Since my previous interviews with comedy manager Reg Tigerman and booking agent Eric Yoder were so well received, I’m happy to be back with another exclusive interview for you today.

This time, I caught up with Rachel Miller, a graduate of the Tisch School of Arts who now lives in Los Angeles and is the owner of management/production company Tom Sawyer Entertainment as well as a blogger on her site ShowMeTheScreenplay.com

In this interview, Rachel talks about how to build a comedy writing career, what she looks for in potential clients, the most common mistake she sees writers make, and much more. Here’s my interview with her…

Can you tell me a little bit about your background, your company, and how you work with your clients?

I launched Tom Sawyer Entertainment (TSE) as a management/production company in 2006. Our mission is to find young, innovative voices and groom these as the next generation of Hollywood storytellers. We produced our first movie two years ago – HappyThankYouMorePlease, which won the Sundance 2010 Audience Award and we just wrapped our second feature, Liberal Arts.

My background is I paid a lot of dues when I was starting out: I worked for Debra Hill, Joan Scott Management, Artisan, Endeavor, Handprint Entertainment and Red Wagon Entertainment. All of this experience taught me a lot. But mostly I took away that I wanted to do things differently at my company.

We work very closely with our clients from the ground up. Often we sign clients off either an essay someone wrote or even a page of jokes. We will build a team around them and really guide them so they are pursuing the career they want.

How do you find new clients? What do you look for and where do you look?

We look everywhere for new voices. But most of our clients we get as referrals from executives, agents and even our own clients who like working with us and want to send us their recommendations. We get a lot of clients from referrals because those people know our taste and know what we look for.

In terms of what we look for, we look for writers who take their job seriously. What we tell our clients is that your gift is you can work from anywhere at anytime. You can be in Switzerland, skiing the Alps during the day and writing all night. But you have to write every single day. Because just like I show up every day to work on behalf of my clients, I expect them to work every day on their own material.

For comedians who may not know much about how the screenwriting business works, what do you think is the most important thing for them to know?

That it is a marathon not a sprint. Many comedians think that they will wake up one day and suddenly be famous but it doesn’t work that way.

Every great comedian will tell you it takes years and years of hard work and doors getting slammed on them before they “hit it big.” And this piece of advice holds true for any creative talent — even George Clooney had 15 failed pilots before he got on “ER” and now he is one of the biggest stars in the world.

I know lots of writers are always paranoid that their ideas will be stolen – how rational is that fear?

I get asked this question a lot, and while I think the fear is rational, it is entirely irrelevant. Most reputable producers aren’t in the business of stealing ideas (because how would these producers then get any other material?).

But what writers get confused with is people stealing ideas vs. similar ideas that are in the ether at the same time- – just look at Ants vs. A Bugs Life or the two Truman Capote ideas that were out the same year. These aren’t cases of people stealing ideas — but simply the idea was out in the ether at the same time.

Besides, there are no new ideas. What there will always be is great writers executing those ideas in entirely different ways. That’s why it doesn’t matter if someone has the same idea — all that matters is how well you execute your idea.

What do you think is the best way to get a screenplay sold these days?

Write the best damn script you can.

Would you recommend new writers try to write for TV or movies first? Which is easier to break into?

This is a great question. While TV  does take chances on young writers, it is a lot harder to get staffed on a show than it is to get a feature script “noticed” around town and have buzz build off it. But if you are just pursuing one path (TV vs. feature), you are leaving a lot of potential jobs on the table.

That’s why we have our clients write both TV and feature material so that we have a strong bench of material to pull from and can help them break into both the TV and feature worlds.

What’s the most common mistake you see screenwriters make?

Writing about a subject they are not passionate about. What many writers don’t realize is that writing is about re-writing. And often that re-writing means 10, 20, or 30 drafts of something to get it right.

If you are not passionate about what you are writing, you will not want to put in all the work that re-writing takes — and this reflects directly on the script. I can always tell immediately if a writer is passionate about the material because the proof is on the page. And if the writer is not passionate enough to give it 110%, there is no way anyone else (manager, agent, producer) is going to be passionate about the story.

Besides being a good writer (obviously), what do you think is the most important skill for somebody to have in order to have a successful writing career?

Doing the work. As my business partner said, having great ideas is 50% of the job. The other 50% is execution.

If you are a writer, write. There are no excuses. I don’t care if you have a day job or have kids or anything else. If you tell me you are a writer, then I want to see your ideas fully executed. You wouldn’t believe how many writers ask me to read their unfinished script and the answer is always no. As a manager I want to read your best fully finished work — end of story.

What advice do you give to writers about how to pitch their projects to producers and/or executives?

Keep it short and simple. Writers often forget that there is a difference between reading something and hearing something. People have short attention spans.

A writer’s pitch should always be concise and short while leaving room for the producer/executive to ask questions at the end. This is a better method than doing a 30 minute or longer pitch where all the beats and details are described.

Do you think it’s becoming easier or harder for people to break into the writing business and why?

I think it is actually both. It’s easier for people to get discovered because you now have Twitter, blogs, YouTube, etc., which are all ways people get discovered.

But I also think it is so much harder because, with everyone consolidating and making less movies, it’s harder and harder to break in because there are so many fewer jobs. That being said, I am a big believer that entertainment is forever and people will always want to laugh, cry or just escape from their daily lives. If you are truly great at what you do, you will break through the clutter.

If you’ve got a question for Rachel, feel free to post it in the comments. You also may be interested to read what happened when she interviewed me for her site.

Besides using the Internet to grow your fanbase and promote your projects, you can also use it to directly make money from your comedic talent. There’s a lot of different ways that you can monetize your ability to be funny online, but relatively few comedians actually take advantage of these opportunities.

Here’s a breakdown of five things you can do to start making money online from your comedy…

1. Enter A Commercial Video Contest

As you probably know, there’s tons of brands and businesses these days that put up money to fund contests in which they’re looking for people to create funny content for them online. What you may not realize is that relatively few people actually enter these contests and the people that do are rarely “professionally” funny. This means that if you actually enter these contests, there’s a decent chance that you can win them and win some money.

To find contests to enter, there are several contest websites that regularly feature a variety of new contests such as Online Video Contests and Tongal. You can also be on the lookout for promotions from specific brands such as Doritos’ annual Super Bowl commercial contest.

And there’s contests for more than just viral videos – for example, if you have artistic ability you may want to check out 99 Designs, where people run contests looking for creative artwork, logos and design.

2. Get A Freelance Writing Gig

Another easy way to get paid for being funny is to track down a job as a freelance writer or blogger for a website that’s looking for funny writers. Just about every major comedy website accepts submissions, and while they may not all pay initially, most will typically pay at a certain point after you’ve proved the quality of your work.

You can also find lots of freelance writing jobs on various job boards such as Problogger, Blogging Pro, Freelance Writing, and of course on Craigslist.

3. Place Advertising On Your Blog Or YouTube Channel

If you’ve built up some traffic to your blog or YouTube channel, one of the easiest ways to make some money from it is to place ads on the site or join the YouTube partner program to get paid for your video views. You won’t make a lot of money from advertising unless you get a good amount of traffic or views, but you will make something and it may serve as another incentive for you to create more content and promote that content if you know you’re getting paid for it.

While the easiest way to place advertising on your site is to do it through Google Adsense, if you’re a little more industrious you can actually approach an advertiser yourself that you think would like to reach the audience that views your content. If you can do that, you’ll probably wind up making a lot more money than you would through Google, because Google takes a large percentage of the revenue from the ads it runs on your content.

4. Create Funny Merchandise To Sell

Here’s another simple thing you can do to make money. It used to be that if you wanted to sell t-shirts or merchandise, you had to make a significant investment in producing the products and then hope that you could sell them. Well, the Internet has changed all that.

Sites like Cafepress now allow you to upload a design for a shirt (or other merchandise) and sell it through their store without actually producing any of them until somebody buys one. This means it literally costs you nothing to launch your own t-shirt company and you’ll get paid based on every shirt that you sell. Plus, those sites handle all of the order fulfillment, so all you have to do is come up with a great concept/design, promote it, and collect your money when people purchase your creation.

5. Get Creative With What You Sell

Perhaps the most interesting way you can get paid for being funny online is to get creative and come up with some amusing service or product that nobody else has thought of and try to sell that. For example, this guy decided that he was going to offer to create custom 30-second videos of himself doing a crazy dance with whatever you want painted on his hairy chest for $5 per video. Sure enough, he’s sold more than 500 videos to people because it’s cheap, fun, and people like the gimmick.

If you want to sell something for five dollars (like the dancing guy did), you can post your offer/product on Fiverr, which is a popular website featuring people selling all sorts of things for $5 a piece.

Remember, you can use things like Paypal to easily collect payments from people so it’s really simple for you to try to “sell” whatever you want – and if you come up with something that people value (even if it’s as ridiculous as a guy dancing with his shirt off), you can make yourself some money.

As you can see, there’s a lot of ways you can get paid to be funny online so, what are you waiting for?

It may not seem as sexy as the latest social media tools, but getting more people to subscribe to your email mailing list is still the absolute best thing you can do to ensure a connection to your fanbase and (hopefully) continue to grow it.

But getting people to join your mailing list is one of the most common things comedians struggle to do. While it’s not an easy task, it’s also not impossible as long as you understand a few basic things about how you should approach building your list.

Here’s a simple five step plan to get yourself more subscribers…

1. Give People A Reason To Join

This is by far the most important thing to consider when it comes to your mailing list. Before you ask anybody to join your list, you need to spend some time thinking about the reason they should join. What value will you provide to people who give you their email address?

The vast majority of comedians fail to consider this and that’s why most struggle to grow their email lists. No matter what you do, nobody is going to join your mailing list unless they believe they’re going to receive value from doing so – and even if they join initially, they will unsubscribe if they’re not receiving value from the emails you send.

I’ve written more extensively about how (and why) you need to provide value to your mailing list, so I won’t go into too much detail here. Just remember, you need to give people a reason to join your list that provides more value to them (content, access, etc.) than it does to you (the ability to spam them with promotions of your stuff).

On Connected Comedy, my “mailing list” is actually my Free Tips Newsletter, through which the value to subscribers is clearly spelled out. I’m offering free tips that can’t be found anywhere else on my site and exclusive offers to anybody that joins the list. That’s a compelling offer and it’s why people join – I’ve given them a reason (and value) as opposed to just asking them to join my mailing list.

2. Choose The Right Service To Power Your Mailing List

If you’re serious about your career and growing your fanbase, then you should be serious about the tool you use to manage your mailing list. It’s probably the most important tool you’ll have in connecting with your fanbase, so you want to make sure that you have as much power and flexibility as possible to build and manage your list. That’s why I recommend choosing a tool that’s specifically made for this purpose.

There’s a couple different options out there, but I strongly recommend using AWeber email list software to manage and build your list. It’s what I use for my mailing list and it’s a great tool that offers you lots of different ways to capture email addresses (easily customizable signup form templates, popup windows, etc.), and incredible flexibility to manage your list (see who clicked what links in your emails, track open rates, send follow up emails only to people who took certain actions, sort the list by location, etc.).

There are other professional services out there besides AWeber that you can use (such as Mailchimp), but I’ve found AWeber to be the best by far. Regardless which one you choose, it’s important to invest in using a mailing list software and not just relying on a Google, Yahoo, or some other less-functional, less-professional mailing list service.

There’s a reason professional mailing list services exist, and that’s because they make it MUCH easier to grow and use your list.

3. Create A Specific Page On Your Website To Capture Mailing List Signups

Once you know the reason you’re going to give people to join your list and you’ve signed up for a professional software like AWeber to power the list, the next thing you’re going to want to do is create a specific page on your website designed to entice people to join your list.

You’ll want this page to have more than just a signup form – it’s really a “sales” page where you spell out exactly what people will get if they join your mailing list and make a convincing argument of the value that it will provide to them.

That’s exactly what I did on my Free Tips Newsletter signup page, and the results have been amazing. Since I created this page, 38% of the people who visit the page actually join my email list! I know this because AWeber provides me with these kind of statistics, which also allows me to measure how to improve that rate by making any changes to my “pitch” – another reason why AWeber is so valuable.

It’s great to have your mailing list signup form in your sidebar or on every page of your site, but don’t forget to create a specific page whose sole purpose is to convince people to sign up to your list. You’ll find it’s much more effective than your sidebar forms. And once you’ve created your page…

4. Drive People To Your Signup Page

Once you’ve got your signup page created, the next thing you need to do is focus on driving people to that page. This is where you can leverage your social media following and the content on your site to do so.

You can post links to the page on your Twitter or Facebook accounts, post videos on YouTube asking people to check out the page and join your mailing list (with the same pitch of the value your list is now going to provide), and you can mention the list to fans who see you perform live.

Also, you should place links to the page on every piece of content you create at the bottom of the post – just like you’ll see I’ve done at the bottom of this post. Once your signup page is created, you can rely on it to do the “selling” for you, but you should then focus your efforts on driving people to that page.

5. Deliver What You Promised

As you get more people joining your email list, then you have to live up to what you promised them on the signup page. If you promised them valuable content, then you have to deliver that value and not just start spamming them with different things. People joined your list expecting certain things (based on whatever you promised on the signup page), and if you don’t deliver those things then those people will unsubscribe from your list just as quickly as they subscribed.

It’s never easy to grow your mailing list, but if you follow these steps I guarantee you’ll start to get a lot more people to join your mailing list and it will develop into the single best tool you can have to connect with your fanbase. Email is not dead…it’s just misunderstood.

I write a lot about how you can grow your fanbase using Twitter, but most of those tips take time and are long term strategies. But there are some simple, quick things you can do in less than 30 minutes that will teach you a lot about what’s working (or not) for you on Twitter and will give you a better handle on how to get the most out of the time you spend using it.

1. Check Your Bio And Name

Your bio on Twitter is that 140-character blurb that is shown below your name on your profile page. It also shows up when you follow somebody new – if they get email notices about new followers (and most people do). It’s basically your quick introduction to the world on Twitter.

But here’s the thing – most people write it when they first create their Twitter account and never look at it again.

As a result, there’s a good chance your bio doesn’t reflect what you want it to reflect and/or includes a link to old websites or content that you no longer use any more.

Take a couple minutes to see what your bio says and adjust it if need be. What should your bio include? I’d recommend something specific about you that explains who you are, why people should follow you, and what to expect if they do.

Having a bio that just says something like “Just a guy getting my Twitter on…” really doesn’t do you (or your would-be followers) any good.

One other thing worth noting here – your bio section is also searchable when people search Twitter for names or key terms they want to follow. So, if you include the word “comedian” in your bio, you’ll have a chance of coming up when people search for comedians.

The same goes for your “Name” if you have a Twitter handle that isn’t your name. For example, if your real name is Joe Smith but your Twitter handle is @ThatFunnyGuy and then you put your name as “Joe Funny,” nobody is going to find you on Twitter if they search for Joe Smith because that name’s not in your bio or Twitter name.

Your name and your bio on Twitter matters – don’t think they’re just meaningless sections to fill in.

2. Check Your Account On FriendOrFollow.com

FriendOrFollow.com is a free website that allows you to enter in your Twitter account name and see a breakdown of your Twitter followers – it will show you how many of your followers are following you back, how many are not following you back, and how many people are following you that you’re not following back.

Besides being fun to look at, it can give you some great leads of people you should be following and/or interacting with on Twitter. For example, you can check out the list of people following you that you don’t already follow and then start to follow them. You can also reach out to them to ask how they heard about you, interact with them, or just thank them for following you.

On the flipside, this is also a great way to clean out your following list by eliminating some people you may be following that don’t care about you enough to follow back.

3. Do A Twitter Search For Your Name, Website Or Project Links

The most powerful part of Twitter is actually Twitter’s search function. Most people don’t really understand how great a tool this is, but that’s for another post at another time. Today, just go do a search for your name, your Twitter handle, your website URL, or links to any of your videos or other projects you may have out there.

If you’re putting interesting content out there, you’ll probably discover that some people have been talking about it on Twitter and you had no idea. Once you see their tweets come up in the search results, you can reach out to them and interact with them.

4. Check Your Bit.ly Stats

Did you know that if you post a link on Twitter as a Bit.ly shortened link that you can see exactly how many people clicked the link and what time they clicked it? All you have to do is paste a copy of the link URL with a + sign on the end of it and you’ll see a page full of stats and analytics about how the link performed.

For example, here’s a link to a recent bit.ly link that I posted on Twitter – https://bitly.com/mRZL30+

This is another incredibly helpful (and addictive) tool because it can help you understand what kind of tweets get more clicks and what times of the day you can expect to get the most clicks for the links you post.

5. Use Twitter Lists

Another Twitter function that not enough people make use of is the ability to create Lists. Here’s a good overview of what Twitter Lists are and how they work.

For your purposes, I think there’s a couple things you may want to do with lists. First, check to see if you’re listed on anybody else’s lists – if so, it can be interesting to see who felt you were worth adding to their list and see who else is on that same list with you. Most likely, you’ll share some similarities with those people who you’re on the same list with.

The other thing you can do is create a couple of your own lists which will help you make sure you don’t miss tweets from people that you deem most important to follow.

None of these things are going to completely revolutionize how you use Twitter, but all of them can help you get more out of the time you spend on Twitter. They’re well worth exploring for a few minutes every once in a while.

After last week’s interview with comedy manager/producer Reg Tigerman, I’m excited to have another exclusive interview for you today with Eric Yoder, a veteran comedy booking agent who works for the Funny Business Agency.

Here’s what Eric had to say about how he determines who to book, how the booking business has changed in the past few years, what comedians can typically expect to get paid for different types of gigs, and the biggest misconception that comedians have about booking agents among other things.

Can you tell me a little bit about your background, the Funny Business Agency, and what your role in the company is?

I’ve been handling club accounts and booking for Funny Business for about six years now. My job consists of new talent reviews, talent buying for clubs and consulting with club owners. Our agency books about 13-15 fulltime/weekend clubs and approximately 50 or so one-nighter rooms nationwide, as well as numerous corporate and college events. The majority of our work is in the Midwest, but we have a good amount of runs from Florida, to New Hampshire, to California, to Texas and many places in between.

I was born into comedy, visiting clubs with my Dad and meeting comedians since I was a little kid, and slowly moving up through the business from pulling headshots and bios for club promo packets, on to checking out new acts, then to sales, and finally into taking over the club accounts.

Funny Business is a family business. My dad, John Yoder, started Funny Business over 25 years ago and built the agency to one of the largest in the country. My brother, Jamison, handles college and corporate sales, and my other brother, Michael, now handles all our Internet and social marketing consulting for our clubs and for our agency. We have offices in Grand Rapids, MI – Asheville, NC – and Chapel Hill, NC.

As a booker, what’s the most challenging part of your job?

I’ve found that finding a good balance between your relationships with club owners and your relationships with comedians can be tough. I’ve always tried to stand behind and support the comedians that work for our agency, but because we work for the clubs, the club often becomes the priority when running into situations where there is a conflict between the two.

So there are often times my job goes from comedy booker to problem solver and finding solutions for conflict in a way that shows the talent and clubs are equally respected by our agency.

What do you think is the biggest misconception that comedians have about bookers?

I often get the impression that comedians don’t realize the amount of behind the scenes work that bookers and agencies put in when booking rooms. A lot of the times I think if a comedian works a room for us that maybe didn’t do enough advertising, or didn’t police the room well, etc., it’s because we didn’t train or consult with them on these things.

In reality, it tends to be that the club doesn’t choose to utilize all the resources we provide – a detailed 30-page comedy marketing packet, ideal room setup, how to properly run the show, and a ton more resources. It is as frustrating for us as it is for the comedians when the venue doesn’t utilize these tools.

Another common confusion I’ve seen more recently is comedians confusing the role of a booking agent versus a manager or an agent. A comedy booking agency represents the clubs, we are hired as talent buyers for them. Comedian agents, or managers, represent the comedians, whereas we are hired as talent buyers for the club, so ultimately work for them.

I see comedians coming to us wanting representation, or when we do decide to work with the comedian they think it is entirely on us to find them all their work and to promote for them, etc.

How do you decide who to book for a specific gig?

First of all, we look at what kind of crowds typically come to that venue. I will look at their age, demographic, what acts they’ve liked in the past, feedback we’ve gotten from them on how comedians do in their room, etc.

Then we go and look at avails for which comedians are open that week. We see what headliners are available and then we go through and see what kind of feedback they’ve gotten in the past and if they are a good fit for the room. We then go and look at a feature act and what kind of feature would work best paired with that headliner. If it’s a room we’ve booked for a while, then we also go back and look at the club’s previous feedback on acts and see which kind of comedians they liked in the past and who has done well for them.

What’s the best way for a comedian to get on your radar and get more work from your agency?

A lot of times referrals from comedians we work with and trust, or references from fellow bookers and club owners are a good start. When we get these we tend to take a closer look and move on to contacting them for videos, references and their work history.

We do check regular submissions weekly or bi-weekly, but the submissions with strong references usually get a closer look faster. It’s important to follow up on these every couple weeks after submitting, but be patient, since we receive approximately 30 submissions a week. It can take time to get through all of them and get back to the act.

Obviously it varies, but can you talk a little bit about the economics of booking these days? What does a “typical” gig pay for a comedian? What’s the range?

Well, I would say a typical weekday one-night gig (Sunday-Thursday) will pay in the $100-$175 range for features and $200-$250 for headliners. Friday or Saturday night gigs, $150-$200 to feature and $250-$400.

As far as full time clubs or weekend clubs, it varies quite a bit and would be difficult to give a range on. Almost all gigs provide hotel rooms for both feature and headliner, but some one-night rooms in or within 30 minutes of a major city like Chicago or Minneapolis try to save on the hotel rooms and use acts from the nearby markets.

The pay depends on many things – if it’s routed in a multi-day run, proximity to other gigs or back-to-back weeks, and a lot of other variables. Budget for a club to pay acts is determined by a few things – how many they seat, if they serve food, beer and liquor, market population, etc.

Our agency doesn’t take commissions from the comedians, since we are paid a flat-rate booking fee from the club. However, there are agencies out there that do both, commonly referred to as “double-dipping.” We have chosen to not to participate in that kind of practice for ethical and moral reasons.

I think that every booker would love if they could pay comedians more, but it’s about making the gig worthwhile for the comedians as well as making it financially do-able for the venue so they can profit and will keep the club running successfully in the long term.

What advice would you have for a comedian who’s interested in booking more corporate gigs? What about college gigs?

I personally don’t handle much of our college or corporate end, but I can tell you that CLEAN is one of the biggest priorities for these types of gigs. These are different than club bookings, because we “pitch” specific acts we find suitable for the event and they get a chance to take a look at the acts and decide which they would like to have.

This means putting together a demo that has professional quality sound, lighting and material. The client will be watching and reviewing your materials, not just us. I suggest having a minimum of one hour of squeaky clean material, and having great quaity video that showcases this best.

How do you think the booking business has changed in the last few years?

I would say that the Internet and social networking sites have made some big changes. Agencies are able to access comedian’s materials and websites faster. They can see the feedback and interactions comedians get, what clubs they are working, how many fans they have, and more by just looking at a couple pages on Facebook.

Facebook can be a dangerous thing for comedians though. Not seperating your personal account from a “Fan Page” is a mistake in my point of view. I see comedians posting overally emotional statuses or overly personal information not pertaining to their career, content or comedy.

I also see a lot of “spamming,” which inevitably leads to hiding posts from these acts. Then, when they actually post content , it no longer will show on a lot of people’s news feeds.

There has also been a steady growth of new comedians heavily flooding the markets. This allows for a lot of great new talent for us to familiarize ourselves with, but also makes the weeding out and review process much more time-consuming and difficult.

With so many beginning or new comedians, a lot of the time they are getting advice and feedback from other NEW comedians, which tends to not be the most accurate. I see comedians that get a two-minute clip on Rooftop Comedy and then use that as a clip they submit or an actual “credit” on their submission resume.

I think the comedy industry as a whole is consistently growing and changing as many new avenues for promotion, finding new talent/venues, and accessing new resources continue happening. It’s staying ahead of the curve and adapting to these new avenues that can really get comedians to take their career to the next level.

Besides putting on a good show, is there anything a comedian who gets booked can do to increase their chances of getting future bookings from that venue or promoter?

Many things. I’d say most importantly, be a professional. Show up early, be respectable and appreciative to ALL the staff at the venues you are performing at (you never know when that waitress you had may be the manager next time you come through…), share feedback and ideas on setting up their room and promoting. These types of small things go a long way.

Another is to be easy to work with. Know what you want to ask or book when you call a booker and be specific, be prepared, take feedback in stride – whether you feel it applies or not, learn the correct chain of command for who you need to contact for what types of info, share with the booker how the crowds and turnouts were for the gig you were at, etc.

When we see a comedian that genuinely cares about a venue’s success and wants to help make it better, it says a lot. It also helps you stick out in our mind. Don’t give us, or a venue, a reason to not have you back of course, but instead of just gliding by, give us a reasont to WANT to have you back.

How important is a comedian’s website, YouTube videos, bio, email list, etc. to their chances of getting booked?

Very. When we book an act, a venue will typically search the comedian’s name to see what they are all about. If it goes to a nice website that is easy to maneuver, easy to find content and is of high quality it does make a difference. Having many videos, blogs, etc. can be a great way for a potential fan or a venue to want to learn more and to access your other online content.

Having fans, videos, an email list, or even making your own posters to send a venue, goes a long way. If you are a great, hilarious comedian, and are consistently professional BUT don’t do much to help promote yourself, don’t have a nice website or work to make yourself have a strong Internet presence, well, there are MANY great, hilarious, professional comedians that do.

Guess who we will pick?

For more from Eric and the Funny Business Agency, check out the Funny Business blog and Facebook page. If you’ve got a question for Eric, feel free to post it in the comments.