The Weekly Magic Failure wrote an interesting article recently entitled 10 Rules To Market Magic. Roland was right on point in virtually every instance. It somewhat reminded me of an article I wrote several years ago entitled Fuck Me, I’m A Magician. That article was written towards the end of the Cogitations disaster when I continued to insist that the perpetrator (and we all know who that was) failed to deliver what was promised and so many fools on the Magic Café kept insisting "I got my money’s worth". That was never the point. Anyway, that article seems to have gotten lost in a recent transfer. We’ll live.
I think Roland left out two items which have become somewhat indispensable if a trick is to succeed in the current market:
11. Sell lots of your product on a pre-issue basis and then push the delivery date back month after month, all while promising more and better effects. Even as it becomes apparent to anyone with half a brain that something is seriously wrong, there will be many fools at the Café saying that they are willing to wait for this life changing trick. Obviously, when it finally comes out and is nothing but a stale rehash of an existing trick or a totally unworkable abomination, the same morons will tell the world how pleased they are that they waited.
12. Troll the forums as the inventor/publisher and immediately pounce on any negative or lukewarm review explaining that the reviewer is an ignoramus incapable of appreciating the sheer genius he holds in his unworthy hands. The reviewer will immediately be accosted for having the intelligence of an amoeba by the same group of fools (see 11) that want to just smell a real magicians jock. If Brooks had a scintilla of integrity or desire to keep his forums fair, he would preclude authors/developers from commenting on their own material. Of course, that will never happen!!
So now you have everything you need to go out and make a fortune as a magic inventor.
You are welcome.
