Merchant of Magic, Author at How to do Magic Tricks

Learn Magic Card Tricks Even If You Have No Time To Practice.

learn magic card tricks in just 10 minute practice sessons.

Jason writes: The things I struggle with are finding the time to practice and learn magic card tricks correctly. How do you make time?

Yep, there never is enough hours in the day. Magic very quickly becomes an obsession and there are plenty of magicians out there that commit many hours daily or weekly to their practice of card technique. Good for them! Many burn out over time and drift away from their practice, but a few keep going and go on to become masters of the art.. The good news is you DON’T need hours each day to learn magic card tricks… well, you do need some time, but not hours… just 10 minutes, twice a day… that’s all!

WHAT!?!

It’s really true… I’ve been training magicians for the past 20 years and in that time I’ve discovered something very useful for anyone starting to learn card magic. You see, A funny aspect of skill learning is that we humans get more benefit from short frequent practice sessions than we do from long ones. Most of the benefit from a session happens in the first 10 minutes. After 10 minutes it’s a case of diminishing returns, as our attention decreases and fatigue from repetition builds up.

It’s exactly the same with fitness training.. Back in the day, fitness coaches told their students to do at least an hour of cardio.. But research slowly discovered that the gains from each workout came from the first 20 minutes of the session.. Many trainers knew this, but ‘customers’ wanted an hour long session to get their moneys worth and to perceive ‘value’. As this changes and research into training developers, the popularity of HIT training reduced effective training sessions into much shorter workout sessions. The same applies when we learn card magic. We can capitalise on this by practicing in short ‘micro sessions’ of just 10 minutes, with several hours between sessions.

10 minutes in the morning and 10 at night.. Everyone can get up 10 minutes earlier if they put their mind to it.

It’s easy for beginners to learn magic card tricks

Starting to learn magic card tricks can be a bit like starting a New Years resolution… It starts well, but simply doesn’t last. A process of short regular magic practice sessions every single day is infinitely better than none.

Quick sessions are easy to ‘fit in’ to daily life and therefore less likely to be skipped. Feeling pressure to take time out for a long period of training can lead to avoidance and excuses because of guilt that builds up. If you start associating feelings of inadequacy and guilt with your magic practice you’re not going to be able to do it as easily.

Tell me more about how to learn magic card tricks with short practice sessions!

If you’re interested to learn more about this, I’ve written a book on techniques and practice drills for learning sleight of hand. You can get a free copy of the book here: ‘approaching magic practice’

Hope this helps you

Dominic Reyes

How To Make Money Doing Magic

by Merchant of Magic Leave a Comment

Magic is an awesome hobby—and for a lot of us, the enjoyment we get out of it is more than enough to keep us satisfied!

But did you know that there are actually a lot of creative ways you could earn money through magic?

Here are three simple ways you can use your magic skills to pay the bills!

No1 Paid Gigs

This is the most obvious of all the methods, but it’s definitely worth mentioning. This is the most common and ‘tried and tested’ way to earn a very decent income through magic.

Here’s how it tends to work…

You build yourself a website that lets your prospective customers know a little bit about you and what you can do for them. This isn’t as hard as it sounds, and if you really don’t feel like doing it you can always hire someone else to do it for you.

You can learn all about how to make your own website to promote your magic here…

Alternatively, you could create some business cards to hand out next time you’re out performing magic. The most important thing is that you have SOMETHING for your potential customers refer to—whether it’s a website, business card or even a Facebook page.

The next step is getting your name out there—ask your friends to spread the word and consider setting up a few paid ads to get things rolling. Once you get a few gigs under your belt word of mouth should start spreading and you’ll naturally get people coming to you.

What type of gigs should you be performing?

There are a few different types of paid gigs magicians tend to go for (and they each have respective benefits and disadvantages).

Restaurants

This is a good starting place for magicians looking to start making their way up the paid gigs ‘ladder’. Performing at restaurants is a good way to get used to performing magic to unfamiliar crowds, and since you’ll generally be ‘table-hopping’ anyway, you’ll be performing for small groups at a time. Make sure to hand out your business card at the end of each performance!

Weddings

Weddings tend to pay nicely (of course they do—it’s a wedding!) so if you can get yourself a few of these booked then you’ll do very nicely for yourself.

A great tip for getting weddings booked is to attend ‘wedding fayres’ which are usually venues where couples can check out all the different kinds of things they’ll need for their wedding and how much they’ll cost. For example, photographers will often be in attendance at this event—looking to secure a few events.

You can do exactly the same thing as a magician (and chances are, there won’t be many other magicians there to compete with). This is your chance to impress the couples and pitch your value as an entertainer at their function.

Here’s a free ebook about marketing yourself for weddings

Corporate Events

This is a style of show where businesses will pay magicians to come in and present lessons and motivational ideas for the employees through the medium of magic. Or sometimes, it’s just purely for entertainment.

Either way, it’s a good atmosphere to perform in and often pays nicely!

Busking

If you’re not quite ready for paid events like we talked about above, you might benefit from getting your start on the streets.

Street magic and busking are less of a ‘step up’ from casual magic, but they still provide you with the chance to earn while you perform.

Check out this resource on getting started in busking!

No.2 Create Your Own Magic

If you know a thing or two about magic and have a creative flair, you can earn money through creating your OWN effects or gimmicks.

There are plenty of magic shops and companies that will then pay you good money for your efforts! Or you could create your own website and sell your effects exclusively through there.

Here’s a great blog post published here at the MoM that teaches you all about creating original and unique magic tricks.

No.3 Affiliate Marketing for Magic Shops

The other two ideas we’ve discussed so far have been pretty standard. But here’s something you might not have considered…

Affiliate Marketing.

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing sounds complicated, but it’s really quite simple. You can earn money by promoting OTHER people’s products (all you need is a link).

How does this relate to magic?
Well, as it happens, you can become an affiliate of the Merchant of Magic here.

That means you can get a unique link for EACH of our products that will enable you to earn a commission whenever somebody clicks through your link and buys the product.

For example, if you made a YouTube video performing one of your favourite new effects, you could drop a link in the description that would take people to the Merchant of Magic to buy that same effect (which would earn you a commission!).

This approach definitely won’t work for everyone, and I’m sure many people would find it easier to go with the more traditional method of performing at paid gigs and functions, but it’s definitely worth considering if you haven’t yet done so.

So there you are! Three simple ways to earn some extra cash through nothing more than performing magic!

Do you have any questions we didn’t address? Feel free to get in touch with us.

About the author: Benji is a hobbyist magician from the UK who also runs a magic site over at thedailymagician.com.

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Top Three Trick Decks For Beginners

by Merchant of Magic 1 Comment

Sleight of hand is great.

But sometimes, it’s nice to have one or two tricks in our repertoire that don’t take ANY difficult moves. It’s even better when these easy tricks are some of the most powerful effects your spectator will ever see.

This is exactly what you can accomplish using gimmicked decks…

Now, there are a whole bunch of different gimmicked decks out there. That means that there are also, inevitably, a lot of BAD gimmicked decks. These are the trick decks that would never stand up to a real close up inspection, or perhaps have VERY limited angles. You want to avoid these!

So how do you know which trick decks are genuine quality? That’s what we’re going to explain in this blog post. You’ll find out three of our favorite tricks decks for beginners – and whether they’re right for you.

Let’s get into it…

Trick Deck No.3: One Way Force Deck

The One Way Force Deck is a regular deck of 52 cards. The cards are completely normal, and so is the deck.

Here’s the catch…

All the cards are the same.

That’s right. Every one of the 52 cards in the deck are identical. For example, my One Way Force Deck is made up entirely of the Queen of Hearts. Now, I know what you’re thinking…

Isn’t this the oldest trick deck in the book? Nobody is going to be fooled by this.

Buying a One Way Force Deck might not sound like the best idea you’ve ever heard, but here’s why it actually is…

It’s all about HOW you use it. You need to be subtle with it. In my opinion, you shouldn’t use the One Way Force Deck as the ‘main’ effect. Instead, use it to support and strengthen other effects.

If the One Way Force Deck is the ‘main’ deck you use, people are more likely to want to examine it, or check it out. But if you only introduce it for a certain part of the trick, they’ll usually forget about it.

Here’s an example…

Imagine we were performing an ACAAN (Any Card At Any Number) routine. There are a few stages to this effect. First, the spectator selects a card. Then, they select a number. Their chosen card is then found at that number.

Let’s imagine you only have ONE deck to use for this. In most cases, you would need to force a card using sleight of hand. Now imagine you brought the One Way Force Deck into play instead. Here’s how you could present it…

You show the spectators an ordinary deck of cards and ask them to hold onto them – so you can’t do anything to them. Little do they know, the card you are going to force is already in the desired position.

Next, you introduce another deck (this one is the One Way Force Deck). Now, this makes sense. The spectator is holding on to the other deck – so of course you need to use another one! There’s nothing suspicious about it.

You spread the deck face down on the table and ask a spectator to touch the back of one card. This is a real free choice (not like it matters when all the cards are the same!). Once they’ve touched that card, you remove it from the deck and place it on the table. Now you gather up the rest of the One Way Force Deck and remove it from the effect.

That’s it.

It’s as simple as that. Now you can carry on with the effect as usual – forcing a number or using sleight of hand to manipulate where the number they choose lands. The key thing is that you’ve strengthened the ‘pick a card’ of the routine without raising any suspicions.

That’s how the One Way Force Deck should be used. Not as the main deck that does all the work, but as a support to the other aspects of your magic.

Here’s where to get hold of a one way deck

Let’s get into the next pick…

Trick Deck No.2: Stripper Deck

The Stripper Deck was the very first trick deck I ever received, and it definitely played a big part in getting me ‘hooked’ on magic.

It’s a very versatile trick deck that is almost invisible to spectators and can be used in hundreds (more like thousands) of different ways!

Without revealing too much, the Stripper Deck is for all intents and purposes a regular deck of cards, only you can alter each card in a certain way to make it immediately discoverable in the deck, even after shuffling. This process takes about a second to do and can be done right in front of the spectator’s eyes.

Once you’ve mastered this move (and it really is very easy), a whole new world of card tricks will be opened up to you.

One of my favorite uses of the Stripper Deck is as a ‘safety’ net.

What I mean by this is that I perform my card magic as usual, but using a Stripper Deck to give me an ‘out’ if I need one. So if I’m doing the Ambitious Card Routine, and I realise I messed up – I can very quickly and easily find the chosen card if I’ve been using the Stripper Deck function (and nobody will realise that I messed up!).

The Stripper Deck can be operated through ‘feel’ alone so it also opens up a whole range of possibilities – you could perform with your eyes closed, with your hands behind your back, or even with a blindfold on!

I would definitely recommend checking out The Stripper Deck

No.1: The Invisible Deck

I feel like I’m ALWAYS talking about The Invisible Deck, but that’s for good reason. The Invisible Deck is one of THE most powerful effects in magic, and it’s so incredibly easy!

The magician places a deck of cards on the table, and promises that he isn’t going to touch them one. He then invites a spectator to think of ONE card. They really can think of absolutely any card in the deck – it is a completely free choice.

Once they’ve they’ve decided on their card, the magician asks them to say it aloud for the first time. Let’s say it’s the King of Spades.

The magician slowly reaches to the table and opens up the deck of cards that has been there the WHOLE time. He carefully spreads through the cards to reveal that they’re all face up…apart from one. The one face-down card is removed from the deck, and the magician lies it flat on the table. He reminds the audience that they really could have thought of ANY card. He turns it over to reveal that it is somehow, impossibly, the same card that the spectator named!

This is an absolute game-changing effect for any magician. It’s a great opener card tricks, and just as competent as a closer to your performance. And better yet, it’s one of the easiest effects you’ll ever perform.

Check out The Invisible Deck

I hope you enjoyed this list of the top three trick decks for beginners! All of these decks are great investments for your magic.

About the author: Benji is a hobbyist magician from the UK who also runs a magic site over at thedailymagician.com

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