Act Like It's Your Business

In Act Like It's Your Business: Branding and Marketing Strategies for Actors, Jonathan Flom helps actors and others in the arts understand the power of branding. This guide walks the reader through the process of creating a personal brand for his or her small business and then marketing that brand and broadcasting it through every step of the process-from choosing clothing, arranging headshots, and designing resumes to selecting a repertoire, building a website, obtaining business cards, and networking. The book also offers advice on such real-world issues as goal-setting, finances, contracts, and day jobs, as well as provides insight and guidance on how to approach agents, auditions, and casting directors. Structured logically and step-by-step, this accessible guide will become the standard for nearly anyone hoping to build an enduring career in the performing arts. Review: Flom (theater and musical theater, Shenandoah Conservatory) helps actors just starting out (and some who have been out there for a while) understand how important it is to sell your own special brand. He helps students prepare for their career by determining what is in their control, beginning with goals and crafting a brand. He then gives advice on audition techniques, agents, casting directors, equity versus non-equity, and networking. To make sure that performers understand the branding concept along with the traditional routes to selling yourself he includes portraits of people just starting out, self-help questions, and asks hard-hitting questions, such as just how naked do you want to be on film. Book News, Inc. Those who have encountered young actors on campus will have heard the question, 'How do I get my career started?' Many professors will inevitably start talking about training, auditioning, and honing the craft of acting. In this book, Flom (theater, Shenandoah Conservatory, and a professional theater director) offers important, up-to-date information about the business side of acting--the way an actor establishes and promotes him- or herself to get work and keep working. This little gem of a book covers such standard subjects as auditioning (both live and video processes), agents, and networking, but it also includes information about branding oneself as a unique actor, marketing oneself, and setting realistic goals for success in the field. The easily digestible chapters are written in no-nonsense language. Flom does not gloss over unpleasant topics like financial stability or career longevity, and in a chapter titled 'The Cities Project' he encourages actors to think about careers that do not necessarily focus on New York or LA. The book also includes 'Performer Profiles'-interviews with working professionals from the many facets of the business. This book is long overdue in the extensive literature on careers in acting. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; professionals. CHOICE