A new era for magic books
A new era for magic books
Take your library with you anytime, anywhere
The way we interact with magic books is about to fundamentally change. Today, Vanishing Inc. (my employer), is releasing their massive print catalog as digital books for the first time in magic history. That’s right, all books produced by Vanishing Inc. are now available as ebooks…
Here’s what you need to know to thrive in this bold new world:
What titles are available?
Pretty much every book Vanishing Inc. has ever released, including many that have been out of print for years. So if you’ve heard me talk up Florian Severin’s What Lies Inside and want to check it out - now you can!
How does the pricing work?
Ebooks will sell at a discount to the print version of the book. The digital version is 25% off the print price of the book. You’re getting all the same content in a searchable format, but you won’t have anything pretty to take off your shelf, cuddle, or smell the ink on the pages (yes, I know you love a good book cuddle).
However, if you’re like me (you still love a good physical book), you can buy the ebook version at the same time as you buy a physical copy for a very significant discount. For only 25% more than the hard copy, you’ll also get the ebook version in your library. That way, you can take your library with you on trips, quickly find references, etc. and enjoy those book cuddles.
Since ebooks haven’t always been available for us to take advantage of that offer, there’s an initial celebratory sale to help stock up on titles that you want. For a short time only, you can buy 5 ebook titles for $99. I even hear a rumor that if you add more than 5 ebooks to your cart, the price per volume will stay at $20 each. 🤔
P.S. If you haven’t already considered Talk About Tricks, now is a great time to get 70 pounds of magic as part of your 5 book bundle!
Is Vanishing Inc. is moving away from print titles?
No! Nothing could be further from the truth. I can tell you as a company insider and one of the biggest [print] book fans out there, Vanishing Inc. will continue to pour the same love and care into each print title that magic book lovers have come to expect.
In fact, I can tell you that we wrestled internally with the concept of ebooks at all. But, we ultimately decided that the market has been demanding ebooks for quite some time. They’re convenient, portable, searchable, and more affordable.
I don’t think it has to be either/or. In fact, if you’re like me, you see ebooks as being a supplement to your library: a great way to take books with you on vacation to the beach (me next week!) or a quick way to find a reference you have in your mind but can’t quite remember where it is. There’s room to live in both worlds, but I’d love to hear what you think via this poll:
What else?
Not only is VI embracing ebooks, Andi Gladwin has created “Discoverie,” a search tool that will let all of us do research - find terms, authors, or other text within a massive library of titles - even ones you don’t yet own! That means you can find a reference via the search, see a snippet of the text around your search term, and decide if you want to add it to your library. It’s not going to replace Conjuring Archive, but it’s a nice addition for the serious student of magic books.
The bottom line
I know this news won’t be welcome by everyone. There will always be those who reject the next iteration of technology. From a historical perspective, magicians hated their secrets being printed in books. When the VHS/DVD era came along, some magicians moaned about how easy it was for people to learn magic now. Ebooks are just the [obvious] next step.
If an industry isn’t growing, it’s dying. And I, for one, am excited that a whole new group will be able to learn from their preferred medium.
I plan to catch up on some reading next week with my iPad while at the beach. What do you think I should read?
Asi Wind announces a new book!
Not everyone is focused on ebooks today. In fact, Asi Wind recently announced a sequel to his best-selling and much loved book, Repertoire. This one is Repertoire II, and Asi expects it to ship by the end of the year. It’s currently in pre-order status for $100 (plus applicable shipping costs) with a signed and numbered print of the cover artwork. It’s the same cost and dimensions as the previous work, and we hope of the same quality!
It appears it will follow a similar path to the previous book. That is, you’re getting material that Asi has actually performed, and possibly even shared in other places. For example, according to the current table of contents on Asi’s website, he’ll share “Everybody & Nobody,” which he has performed on TV and subsequently shared in his book with John Graham - Magic Between Friends. In addition, he’s tipping his closing routine from his show, Inner Circle. He previously released his “Card to Box Project” and “XY Deck” as video downloads, and it looks like he’s committing them to print. Between those three commercial items alone, the value is already $99.
The book is currently slated to be 150 pages (Repertoire was 156 pages), and although he says the contents and page count are subject to change, you can check it out here and pre-order if you’re so inclined. I know I have…
We made the news!
In the latest M.U.M. magazine (May 2024), columnist Arlen Solomon kindly mentioned Erudite Magic as a resource for members of the Society of American Magicians. He called out this video in particular, so if you haven’t seen it already, I hope it helps you!
If you believe in kismet, then this will interest you: in John Guastaferro’s new book, The Nth Degree, he includes six essays, and one of them discusses the power of journaling. He even gives some very practical examples of things you could write down to help in your progress, and I thought it was cool that we both have a similar way to track progress and capture good ideas. Great minds and all that!
A powerful, easy-to-do card trick
Speaking of John G’s latest book, if you haven’t already read “Blackjack Fever” in chapter 6, you should. It’s a completely self-working and hands off prediction of the cards a participant will choose randomly. Spoiler alert, the cards form a perfect blackjack hand, and John has a cool way of predicting it on a bill.
But here’s an Erudite Magic One Degree tip for you. Instead of using John’s system for remembering the suit for your prediction, why not just use CHSD? It’s what I do since CHSD is so ingrained into my thinking.
I love the freedom of the procedure and the fact that everything can be done outside your control. There’s plenty of other material to like in his book, but I’ve been having a lot of fun with this one in particular.
You like discounts?
Most people know my buddy Don Bursell (of Don’s Magic & Books fame!) for his books, but he also has a bunch of props he’s acquired with various book collections. He’s looking to pare down that category, so if you’re into magic props, he’s agreed to offer a 20% discount to Erudite Magic Digest subscribers. So shop the “props” category on his website and enter “PROPS” as the discount code at checkout to save.
Learning from a previous life
When I was an young auditor, we examined the financial statements and looked for “What Could Go Wrongs” (WCGWs) in each major account. Then, we designed audit procedures around those WCGWs to catch any issues. Because of that experience, I was able to port that mindset over to magic.
I’ve created a list of answers to WCGWs in my magic act, and if you’re a paid subscriber, I’m sharing those solutions with you here. You’ll definitely want to implement this in your own work to escape those times when something does go wrong. These are some of my answers, but I’d love to hear how you implement WCGWs into your own act.
One of my WCGWs is having redundant systems. Because I’m a mentalist, I can fit a 30 minute act into a small container. I recently found these hard cases thanks to my friend, Mike Noonan, and I bought three so I could carry around most of what I need for my act in one simple case. If you pack small and play big with your props, maybe you’ll find it useful, too.
For paid subscribers, here’s the video that shares my solutions to What Could Go Wrong…
Until next time, all my Erudite friends, #keepreading!
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Erudite Magic Digest to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.