A Lobotomy Patient's guide to joke writing, performing, and selling. An entertaining, easy to follow text and workbook that offers a comprehensive step by step formula for creating jokes as well as performing a stand-up routine. Class room tested exercises for defining your stage character. Are you an observer (Jerry Seinfeld), aggressor (Don Rickles), victim (Rodney Dangerfield), or alien (Steven Wright). Afraid of that blank piece of paper? This is the only "how t...

This ultimate insider's guide reveals the secrets that none dare admit, told by a show biz veteran who's proven that you can sell your script if you can save the cat!

In this hilarious and highly practical book, author and professional speaker Scott Berkun reveals the techniques behind what great communicators do, and shows how anyone can learn to use them well. For managers and teachers -- and anyone else who talks and expects someone to listen -- Confessions of a Public Speaker provides an insider's perspective on how to effectively present ideas to anyone. It's a unique, entertaining, and instructional romp through the embarrassments and tri...

Demonstrates what constitutes a good performance, what actors want from a director, what directors do wrong and more.

"Fascination . . . the most powerful of product attachments . . . this pioneering book helps us approach . . . the concept in a thoughtful . . . practical manner." —Tom Peters, national bestselling author of In Search of ExcellenceIn an oversaturated culture defined by limited time and focus, how do we draw attention to our messages, our ideas, and our products when we only have seconds to compete?Award-winning consultant and speaker Sally Hogshead t...

Is The Wire better than Breaking Bad? Is Cheers better than Seinfeld? What's the best high school show ever made? Why did Moonlighting really fall apart? Was the Arrested Development Netflix season brilliant or terrible?For twenty years-since they shared a TV column at Tony Soprano's hometown newspaper-critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz have been debating these questions and many more, but it all ultimately boils down ...

What really separates the best from the rest?We all know that it takes hard work, dedication, and the occasional dose of luck for someone to make it to the top of their chosen field. Yet, we also suspect that it takes a little something more—but what?The Art of Doing asks today’s most successful celebrities, businessmen, and iconoclastic achievers, “How do you succeed at what you do?” Illuminating, surprising, and profoundly inspiring, interviewees include:• 30 Rock S...

Get the core knowledge of a prestigious MFA education without the tuition.Have you always wanted to get an MFA, but couldn't because of the cost, time commitment, or admission requirements?Well now you can fulfill that dream without having to devote tons of money or time. The Portable MFA gives you all of the essential information you would learn in the MFA program in one book. Covering fiction, memoirs, personal essays, magazine articles, poetry, ...

Twenty of America's bestselling authors share tricks, tips, and secrets of the successful writing life.Anyone who's ever sat down to write a novel or even a story knows how exhilarating and heartbreaking writing can be. So what makes writers stick with it? In Why We Write, twenty well-known authors candidly share what keeps them going and what they love most—and least—about their vocation.Contributing authors include:Isabel ...

How do you win the dating game if you’re a gay man?After many years of serial monogamy, Dave Singleton went to the front lines to find out, exploring the lives of other gay men who found themselves on the dating fast track with guys they’d met from work, at the gym or bars, and, increasingly, on the Internet. Thus, The Mandates was born—a laugh-out-loud but completely true set of rules about the making (or breaking) of men’s romantic relationships.A samplin...

An essential handbook featuring never-before-published writing exercises from the acclaimed screenwriters of Raging Bull, Ali, Terminator 2, Fame, Groundhog Day, Cape Fear, "Lost", "True Blood", "The Shield", and many other hit films and television shows.Now Write! Screenwriting-the latest addition to the Now Write! writing guide series-brings together the acclaimed screenwriters of films like the Oscar-winning Raging Bull, Oscar- nominat...

"A guidebook to the world of professional humoring . . . Randazzo pulls off the rare trick of being funny while discussing comedy." —Michael Ian Black, The New York Times Book ReviewIt takes guts to be a comedian, and it takes smarts to make a living off it. In this insider's guide, former Onion editor Joe Randazzo delivers a funny and insightful blueprint for those looking to turn their sense of humor into a vocation, and solicits advice and stori...