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!
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!
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.
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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