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CONTENTS Introduction How to Work “Magic Community” How to Get a Little Fame? How to Work Instagram Fastest Way to Get Recognized

INTRODUCTION The reason I wanted to write about this topic is... A lot of people want to get recognized within the magic community, but they have no idea how to work around it or even how to start their journey to a celebrity magician or influencer. I am not famous or anything like that, but I believe I can share some valuable insights with those who have absolutely no idea how to stay alive in this community. I mean, if you are reading this, then doesn’t it mean that you might know me?

YASSSS MY LIFE IS COMPLETEEEEE On social media, there is something called algorithm. Algorithms of all social media platforms change constantly, but I will share my thoughts on current algorithms in this small e- book. It takes too long to explain exactly what algorithm is, but you’ll just be able to use the current algorithm in your favor if you follow what I wrote down in this file. Some people might think, “who the fxxk is this kid tryna tell me what to do!” To increase my credibility, I have been hustling in magic community and market since I was 16. I released my first book called Greetings which is like 300+ pages or something when I was 16. Released a Korean version when I was 17 in Korea without the help of any major magic brands, but still got made enough money to live like a king for a while. When I was 18, I released a download with a magic brand which got me recognized by certain group of magicians. When I was 18, I released my own independent booklets on my personal website, and they were all sold out. When I was 19, I worked with SansMinds Magic, this is when

my career sky rocketed. Working with SansMinds helped me to get even more recognized among magicians. Since then, I have been releasing more and more materials on my own and with SansMinds Magic. I have carefully planned out all my release schedules and social media activities to get the maximized “fame”. To further establish my credibility...

This is the quick dashboard for my own person store. It is not a lot of money but that is from just 2019 alone, and I only spend about 1 week to write a book to publish on my website. Last year, I only released 3 small booklets which took me about 3 weeks, but it brought me $17k USD in revenue ( thank you to US tax law, income from internet under 20k is tax free). I also released 2 DVDs with SansMinds and did some offline/ online lectures in varies of countries, and in total I have made about $30k without even having a proper job. I think I only worked 1 month at most last year, and spent most of the time watching anime or playing Starcraft 2. I am not boasting. I am just telling you that Tim Ferris’s 4-Hour Work Week works! I mean, I worked way less than that.. BUT! The point is, I believe what I am about to share with you works! What I am about to share with you is the essence of my personal experiences, and what I have learned from my friends about magic market and social medias. Also, from books by legends like Tim Ferris, Gary Vaynerchek, Patrick Bet-David, Jordan Belfort, Napoleon Hill, etc. That’s enough of me rambling. Let’s get started!

12/28/2019 - Zee

HOW TO WORK WITH “MAGIC COMMUNITY” First topic that I want to talk about is What Other People Might Think is THE WAY TO GET FAMOUS vs What I think is THE WAY TO GET FAMOUS. I have met numerous friends who wants to get recognized in magic community but have no idea how to work it. Most of them told me they think they can release something in magic community, and they will get recognized. The sad truth is, no matter how many projects you release, you just might not get recognized. No matter how many! There are an insane amount of “new” releases in magic market EVERYDAY! It is extremely hard to stand out from all those releases, and you might not even get remembered for your magic even if you stand out for a release. SansMinds Magic has provided me with a statistic that is extremely interesting yet pretty obvious. Most of the time, one will need to release 3 above average projects consecutively within a very short amount of time to even get remembered by the community. Above average meaning DVD worthy and people are willing to pay at least $25$35 USD to buy it. Downloads does not count After the first project, people will know your magic but not you. After the second project, people might recognize you because you have just impressed them twice in a row. After the third project, people might remember you because you have impressed them three times in a row, and that makes them wonder when you are releasing your next great project.

Another obstacle you will face is that, major magic brands won’t even take your magic to release on their websites. Mostly because they have tons and tons of submissions in their submission box. There are a few brands who are more capable of releasing almost anything for you on their websites, but that also means your project might get overflooded by other people’s projects causing you to not get the spotlight you deserve. That is why you won’t even get recognized even if you have released 10+ projects with brands that releases numerous projects everyday. That is why you need to either somehow get the attention of whoever is in charge of project releases with the big brands to get the proper attention. If you don’t want to go this route, there are also some other ways. I will share a few insights on how to get recognized in bullet points.

1.

If you are already active on social media and have a decent fanbase of a highly engaged of couple thousand fans, then you can totally make your own website to sell your own projects without the help of any brands. The downside of this method is that your fanbase will grow extremely slowly. On the other hand, if you are able to release something that is amazing every 2 month or so, then you can still get famous. You can even build your own brand. Who knows.

2.

If you do not have a decent fanbase, then you will need to build one. I know you are wondering why I am telling you to build a fanbase if this method isn’t all that effective. Let me explain. Even if you have managed to get a bit of recognition from releasing a few great projects, you will still get forgotten by the majority if you are not active on social media. People want to know more about you after watching/reading your work on magic, so they will often look you up on various social media. If you have little to none activity on social media, then people loved your projects won’t even follow you and, eventually, forget about you. So, how do you grow on social media? I will explain later.

3.

Go around all kinds of magic conventions and perform for

anyone you can. Be friends with as many people as you can. You will never know who is in charge of what. You will also never know the guy who was eating cheap pizza with you in the corner of the convention can turn into a legendary magician. That is the summary of this e-book. Starting from next chapter, I will get into more details on how to do all of the above. The biggest thing you want to decide is what your end goal is. Do you want to be a world-class performer? Do you want to be a convention star? Are you doing all this just as a hobby, and you don’t care about all these worldly accomplishments? Are you just trying to show the world how great you are? Or.... world domination.......? Whatever goal you have in your mind, our topic is going to be money and fame.

HOW TO GET A LITTLE FAME? By Yourself: Social Media If you decide to release projects by yourself on your own website and promote them on your social media, then amount of money and fame you are going to get is solely depended on your editing skills and marketing skills. Most importantly how committed you are. This route is probably going to be pretty hard if you are not a genius like Zach Mueller. However, if you are still trying to do everything by yourself, then I will share everything I know here! Most newly famous magicians are all quite diligent on social media. Here is a simple way to attract some fans on social media. Now the days phone can shoot 720 or 1080 and some can shoot up to 4k video. You don’t need fancy camera equipments. Next, learn as many magic or techniques that you are interested in. Practice them until you think your performance or technique is above average. After that, shot you performances in well-lit environment. Make sure your background is nice and clean. No one wants to see your dirty underwear hanging in the back. Upload your video social media at least 3 times per week for at least 10 weeks. If you actually follow this advice, then you will see your follower account has grown exponentially. I will explain in more detail on how to exactly go about this.

By Yourself: Releasing Projects Releasing a single project and become an international magic star

overnight like Ponta the Smith is IMPOSSIBLE nowadays. You will get a little money and fame for sure, but we will never have another explosive overnight star like Ponta the Smith. Don’t expect that kind of miracle happen on us. *Fun fact: Amount of attention and money you will get by releasing exactly the same material when you are not so well-known and when you are already well-known is extremely different. I had released a lot of my coin work for free before, but I never got the attention of anyone until I started to charge money. People don’t value free information in this information explosive age. I had released some materials on my own, but I only made $150 in 2 month, and a lot of people talked down on my materials. When I got a little bit recognition, I released exactly the same material, but people started to praise about my materials, and I made enough money on that single project to pick up a hobby of smoking authentic cuban cigars. Smoking is bad. Please don’t do it! If you insist on releasing projects on your own, then I would recommend releasing them in e-book format. Writing a book takes time and a lot of effort, but it absolutely sells once it is done. If you are lucky enough, then you will be contacted by major magic brands to re-release your materials in video format, then you will be able to make money twice with the same materials! If you release your materials in video format, then major magic brands will be reluctant about taking your project because there is a high possibility of your stuff got pirated, and everyone already can learn all your stuff without buying from major brands. Therefore, releasing your projects on your own in video format is basically giving up the chance of working with big brands to expand your influence and make more money simply because you are lazy. Back in the days, you can independently release a project and still get new fans, but now you need existing fan base to even make money if you release by yourself. Therefore, releasing your first few projects with major brands is the fastest way to make a few grand while putting your

name out there. Releasing projects with major brands can almost guarantee you a growth on fanbase. After gaining a decent fanbase via releasing projects with major brands and with a constant social media management, you can finally release independent projects that can make you some money.

HOW TO WORK INSTAGRAM? Quite a few friends of mine work in marketing and social media marketing related businesses, so I have learned a lot from them over the years. I will share what I have learned over the years on this chapter. We are in the entertainment business industry. Many magician only focus on the entertainment part and not the business. To be honest, if you are relatively talent in magic or anything related to magic market, then it will be quite easy to get recognition in this community. For example, you can be a great cinematographer, then you can just film for famous guys and hop on the ship to fame along with them. However, that is not what I am going to talk about here. What I am going to talk about is how to use Instagram. On instagram, you will need to upload contents that get a lot of likes. More likes equals to more potential followers. It sounds pretty obvious, but a lot of instagram users seem to not know what kind of content gets more likes. Let’s talk about how to produce more likeable contents on Instagram.

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The simplest thing to make your content more likeable is to use DSLR cameras to film your contents. Better quality videos tend to get more likes compared to videos filmed with a smartphone. Everyone loves well produced content. But if you are just starting out a smartphone will do.

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Filming videos in well lit environment can drastically improve your video quality even if you are using a smartphone to film. If you do not own any lighting equipment, then you can simply go next to a window or go outside to film. Natural light can be better if you are

not sure how to use lighting equipments properly.

•

It is 2020, film your social media videos vertically will get more likes on Instagram or even on Facebook. If you are into Tiktok or something, then you will know why filming in vertical fashion is so important. Vertical videos simply fill more space your other people’s phone screens, so there is a higher chance of them stop scrolling to watch your content. If your video is filmed horizontally for Youtube purpose, then people can easily make it disappear with a single scroll, but vertical videos might take 2 scrolls to get rid of. With an interesting enough thumbnail, people are more likely to watch your content compared to a horizontal video with an uninteresting thumbnail. Furthermore, vertical videos are easier on the eyes because they take bigger space on small screens of smartphones, so people are more likely to watch your videos with ease multiple times. Check out these two pictures. Which one would you spend time to take a look at?

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On Instagram, the amount of likes you got and the amount of views you got is a very different thing. If you have a video that has 1000 views but only 100 likes, then it could mean that most people saw your video did not like your content enough to leave a like. Or it could also mean 100 people watched your content 10 times each. Whichever the case is, more views is usually a good sign. Let’s talk about how to get more views out of the same viewers. First of all, make your videos as short as possible without sacrificing actual contents. For example, you do not need to spread your cards and dribble it a couple times even before doing anything. Eliminate anything that you think is not necessary to make your videos as short as possible, so people are more likely to watch your videos over and over again. If you do not manage to grab the viewers’ attention within 3 seconds, then they are very likely to move onto the next content of others.

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On the other hand, if you have a lot of views from followers but very little likes, then it could mean that your followers just check out your content and scroll away. In that case, Instagram will think your content is terrible so it stops suggesting these particular contents to non-followers and even your own followers. We call these “I only watch but I never leave likes” kind of followers as Ghost Followers. If you think this is your issue, then you can easily get an app to force ghost followers to unfollow you. I have personally purged my account, and I lost about 4k followers, but the amount of likes I get doubled instantly. Now most of my followers are the people who actually care about me, and they are great potential customers. Engagement ratio is king so don’t be afraid to loose the ghost followers.

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When you are uploading videos on any social media platforms, carefully chosen thumbnail is extremely important because it directly affects if people are going to watch your videos or not, or even if they are going to follow you or not. If your thumbnail is boring, then people might not even watch your content. If one of your videos

has a great thumbnail so people watched it and loved it, then they are very likely to check out your account. If most of your videos have amateur and boring thumbnails, they are most likely to get out of your account and move on with their lives. If you have a great feed with great thumbnails, then people will watch quite a few of your videos and follow you at the end of Instagram-video-watching session.

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On Instagram or on any social media platforms, you can write something below or above your contents, and we call them captions. Even if you have great contents with great thumbnails and all that, there is one more thing you can do to increase the possibility of getting more followers. For example, you did the best classic pass in the world in your video with best quality you can and only wrote “pass lol” in your caption. Most likely people will skip your video. However, if you wrote something meaningful like your insights on pass and encourage conversations under your post, then people feel like you are a more personal person so more likely to follow you in order to have more meaningful conversations and to have a piece of your mind.

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On all social media platforms, we have something called hashtags. I see a lot of people use it wrong or do not even use it in their advantages. First of all, use as many hashtags as you can. The limit is 25 for Instagram. To avoid your post looking like a crazy ad account, comment your hashtags under your post rather than directly having them in your caption. Furthermore, to make your post to look even cleaner, put dots above your hashtags... like this.

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The worst enemy of gaining followers is to use your Instagram as a personal everyday life blog. Do not post food pics or you hanging out with your laymen friends(unless they are realllyyyyyy hot). The sad truth is, nobody is interested in our everyday life unless you are super famous and they are your fans. Before you become famous and everyone wants to know more about you on personal levels, share as little personal life on social media as possible. All you want to share is how great you are at whatever you are doing and how great your life is. It sounds like a terrible advice because I am basically telling you to lie to your followers, but you will need to build an image to earn your followers’ respect to further expand. If you really don’t have great videos to upload, then upload great picture that you can look at and say, “Wow, I am the greatest photographer in my town!” Never post bad pictures because that will make some new followers to unfollow you. Even if nobody follows you, average likes you get per post drops drastically which makes your account not as precious.

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Audience Engagement is extremely important if you are trying to expand your follower count and sell more copies of your independent projects. Great audience engagement means high % of people who follow you tend to like every single one of your new posts and even comment on your posts. How to achieve that? Other than great contents, try to encourage communications under your post, and try to reply to every single one of your replies and messages. If you communicate your followers more, then other people will think you really care about your followers thus follow you at the end. Followers you got with great audience engagement are all great potential customers compared to those followers you got from shoutouts or from giveaways.

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Now that we have talked about most major elements on Instagram, all you have to do is try to post something every single day. Even post 2 contents per day because that will make you grow even faster. If you cannot produce as many videos per week, then

you can post 2 videos and 5 pictures per week. If you are not good at taking pictures, then you can post 3 to 4 videos per week. Now, let’s talk about the more technical aspects of managing Instagram. Make a fan-page or similar on your Facebook account, and link it to your instagram. By linking your Instagram to your Facebook page, your instagram turns into a “business account” so you can obtain more information about your followers. Once you have more information about your followers, you will be able to create and post content that more specifically target your followers.

From the above screenshot, you will be able to see 91% of my followers are men and only 9% are women. You can also see most of my followers are noticeably more active between 9 a.m to 12 p.m. If I want, I can just post pictures of hot girls between 9 a.m to 12 p.m to get more likes and followers, but that is not professional. However, I can add more elements men like keeping my personal style and post between 9 a.m to 12 p.m. Now we have talked about how to gain more likes and followers, let’s talk about your feed in more detail. If your feed is messy, then it lowers the possibility of gaining more followers that you could have gained. Simplest way to make your feed to look good is to match the over all colors of your contents. For example, look at Chris Ramsay’s feed and mine. Which one is more instantly likeable and follow worthy?

That is all I can share about growing independently without the help of others. Once you have done all the things I have told you about, you can connect with other Instagramers to get even more exponential growth. All you have to do is just ask Instagramers with similar follower amount or have more followers than you to give you a shoutout. In return, you can give them shoutouts or provide them with contents because bigger accounts on any social media platforms always need more contents. If this person has similar follower account, then you can ask for a shoutout with a shoutout in return, but bigger accounts do not need your shoutout, so provide them with something more valuable: contents.

FASTEST WAY TO GET RECOGNIZED I will make this chapter as short as possible because you have already read enough words in a day. Do all the things above and release 3 projects with major brands. Consistency is key. Do not expect any overnight success. Everything takes time. What I want to share with you is my view on the fastest way to get recognized in the community... And make money.

1.

Work on your Instagram or Youtube or TikTok or whatever platform you preferred.

2.

Come up with your materials

3.

Release them in e-book format to make some money. You should expect to sell about 10~30 copies if it is your first ever project.

4.

Try to get the attention of major brands and release your materials with them. Try to save up 3 projects worth of contents before you even approach them. From here, you might make a few thousand dollars. *Fun fact: Submission system is very unlikely to get you deals with major brands since they have hundreds of submissions every single day. Unless your materials are extremely good, you won’t get a reply. However, even if your material isn’t the greatest magic ever, you will still be able to release with major brands if you have personal connections.

5.

Hold on to those people who got interested in you because of your releases with major brands. After a while, release even more independent projects. You will see a noticeable increase in sales. You will sell hundreds of copies if you have done everything correctly. Amount of money you will make will be more or less same as releasing with major brands because you don’t have to give anyone a cut from the revenue.

6.

Release new independent projects with major brands again to further expand your influence and gain more followers who are also potential customers.

7.

Once the amount of money you make on your own website is double or triple of what you make from working with major brands, you are now big enough to build your own brand. You could become the next Shin Lim or Patrick Kun, who knows? When choosing a brand to work with.... Well, if you have no connections, hold on to whatever chance you are given. If you have a choice, then you have to consider a few things. If work with brands that only do downloads or streaming services, then you won’t spread your name as much compared to brands that still do physical products like DVDs. With my age group, we are all used to buying instant downloads from online, because they are relatively cheaper and we can get access to the secret instantly. However, magic industry adapted to new technology slower than most industries. There are still potential buyer who prefers to buy things from in physical stores. If you are planning to grow so much that you do lecture tours in various countries, then you might want to choose a brand that can release physical projects for you. For example, China is a huge country with a lot of magicians, but it is extremely difficult for them to buy anything from foreign websites (thank you to the great firewall of China). All they got is TaoBao or Tmall (similar to eBay or

Amazon) to purchase physical DVDs. Same case in Japan and Korea. These 3 countries are major potentials places. So yes, do physical products until you have personal connections in all countries. That is all! FINALLY! SHIT TOOK ME SO LONG TO WRITE!! HOPE YOU ALL GET FAMOUS AND RICH, MY FRIEND!

IMPORTANT CHECK LIST Do: 1.

Try to post as often as possible, but only post great content.

2.

Try to make your feed beautiful.

3.

Get a profile picture that stands out.

4.

Write an attractive bio

5.

Connect with as many people as possible.

6.

Be nice to everyone, and try to reply all the replies and private messages from others. That will get you a long way.

7.

Be sure to use #sansminds to get a chance to get featured by @sansminds or even scouted to release projects!

Don’t: 1.

Don’t be an asshole.

2.

Don’t look down at people

Effects Optimized for Social Media 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Social Media Magic Vol. 1 by Felix Bodden Open Switch by Jason Yu In A Flash by Felix Bodden Lucid Dream by Jason Yu Vending Machine by SansMinds Creative Lab