And Michael, if I were you, I wouldn't sell material that is in your act for your customers to buy. And after reading other posts, I realized that in supporting you right now, I was mostly wrong. I do not want to explain why on a non-PM, because it may start a flame-war. Michael, if I were you, no matter how much work you've put into them, I'd take down your ebooks, because from what I've read it is not original. Different handling or patter doesn't make a trick original (unless it is drastically different handling with new sleights and all). I'd also get permission from the originators. It isn't too late to fix your mistakes. And, I wouldn't want to put how I do my act on my website available to everyone who bought it for five dollars. If you think about it, it doesn't make sense. Do you want the people you entertain to find your site, pay five dollars, and not book you next time they need a migician because they know your secrets? In the long run, you will earn more money getting booked than publishing ebooks very few people read.

Also, I have little knowledge on this case, so if there are inaccuracies, it is my fault and those inaccuracies might destroy my argument, so sorry if there are. And if you have a SAM or SYM nearby you, I'd join. It is worth the small entrance fee, and at least in mine, you don't have to be a member of the SAM or SYM. Just the club.

Hello,

Yes, I am a member of IBM and CAM since I am from Canada. I agree and will remove the manuscripts from my website when I get a free moment.

Regards,

Michael Kras

Do you go to any of those meetings? In my opinion, those are pointless unless you go to the meetings.

Yes, I never fail to attend a meeting. I am always there early, in fact!

We may be getting to the root of the problem LOL.

Yes. I like and "Steal" magic. Everyone believe this! Dannydoyle told me so himself.

Hello Michael,
there is a nice pamphlet an selfpublishing by Tom Stone on lybrary – it’s free (sort of):

http://www.lybrary.com/free_ebooks.php?o......3ee36014



However, before publishing I wouldn’t skip the following steps:

• gather your ideas
  
• research and give credit were due
  
• try and improve in real live jobs
  
• decide for what kind of quality you want to be known and respected for and select your material according to it

To be honest, right now, I wouldn’t book or buy anything off you. The reason is not your age, but your homepage looks like a complete rip-off to me.

Nevertheless, I encourage you to do your video project - not for a quick buck, but for the fun of it. Should you want to use that footage for any non private purpose, you might want to check the legal issues first. I don’t know the details on US law. Filming just anybody and showing or selling those clips in public, against the will off the persons involved, might get you in trouble over here.

Hello,

Thank you for the pamphlet. It will go to great use. Also, the DVD project is strictly for our own personal collection of memories.

What can I do to change my homepage?

Thank you!

Michael Kras

Well I’m not an expert ,when it comes to web design, therefore the following reflects just my personal taste:

Contend:
When visiting commercial site I want to know, who you are and what you do, what you offer, what it will cost me and what the legal terms are. Most of that I found. On a trustworthy business site I expect a contact page containing full name, address, phone and (in Germany) the tax number – However DON’T WRITE YOUR ADDRESS IN THE INTERNET at the age of 13, rather speak with your parents. If you burn down the stage they are responsible anyway. Therfore, let them take care of legal aspects.

Technical issus:
I don’t like your present page because:

• the background attracts more attention than the content – how about something plain
  
• the advertisement, the header and counter are bigger than the text – bigger text size,
• smaller counter, and rent a domain for 2-4 $ a month
  
• the structure is rather untiedy, the links are visually hart to keep apart – se below
  
• red on grey is hard to read – see below

Appearance:
A web page reflecting your stage personality would be ideal - a page catching that little something, that makes you special. If you are at the beginning of your journey, a plain page might be a good start. Now, you will ask me to show you my page (I would). Well truth is, I’m still not finished, but you might get a glance at my first experiments at:
http://www.forum-tango.de

A good example for a plain, but efficient page would be the homepage of a friend of mine:
http://www.fabianweiss.de/

An example of a perfect page in terms of atmosphere, efficiency and professionalism would be to me:
http://www.whithaydn.com/

You see, I am not an expert or good teacher in web matters, but maybe this will get you started.

Posted: Apr 1, 2007 11:03pm
In forgot one thing, probably the most important thing to mention. Before offering your services via internet you should answer one question with brutal honesty: Can I live up to the expectation I’ll arouse in my potential customers.

What would happen, if I book your stage show for a biker party or maybe for a bunch of arrogant college kids or a group of really weird medieval festival people or …

I don't usually respond to threads like this, but I feel that I must.

Michael:

I can see that you are very passionate about magic. You have one of the most important things a magician can have -- self confidence. But you have to also learn humility if you expect people who have been in the business a long time to respect you.

Before you go any further, take the time to read the various "columns" that several of us posted in The Buffet. Mine are drawn from hard experience. They were also written to answer what I perceived as a need that I had seen somewhere on the forum.

I'll admit that I'm outspoken. But when I speak, I speak the truth, at least as I perceive it. Even if you are a magician, you don't have the right to lie about yourself to the rest of us. If you state or imply that you have won a competition that hasn't even taken place yet -- CAM 2007 -- this raises a lot of questions about the validity of everything else you do or say.

Every magician feels that he is ready to write a set of lecture notes by the time he has been performing for a couple of years. It takes longer than that for a magician to figure out who he really is. It takes longer than that to really learn how to do a double lift convincingly. You may not think so now, but in ten years, you will realize that I am right.

Magicians usually have pretty good BS detectors. And when you have a whole bunch of us with their BS detectors going off full steam, the results are going to be pretty much what you have seen in this thread.

I see by some of your other posts that you are attending magic camps. That's a good thing. That will help you learn a lot. But be receptive. Don't be argumentative.

Before I sign off, I'll tell you about someone who came to lecture to our magic club. This was before we vetted each lecturer carefully. A young man, about 19 years old, booked himself for a lecture. He started off with a card trick that he thought was very mysterious. He had a card selected, then he rubbed ashes onto his bare arm, and the name of the card appeared on it. Well, everyone in the room knew the trick. He didn't even have any kind of new handling or anything like that. He did a couple of other items, then one of us asked the question, "How long have you been doing this?"

"Six months."

"Where did you get all of these tricks?" He named a book most of us have. "Have you ever been to a magic lecture before?" He hadn't. "Why did you think you could teach us anything if you didn't have anything of your own to offer?" And he had no answer.

The new Street Magic magazine asked me to write a piece about arrogance in magic. That story was part of it. I don't think they published it, because they wanted stories about how arrogant the old magicians are.

Michael, arrogance is a two-way relationship. When someone comes into the room, says "Look at ME! I've been doing magic for SEVEN YEARS!" And he performs other people's material and acts like big stuff, that's arrogance. No, that's chutzpah.

So, Michael, take a look at the advice we old dogs have given you. It's based on decades of performing for live audiences. You can do well in this field if you keep your self-confidence but put on a bit of humility to go along with it.

If you do, people will like you. And people will not allow themselves to be entertained by someone they don't like.

The article you submitted was contextually dead on and had excellent points. We feel arrogance at any level and from anyone (at any age or skill level) is inappropriate. Young, old, fat, slim, short, tall, black, white, poor, rich, etc. Arrogance is arrogance.

We have already published three articles that articulately and intellectually rip people like that apart (as noted in your story). But the reality is we have thousands of submissions to go through Bill, so it is a matter of prioritizing them (if they warrant a further look) and then scheduling them for publication based on the direction of a given issue.

Grandpa Chet put together a great article that slams kids on the streets who think they know magic just because they purchased an "e" DVD, and The Rant by Bizzaro, well, let's just say I wouldn't want to be on the end of that one.

If we don’t publish it, it’ll have nothing to do with your assumption that we are only looking for stories about “old magicians”, but rather that it didn’t marry with our needs (and quite frankly many so-called "articles" we get just plain suck). A lot of people "think" they know how to write, but that just isn't the case. Just as being a great magician does not mean you'll be a great teacher... the examples go on ad nauseum.

In our case, I think people are too quick to judge a book by its title. But assumptions are like… well, you know the deal.

Best, JC

Well, James:

The fact is that you (or someone who works for you) solicited me to write an article, not the other way around.

But I do appreciate your candor.

Arrogant and mean-spirited..... ball and pocket.

Did you read the whole thread?

How about his lecture notes thread where he was proven to be stealing others material?

Guess not but why let the facts get in the way of a good story huh?

I feel quite uncomfortable for the fact that the someone have deleted Michael's thread from the Ebooks Review section because there are so much there that people have said to prove what Michael has done over and over again.

I know 5 pages is a lot of stuff to go through but please read them before even commenting on them.

Not only is the thread gone, but so is Michael.

Oommbob,
Unless, Michael is some sort of magical prodigy, do you really think that a 13 yr old kid should be lecturing and selling/distributing lecture notes? Again, unless he is the magical equivilant of Steve Wonder, do you really think he should be so arrogant to talk about developing effects for "us"? Listen, when I was 13, I was a very good baseball player; however, I could never imagine walking into a professional baseball player's forum and telling Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Ernie Banks, etc. how to play baseball. If they didn't shove a Louisville Slugger somewhere where the sun doesn't shine, they certainly would have dismissed me or told me where to get off. Maybe Michael is a magical prodigy. I'm taking my chances that he isn't. What he is...is a 13 yr old kid with an enviable amount of confidence. I honestly wish I had this kid's bravado when I was 13 yrs old. Harnessed properly, the sky may be the limit for Michael. His detractors on here....are simply trying to fit the harness. Noone here thinks Michael is a bad kid or even a bad demonstrator of magic (notice I didn't say magician...I've been involved in magic for almost 30 yrs....performing for 20...and doing over 200 events per year for the past 14 yrs...and I, finally, think I am worthy of being called a magician...but I digress). He is clearly on the right path to be successful as a performer. He is trying to think originally. He is trying to be creative in his approach to performing. Hats off to him. However, Michael needed to be shown there is a right way and a wrong way to go about this and it seemed "soft love" wasn't working.
End of rant.....carry on.
Patrick

Ooh.. yikes.

But I'm sure he will be back someday

He will be back. He so craves the attention, heck NEEDS it. He will be back, probably under another name trying to hide. It will be obvious it is him.

He is simply acting like he is 13. Which is ok because he is 13. I can accept that, it is when the adults act like they are 13 that gets annoying LOL.

No, but then again there are a lot of people older than Michael that should not be lecturing or selling magic either.

In all reality, Michael is an advanced magician for being only 13. He doesn't need to be publicly bashed for his passion, maybe steered in the right direction (like I tried to do with him) but there is absolutly nothing wrong with anything he has done.

On the other hand ... Andrew Riley is also 13, and he has been charged with 128 felonies including burglary, theft, vandalism and witness intimidation. And we are worried about Michael because ______ ???



Michael ... keep doing what your doing, but instead of focusing on the internet try to find an outlet in the real world. Your friends at school, church, the neighborhood clubhouse ... as I was trying to explain earlier, you don't need video and publishing experience, you need real world performing experience. It is only by performing magic in front of a live audience that you will be able to realize your dreams.

-JoeJoe