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If you want to be a professional (i.e. get paid for doing magic on a regular basis), you need to start by developing a quality show. Have the product before you start marketing. Practice it as much as you can. Then start off doing free shows for friends or people you know to get experience...

@ChristopherT's post says much of what I'm going to say... but good ideas deserve repeating. Like anything else, magic has a lot of different flavors. There is the guy who can do a couple of tricks... and then shows you how its done. There is the YouTube kid with the crotch shot videos of them...

I'd say don't dress that way even if you want to do kids shows. Those are really good questions. I would add one more: How professional are you? I don't mean whether you do this full time for a living, but instead how you present yourself and your performance to the customer. I'm going to...

Jim Steinmeyer's Hiding the Elephant and The Last Greatest Magician are both excellent. Steinmeyer's and Lamont's Secret History of Magic is good but in parts it has a bit too much analysis to support its thesis. Although more a combination of effects and history, Todd Karr's (Magic Factory)...

The first version I can find that uses jacks and the robber's plot is in Hugard's Card Manipulations #1 (the standard version and an alternative version using rubber bands around the deck) in 1933. I doubt Hugard was the inventor of the effect but merely published it. There was a variation in...

There are lots of ways to do this: https://www.conjuringarchive.com/list/category/1170 The simplest way is Mark Wilson's Automatic Card Discovery (page 31, Complete Course in Magic). There is a whole chapter on "The Reverses" in Royal Road to Card Magic. Ultimately, the method depends on...

You are tempting me....

I like to buy my Christmas presents early....

$300 for 1,000 pages and 1400 photographs is a good deal. I now know what I'm asking for this Christmas and it isn't even June. @Jason England, please let us know when this is available for preorder.

Art of Astonishment Vol 1-3 (I have not read it,but I am going to soon) Start with Volume 1. Not necessary advanced card tricks, but very creating and hard hitting effects. Earnest Earick By Forces Unseen Out of print (which is why it is so expensive). I don't have this, but understand that...

There were several predecessors to Vernon's Triumph that appeared in Stars of Magic in 1946. Marlo published his version in 1947 in Marlo in Spades. I'll have to go check in the books to see if there was any presentation provided with the effect. You can see a list of classic effects here...

What Rick said.

Although I'm sure some magicians performed for visitors to theaters, I'm not aware of any stories of Vernon or Marlo doing that sort of performance. That doesn't seem like Vernon's style. David Ben has written a biography of Dai Vernon if you are interested. Marlo was known for performing at...

My dog can find your selected card.

I guess what I was questioning is the "pushing a card toward me" sentiment. There are subtle motions in a classic force that are not present in a simple "spread and choose" selection. Did the emulate the "spread and choose" selection or add the subtle additional motions to simulate a classic...

Or a Genii Subscription for $36 or $58 if you want paper copies. That gets you access to over 80 years of issues. More material than you would use in a lifetime.

Best. Book. Ever.

I'm very much a skeptic of anything based on a "study." Read the descriptions carefully and the two highest performing forces are the two where the performer gave the audience to change the card. I have a lot more questions about the validity of the "study": 1) did the vary the order; 2) was...

Expert Card Technique Greater Magic More Inner Secrets of Card Magic Lessons in Card Mastery

I recall a magician (Roy Benson?) having a spectator think of a tune and then having the piano player play the tune.