Hi, Penny People. After two long years, I've finally managed to get James Bond Cold Reading REDUX written. It's a complete rewrite of the original James Bond Cold Reading, and now incorporates Cold Reading Games, which was my attempt to make readings accessible for people who need a little help with their social life.

The idea for the original James Bond Cold Reading came about around 2007 after lots of hanging about in this green place, and after quite a few chats with Bill Cushman about readings in general, and with Enqrique Enqriquez regarding storytelling in readings. This all coalesced with my idea of combining the idea of a story with the twelve lines of Forer's Classic Reading, and James Bond Cold Reading was born.

Back then, the original manuscript was written solely for people who liked hanging about in Penny, and who had struggled to make sense of cold reading. I'd previously written Post Justify and it was well received, so I thought it made sense to have a stab at creating a readings system. As always with these things, I created it for someone who had terrible problems learning lines verbatim, and who was much more of a visual thinker than a logical one. I am talking, of course, about myself. Luckily, lots of other people found it useful too, and it certainly helped that Richard Osterlind thought it rocked.

The world was quite a different place in 2007, the year that the iPhone, and the Kindle, debuted. Selling PDFs online was still new and exciting, and was a great way for us all to share our ideas, whilst making a bit of extra money on the side. I sold James Bond Cold Reading on my own site and, as like many of these things, the book was only of significant interest to a niche market of mentalists and magicians (you lot). Consequently, it was priced accordingly. When the Kindle finally gained traction, and the real self-publishing revolution got going several years later, I made the difficult decision to move not only James Bond Cold Reading, but all my books over to Kindle / Print On Demand, whilst dropping their price considerably for this new market. I must admit I clicked 'go' whilst hoping none of you would lynch me and, as you can see, I survived to tell the tale.

Initially, this worked well, and I'd like to thank all of you out there for not telling me off too much for selling my books a lot cheaper on Amazon. However, as the market matured, people started expecting books of a certain length and, to the general public, 'getting your money's worth' is often more about page count, than the value of a system or idea. In the magic world, we're well used to spending considerable chunks of cash on techniques we find useful in performance. To the layman with a passing interest in cold reading, James Bond Cold Reading could feel opaque, confusing, and a bit of a thin-read. After all, it was never quite intended for that market. A re-write was needed that explained cold reading in more detail from the ground up.

To mitigate the rather abstract concepts of James Bond Cold Reading, it seemed fitting to combine it with my other book, Cold Reading Games. I wrote Cold Reading Games as a light-hearted take on giving readings, as I realised (from forum posts and emails I received) that people were also interested in cold reading to make friends, and to help them socially. Both books are now part of James Bond Cold Reading REDUX, and it is my hope that the rather dry tone of James Bond Cold Reading, combined with the upbeat Cold Reading Games, can really help people get started giving readings. Even if you're serious about giving readings, you've got to start somewhere, and quite often that means trying stuff out in public with your friends. People often forget that readings can be fun.

These two books have not just been glued together as they once were. I have re-written and expanded both books from the ground up, knowing they would co-exist in the same volume. Each book references the other, and it's now easy to hop back and forth between each half to read up on concepts you may useful. James Bond Cold Reading now explains fully what cold reading actually is, and there are several new chapters that take the concept of using fictional characters to create truisms to a whole new level. I've also had to come up with new terminology to get my ideas across. Cold Reading Games now features vastly improved graphics, and a whole lot more top tips, memory aids, and quizzes to make sure the information sticks as quickly as possible.

The Bonus Sections from James Bond Cold Reading are still intact, but reformatted and improved to aid learning. You'll find excerpts from my books Star Signs and Cartomancy there, as well as an essay on turning a simple card trick into a reading.

But there's more... James Bond Cold Reading REDUX now comes with audio! You can find this on my website www.coldreading.co for free (registration required) under Support Documents. The audio isn't an audiobook, but a series of audio exercises to help you learn the system. Listen in the car, while out on a walk, whatever. It's a great way to get everything to stick firmly in your mind. Not only that, you can also download a PDF of all the test and quizzes from the book, so you can print these off and work on them separately. If you have the original James Bond Cold Reading and have no intention of buying this new iteration, you may still find these new files useful, so please check them out.

Do you need this book if you have both, or either, of the originals? Well I would say this, but yes. I'm really happy with the way it looks, and the hardcover looks particularly looks awesome on my bookshelf. It's hard to believe that what started out as a sixty page PDF has now blossomed into a hard copy book that comes in at just over 270 pages.

If you've never given a reading, either hot or cold, I'd like to think that James Bond Cold Reading REDUX is a great place to start. I'm quite proud of it and, more than anything, I hope people find it to be of some practical use.

Here's the amazon link:

https://mybook.to/jamesbondcoldreading

Cheers

Bev

Mine is winging its way from amazon as we speak, I highly recommend the Graphology book as well!!

I predict that mine will be delivered tomorrow

Paul McCaig.

Thanks guys. JBCRR is now the #1 book in Fortune Telling USA on Amazon. That was a bit unexpected! And nerve-wracking.

Thanks for making a hardcover edition available. I've ordered and am really looking forward to it!

Hardcover options are a fairly recent thing on Amazon. I was pretty happy with the way they came out.

I just hit the button !!!! Can't wait!!!!!

I’m looking forward to getting my hands on this as well!

This is bringing back great memories!

d

Mine arrived today, looking forward to diving in over the holiday break!

The hardcover edition I ordered has not shipped yet (no worries - Amazon did say it could take up to 3 weeks), so I just bought the Kindle version so I can start reading it this weekend.

I already know the quality of Julian's work (Palm Reading in Your Own Words iPad edition is the best resource on the subject I've ever studied) so I know this will be great!

I got mine ... Time to read it!!!!!

There’s something uniquely terrifying in promoting a book to people whose opinions you trust and respect.

This is not that book.

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Not really. It is actually terrifying. But the joke came to me the moment I tried to be sincere.

Got mine a few days ago and am looking forward to reading the next few weeks. Great resource!

I’ve had some nice comments on Amazon, and a few queries about various versions. I can’t reply directly to Amazon reviews, so I thought I’d write some stuff here.

1. I’m phasing out my PDF sales. All future releases will be print / e-reader only. Previous pdf purchases will still be available from my website. Tick sheets and other extras will still be available for purchase.
2. If you receive a print copy of JBCRR from Amazon that you are unhappy with due to printing issues, please flag this with Amazon. I have no control over Amazon’s print quality, and Amazon’s returns policy is robust.
3. The kindle version currently only works on the kindle tablets that support fixed format text (known as print replica) such as the kindle fire series, and the kindle app running on other tablets such as the iPad. It’s a direct copy of the print version that flowable text readers using e-ink cannot display. At some point in the future I may create a flowable text version, but it will lose all the lovely formatting and the graphics will be in-line. Amazon doesn’t allow two kindle versions to be uploaded for purchase, which is extremely irritating.
4. Don’t forget about the new audio.
5. I look forward to hearing his much you’ve bored friends and family with this stuff over the holidays!

What new audio?

See original post!

Guess I decided to purchase before I got that far!!!
Thanks....

Just bought a copy on Kindle. I have the original as well. Maybe some day if I meet you at a con you can sign my iPad!

Never been to a con! Although I have been to lots of boat shows, and I’d definitely be up for Blizzcon if it wasn’t way over there.