, Rhodes breaks down his wild successes and bitter failures. He includes graphs and screenshots, dollars (or in his case pounds), and viewership numbers, explaining in an engaging balance of gruffness and eloquence just how and why so many videos worked without shying away from the reasons that others decidedly did not. What’s more, he includes QR codes for the videos. A lot of them. Without fact-checking, I’ll venture that this book has more hours of accompanying magic video than any other to date. He lays it all bare for us to learn, and it’s a magnificent series of lessons.