How to make easy money with Magic

Dear my peer professional magicians,

As we all know, magic is a probably the best hobby and nearly the worst profession of all time, to work as a professional magician, it means you are under constant pressure to make cold calls, sending emails in order to solicit bookings and shows.

However, with the booming of magic in recent years, your source of income will be much more secured if you choose to publish your creations in the form of DVDs or books. Then again, good and marketable ideas are not easy to come, I, however,inspired by Simon Lovell, have found a brilliant way to make money with magic, and it's easy! Since I am a very generous person, I am going to share the secret with you, for free!

Here we go:

As all know that John Bannon's Twisted Sisters [based on Phil Goldstein's B' wave] is one of the best packet tricks ever created, it comes with two specially printed gimmick card and some Jokers, which is also one of the earliest purchases on mine back then in my formative years. I however, recently noticed a new trick/DVD has appeared on the market which is called: The TransoKings with Simon Lovell.

The difference between Simon Lovell's TransoKings and John Bannon's Twisted Sisters:

Well, Simon has changed the Queens to Kings and Jokers to blank face cards! Wow, that's a great innovation, a giant leap! Why didn't I come up with good ideas like such? Fortunately, this is not too late, guys, I am going to make a few more changes and release a new DVD:

Transpo Jacks - One of the best packet tricks ever devised!!!


The difference between my version and Simon Lovell's version:

Instead of the gimmicked Kings, you will receive gimmicked Jacks; instead of the Blank Face Cards, you will receive Guarantee Jokers! Of course, it's going to be more expensive than Simon's version, but hey, for $21 USD, I am offering two DVDs, one DVD contains only the performance and the other contains the explanation, so if you are lazy to perform this trick, you can simply bring the performance only DVD with you and find the nearest DVD player to play my DVD.

Oh, this is so good, I do all the hard work and you get the credit! Think about that, this ought to be the best deal in magic.

What are you waiting for? Send in your money now!

The formula:

Step 1: Change the title of the trick
Step 2: Change the value of the cards [for example, say you want to steal Alex Elmsley's Diamond Cuts Diamond, in this case, don't use Diamonds, use hearts! As easy as that!]
Step 3: Change the packing of the trick if there is any
Step 4: Make a DVD to explain this
Step 5: Market it and you will get big bucks!

So my peer magicians, do you see how does this formula can generate big money for you now?
Many magicians have already made big money with this formula, and I guarantee you that this formula never fails, all you have to lose is your conscience and dignity, heck, which are nothing these days.

Cheers,
Zenneth

Publication Projects 2007

After I return from my European Tour, I will have to work on the following publication projects:

Booklet/ebook:

Hong Kong Up Close [ebook]
16 Maneuvers [8 + 8]

Chinese Novel:

The Cardician's Dream 牌術師-木廠街九號的故事

English Instructional Magic DVD:

Philosopher's Stone Vol. 1 & 2

Zenneth Kok 2007 UK Lecture Tour Timetable [Pending]

Guys,

The following is the pending timetable of yours sincerely's 2007 UK lecture tour:

2nd Leicester

4th Isle of Mann

5th Liverpool

8th Modern Mystic League - Blackburn

9th Scarborough

10th North East Lincs

11th Wolverhampton

15th Cornwall

17th AWS (Southampton)

18th Downtown Magic Club (Kent)

19th Surrey Society - Leatherhead

Contents of my lecture:

Essentially, my lecture will be divided into three parts:

1) I will be explaining some easy to do routines, some of them can be found in my 2006 Australian National Tour Lecture Notes, now being published as Cards You Softly, all of them are real world workers featuring the 3S principle: Strong, Simple, Small (packs small, plays big)

2) A discussion on Pit Hartling's Inducing Challenges Theory: Why should we and how to induce challenge from spectators. I have obtained Pit's permission to include his essay on the subject in this booklet and my additional thoughts on this theory will be also be included, check out The other face of the Queen, which also comes with a gimmick card.

3) More unique sleight of hand creations and moves (a few moves are quite "useless" in my opinion, but magicians love to watch them for some reasons), most content of this part can be found in my booklet: 15 Maneuvers as well as the DVD - The Zenneth Code that is exclusively available in my lectures only.

Dealer Booth:

Killer Badge - Props + Instructional DVD

Change is Eternal - Props + Instructional DVD

The Other face of the Queen - Custom printed Gimmick card + Instructional Booklet

The Zenneth Code - An instructional DVD which contains some of my most treasured creations, all items in this DVD are sleight driven, much practice is required.

Cards You Softly - an expanded version of my 2006 Australian Lecture Tour Lecture Notes

15 Maneuvers - a collection of card moves, altogether there are 15 items explained in this booklet

Thanks,
Zenneth

Am in a relationship

Sorry for breaking the heart/fantasy/dream of many girls, but yours sincerely is now officially in a relationship, and for the sake of my girlfriend's personal safety, I shall remain her name unrevealed.

Obviously, I had to adjust my mentality and make certain behavioural changes. For more detailed reasons, see below:

1) The second encounter (which is actually the real first encounter, as the first encounter was too brieft and I didn't talk much) with my girlfriend's parents:

My girlfriend's mom knows that I am a card magician, so she asked me to perform a few tricks for her during our conversation, in which she asked: "Are those regular cards?"

I replied without thinking:"oh yeah, these are regular cards, of course, there are some trick cards available, but they are very expensive. Since I have recently started a relationship, so I can't really afford them."

The line was great, the timing/execution was bad, and the reaction was ...

It's too late before I realize that I was actually talking to my girlfriend's mom, i.e. not a spectator in my show. Well, I suppose that's an absolutely unique impression that anyone could make under that kind of circumstances. hmmm...

2) My girlfriend works as a part time stage magician, she loves stage magic but dislikes card tricks, even when the performer is Zenneth Kok (That's a good thing though, at least it proves that the reason she likes me has little to do with magic, and I always believe only losers will need to resort to magic to pick up girls). Therefore, in order to develop a mutual interest, I am trying to create more card tricks which don't involve cards.

That's all for now, but more funny stories are coming up...

Zenneth

News update 5-6-2007

aweeeeeee...a lot of things have happened since my last update of this blog, here we go:

1: The Chinese version of "The other face of the Queen" is done, I have a few copies available now, if you are interested in buying them, feel free to email me and I'll thank you for making donation to Zenneth Kok World Tour fund.

I have emailed Pit Hartling a few times, and we chatted a bit about his article out of Card Fictions-- Inducing Challenges, after the discussion, I have rewrote my article in the instructional booklet. Pit informed me that the first trick which makes use of the fact of the QS is a trick of Paul Harris, which he published way back in 1980s, okay, so Paul's thinking is certainly ahead of our time.

2: The UK lecture organizer just informed me that I should hire a car when I do my tour in UK, preferrably with satellite navigation. Oh well...I don't even have a driving license...

3: There was a problem of my recent shippment to H&R magicbook shop, they received only 14 copies of 15 Maneuvers, and the other 14 copies of Cards You Softly as well as 8 Cards Act II are nowhere to be found...=.=... okie dokie...don't think the rest booklets will get to there destination, had to reship them again. Thankfully, the printing cost is fairly low here in Hong Kong.

4: Apparently CCTV wanted to book me to attend their show in mid June, but damn, the plan was cancelled. =.= Seems to me that it's going to be take awhile to see my first TV appearance, it also reminds me of their last booking, which I wasn't able to attend because of the stupid Visa thing...

5: One of the glass doors of Magiceast's shelf fall down when I was trying to take out a DVD, fortunately, other than my pride, I didn't get hurt, especially my hands and my face, which I make my living with.

6: I am bankrupted, the expenditures of June:

Bought a pair of glasses with the "transition" lense;
Bought a new desktop;
Payment for production of the Change is Eternal[Colour changing deck], which comes with an instructional DVD;
Payment for production of badges, instructional DVDs;
Payment for production of the exclusive lecture DVD;
Payment for production of the english version of The Other face of the Queen;
Payment of the Air ticket to UK/Europe;
Donation to Mom's Stock fund;

I have a little $1000 HKD left in my bank account now, wait, after the deduction of my mobile phone bills, only $850 HKD left, er....I feel so insecure at the moment.

7: Don't stand any chance to lift up the restriction of my Paypal account, despite the fact that I have done everything that they asked me to do, pissed me off!!!

It's been freaking 3 months since they initially restricted my account for some "Unusual and High Risk activities", which they have refused to explain their reasons for making such a decision. They have requested me to fax them the invoices of the DVDs that I sold on eBay, my ID copy, bank statement as well as many other documents, which I have complied and therefore much of my efford, time and money being wasted.

When I email them for the progress of their review, they replied and telling me to fax the monthly statement of my credit card and some other documents....crap! holy crap! Don't you guys feeling shameful? It's been freaking 3 months already! Is the account reviewer mentally or physically challenged or what?

sigh...............

Until next time................