The Quiet Way Comedians Quit
And Why I Wrote This Book
To do stand-up comedy is to put yourself out there. Getting on the stage where it’s just you and a mic requires a willingness to be vulnerable. But there are other parts of doing stand-up that require vulnerability, too, like posting your stuff online. It’s one thing to be in a room at a venue where only a select few can see your material. It’s another thing to put your stuff out there where anyone can see it. For me, too, there’s doing live streams, podcasts, a newsletter, online courses, and writing articles almost daily on my website. All of it’s out there publicly and while some appreciate it, others don’t. The same exact principle is true for publishing books, which I’ve done about 40 times now, whether at the academic or popular level.
For the last 14+ months, I’ve been studying and writing about stand-up comedy intensively and publicly. As I’ve written about what I call “Comedy Mindhacks,” I’ve been deep in social, psychological, rhetorical, literary, and performance sciences, to name just a few. And I’m pleased today, to share that my first comedy book, Comedy Mindhacks: 100 Mental Shifts To Help Comedians & Creatives Succeed is now available for preorder HERE. Clocking in at just under 300 pages, the book should start rolling off the presses within the next week. Below you can see the front and back cover, which has this description:
For the aspiring creative or comedian who lies awake wondering if their current skill level is as good as it will ever get, this book offers a vital lifeline out of the dreaded plateau. It tackles the deepest fear of the everyday performer: Not the terror of bombing or facing hecklers, but the quiet, dangerous drift of giving up little by little until the dream fades completely. Bridging the gap between rigorous theory and real-life practice, author T. Michael W. Halcomb offers numerous strategies designed to create continuous growth and momentum. Written by an established professor and comedian, this book cuts through empty hustle-culture fluff to share honest, hard-won evidence that progress is always possible. Ultimately, it serves as a gritty, deeply human guide that uses the mechanics of stand-up comedy as a vehicle for personal growth and transformation.
If you click HERE, you can see some sample pages. If you don’t yet subscribe to this site, you can still get a 10% discount at your purchase with the code: MH10LIVE. But, if you become a FREE Subscriber, you can automatically get a 15% discount.
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