I wrote a book. And it is garbage. Seriously. I limited myself to rewriting old stuff and not making it into the book I wanted it to be. I lost readers because of it and I am sorry. Really sorry. If you bought the book. Please contact e and if we can verify the purchase I will give you your money back. On that note I have made the download free and the hardcover is priced at cost. If you download the book please take the time to send me some feedback about what you wish the book was. Lets work together to make this into a great book for clowns everywhere.

I have recently changed to a different job that allows me to be on the computer more and I hope to be able to post here more frequently. I am looking for suggested topics or questions that I can answer.

- Thanks -

The Usable Clown

I have been working over the past couple months on writing the first Usable Clown book. I have taken the most read posts from the site and revised and rewritten them into a comprehensive guide of clown marketing.

You can but both an eBook or you can buy a physical book. If you are interested in becoming better at marketing yourself you should definatly pick this up. I will be writing a couple more books over the coming months and if you buy this book I will figure out a special discount to give you on the second and third books.

Since it has just been released I have discounted the price by 10% for all the early purchasers. This price won’t last for long so pick it up today.

Since I have the book finished now I will have to start making regular updates again. Thanks in advance for your support.

-The Usable Clown

Your clown face is one of the most important parts of your brand as a clown. It needs to be clean, not scary and above all the same every single time you put it on. Having said that I also think that it is very important for your clown face to constantly evolve to reflect changes in your ability to put on make-up and changes in your character.

Since I didn’t want to use pictures of other people to show examples of bad clown make-up and to show you a true evolution in a clown face I went into my personal clown archives and dug up these old photos of my clown face. They start off bad and get a lot better pretty quick. If you look you can see some of the ideas of yesteryear carry through to today.

• This first image is the worst. This is from one of my first clown gigs ever and if I could remeber who it was for I would send them their money. The ideas are all there, the execution is lacking. My eyebrows, especially with that top hat are not big enough and are way to high on my forehead. It also looks like the white around my eyes isn’t applied very heavy, which isn’t bad it just isn’t good either. The red on my checks isn’t too bad though they would look better if it went up my cheeks a little more. The real trouble area is around my mouth. The shape makes my mouth look weird, though I have kept the chin part, and the black outline is horrible. That is the worst part of this makeup is the black outline around the white muzzle. Please don’t do that. A black outline like that creates a harshness to a clown face that isn’t pleasing to look at. A few other nitpicky things are that my wig doesn’t cover all of my real hair and I don’t think I had any make-up on my lips.
• The second inage is a lot better. I am pretty sure this is about a year later. I have stopped outlining the white of my mouth which makes the overall face look a lot less harsh. I am not sure why I don’t have eyebrows, though it could look worse. I didn’t put any make-up around my eyes which would have been bad, though my glasses provide some focal point at my eyes making the face look complete. You cannot tell from this picture but that clown nose was huge. It was a hollow latex nose that was really flimsy but easy to blend, so it looked good but brok easily. I was also putting my nose on with spirit gum, which is horrible.I don seem to have figured out that covering my normal hair with my wig is a good thing.
• This was my clown face after Moosecamp ’99. Notice the huge steps that have been taken. I am pretty sure that it was Pricilla that actually put this make-up on my face because it looks better then I could ever have done it. I am using a professional nose  in this picture and a nose specific adhesive, which I recommend. Not only do I have make-up on my lips but it accents the shap of the muzzle, which now goes all the way to my nose. The eye area goes about half the distance up my forehead compared to the first image and accents my natural features. Instead of red I use a red blush that softens my face and fits the character that is my clown. For a long time this is the face that I strove to emulate when putting my makeup on myself.
• Like I said, that last make-up required a lot of skill to put on and I wasn’t very good at it. This is from the following years Moosecamp. My clown eyebrows need to be waxed, they are huge. I also had a hard time getting the pips in the corners of my mouth right so I would always just do the traditional aguste black bottom lip. In this picture I didn’t put make-up on my neck, which is a little bit of a nitpick but it would have looked better with a unified skin tone. Also the skull-cap I am using in thie picture is too big and shows obviously by my ears.
• Now this is not a true step in the evolution of my clown face, this is my hospital clown Dr. I.P. Freely. This face was developed with the help of Joe Barney and help me explore other possibilities in clown make-up. The unfortunate part of this make-up is that when I smile, like I am in the picture, my lower lip looks all crazy. Developing a face for hospital clowning is a good way to figure out what is essential to the overall look of your clown face and will make your clown face look even better.
• This is one of the final steps into the evolution of my clown face as it is today. There were more faces in between the Moosecamp 2000 and this one, but I didn’t take pictures of them all. As you may have noticed I have a different wig on then in past photos. This was taken about 2 years ago when I got a new costume, nose and wig for presents. Things I like are the eyebrows, though they are not the same size and the overall look of the face. Unfortunately the skull cap for this wig is a little tight and the ear holes ripped, leading me back to my old clown wig, which I am still love. The only changes I have made are to even up the eyebrows and add a pip to the center of my chin to accent my mouth just a little bit more.

As you can see, one person’s clown face can change a lot over a short period of time. My clown face probably changed daily when I first started out and experimented with different options. Then once I was happy with the overall look I was able to make small adjustments to the make-up to get exactly what I wanted. It has been about thirteen years since I first put on make-up and I am still fine tuning my make-up. Are you?

Update: Here is the most recent picture of my clown face:

It has been a while since we have had a simple list post. Here is one to get you thinking about new skills you could start working on. I am a fan of goals when learning new skills, which is why this is 13 things to learn befor the new year. I would suggest just picking one and mastering it by the new year and then picking another.

1. Juggling- If you already know how, learn a new trick or to juggle something weird.
2. Unicycing- Seriously you can learn this by 2011, but you need to get started soon.
3. Ventriloquism- With some hard work this should be easy to learn and will be a great addition to your act.
4. Card tricks- I am a huge fan of card tricks. I would suggest learning some simple slights and using those instead of buying a bunch of trick decks.
5. Mind reading- Learning mentalism can only help your act as well as teaching you to better read your audience.
6. Stilt walking- Growing four feet overnight is a great attention getter. Plus you don’t have to do much while you are on your stilts, just hang out and wave.
7. Pratfalls- Learning the correct way to fall will save your life, or at least save your knees and elbows.
8. Dance- This one you may not be able to master by 2011 but the increased body awareness will allow you to move in more amusing ways.
9. Gymnastics- This is really a combination of 7 and 8. Learning to tumble will allow you to do crazy stuff and avoid injury.
10. Sewing- Making your own costumes is more satisfying then buying one.
11. Graphic Design- Your marketing materials will get a hundred times better after just one class.
12. Public Speaking- This will make you more comfortable in front of a crowd and teach you the value of projection and planning.
13. Business- Take some time to learn about business so you don’t make the same mistakes you have made in the past.

I would love to hear any other ideas for skill that people should work on before 2011 and what you are going to be working on. The Usable Clown is going to be working on Juggling 5 balls, Idling on his Unicycle and learning the classic palm and back palm with cards.

Todays post comes directly from my starting days. When I first started this was my number one tool to becoming a better clown. You may notice that this one says “New Clown Notebook”, that is because the original one go destroyed when I left it in the yard and the sprinklers got it. This is the one after that, thus it is the new one.

Here is what I have used this notebook for and I suggest you do the same.  The first thing you should do is record all your thoughts about clowning and your clown character(s) in the journal. This is not just limited to writing, in fact a majority of mine is full of drawings. I have about twenty five drawings of potential clown faces and costumes. This may sound silly but it will help you visualize what you are want to look like and what your dream costume is.

Another handy thing about a clown notebook is that it allows you to keep track of where you have found props and supplies online. You can record the prices and what you would order if money was no object.  That way when you do have some money you are able to pick through your clown notebook and choose what will be the best investment for you.

What you need to do is get a notebook that you are comfortable writing in and start using it everyday to record ideas and sketches of whatever strikes your fancy.

A face page from my notebook

A costume page from my notebook

It is finally time to finish this series off. We have covered everything from the importance of simplifying everything, practicing, marketing and planning; now we need to coer the final and most difficult step: Executing the plan! Please go back and reread the previous posts and make sure have completed everything in those posts. The more prepared you are the better this step will go.I will wait here while you do that…

Welcome back. Here we GO!

Get out all of your marketing materials and look at your plan. Where do you want to entertain? Start by making a list of all of the people that you know. Start contacting those people in groups of five or six. Send an email, a post card, call them or meet them in person. You want to turn these people into either customers, investors or advertisers.  Of course you are probably not really looking for investors so instead focus on turning them into customers or advertisers.

Over the long haul it is going to be better to convert these initial people into advertisers. That way they will help you get them jobs. Also converting people into advertisers is as easy as giving them a stack of business cards and then asking if they need more the next time you see them.  Customers have the short term benefit of giving you money, but with a little luck can turn into advertisers. You do this by blowing their minds with your show. That way they tell their friends and spread the word about you. Once again, leave them with a stack of cards.

The next step is going to be making a list of places that you think would benefit from your services and which of your services will help them the most. This is not a list of places where you want to work but a list of places that you should work. Try to keep in mind that their is no guarantee that you are going to convince them that they should hire you, however they now know your name and will hopefully think of you first.

With this list you want to select two or three at a time and focus your energy on them. This is especially important if you are a part time clown. You will also benefit from doing a dress rehearsal of your sales call with a business person that you have done a job for in the past and have a good relationship with. They can provide you with feedback and that feedback can make all the difference in the world.

Here is the most important part of this step. Do it. It is really easy to sit around and talk about how you need to go do this stuff. That will not get you any business. So get off you behind and get to work. Make sure you let me know how the plan works for you, unless you get too busy to come back and visit us.

The Usable Clown is here to beg your forgiveness. He screwed up. He has spent to much time lately worrying about money and decided to try to charge you guys for your email subscription. Talk about a lame plan. Like most plans of this lame-nitude, it has failed. I am giving up on that and want you guys to know that we are going to try and head back to a more regular schedule of postings.  I will continue to have ads on the site and you may have noticed a button on the side of the site that allows you to but me a treat. All I ask is that if you find something on the site that is helpful, please donate some money to the feed the hungry clown. Here is the deal, I will try to update more often and you guys can occasionally buy me a treat. This will help me feed my addiction to slurpees and you guys will continue to become more marketable clowns.

I plan on using the rest of the month of August to clean up any loose ends on the site and we sill start with fresh updates in September.

Check back soon.

As I am sure everyone has noticed, the economy is still in the toilet and as such people are not hiring entertainers with the gusto of previous years. What to do with all this free time? Redesign, Re-invent and Reconnect.

• Redesign- This could be the perfect opportunity to try a new clown face, develop a new character or put together that awesome new costume you have been dreaming about. Or it could be a great time to make that old looking website and make it look more Web 2.0. I am currently working on making my site look more fancy, which will hopefully make me more likely to get jobs. There are thousands of tutorials online on how to make your site look the most cutting edge and with a little practice and a lot of patience anyone can learn to build webpages.
• Re-invent- Is there a part of your act that you are not 100% happy with? I know that I have numerous parts of my act that I wish I could change. Well it is time to stop wishing and start doing. Start practicing again. Use the time that you normally would have used performing on the weekends and run through your act figuring out what needs to be fixed. Not only will this make your act stronger but you will learn something new. Plus you can then offer a new and improved show to your clients.
• Reconnect- Call up some of your older clients and say hi. Let them know that you appreciate their business and see if there is any event that you can help them with. It can’t hurt to let them know that you are still in business, plus everyone likes to be thanked. If it is a client that has hired you numerous times you might offer them a reduced rate to help promote both your businesses.

Well good luck. I am off to juggle.

One of the hardest parts of being a professional entertainer is learning to communicate your abilities through talking. When you are talking to a client, potential client or just some guy in the street it can be hard to get across what exactly you do. How do you explain your amazing juggling routine to someone or discribe the look on a childs face when they recieve a balloon or get their face painted.

Most of the time you can rely on the less is more treatment. This means that you give them a general idea and leave them wanting more. If you go to over the top with your description of your act it is possible to build yourself up too much. Another thing to keep in mind is that a lot of the physical skills that you have as a clown do not translate well to people who are not entertainers. If you tell someone on the street that you can do a cascade with five balls followed by a full shower, that is not going to mean anything to them. On the plus side you can say, I can juggle five balls and they will most likely be impressed. Heck I’d be impressed.

The other thing to keep in mind is that once you get started most clients are going to come to you after talking to a past client. They have already had you cat described to them by a person who has not reason to sell your abilities. That means that their description of you is already more believable then on you give because you are trying to sell yourself, and your past client is not. Alright, head out there and start talking.

Recently I performed at an event as a juggler. No clowning, just me my juggling props and a 30 minute show. I was hired by another entertainment company to do the job since they don’t have any jugglers on staff and they paid my standard rate for a juggling show. Overall I had a really good time until the end when the contact gave me a check for the show to give to the entertainment company they hired. She stated “It is $xxx, right?” I said that I didn’t know what she was quoted for a price but that that was probably correct. As I walked to my car I did some mental math, and by mental I mean on my iPhone.

What I came up with disturbed me. I had done all the work for the gig other then recieving the phone call. I had driven to the job, about 30 miles, provided all my own equipment and recived numerous compliments on my performance.  The math I did showed me that of the total amount paid for the gig by the customer I recieved 60% and the company I worked for recieved 40%. Talking to some entertainers that I know has led me to believe that this is an insane amount of money for the non-performing agent to recieve.

What is your experience with being booked by another agency? What do you think I should do in the future to prevent this? Does that seem crazy to you?  Let me know in the comments.