Hi everyone! I’ve been going over a lot of videos lately, and notice some common mistakes. Hope this helps you get the perfect promo video.

1) Start with you. Not someone introducing you, but you. Don’t waste a booker’s time having them wait through an introduction. No need for fancy graphics either, get to the point. Most bookers shut videos off after 30 seconds. Don’t waste your only chance to get their attention. And start on your opening joke – if you don’t, it makes people wonder what you cut out.

2) Send nothing you need to explain or make an excuse for. “I don’t usually start with local material!” “The last comic had done a bit about X, so I riffed.” Send the booker an accurate example of WHAT THEY WILL SEE when you work their gig.

3) Good quality! Shaky footage? Bad audio? Whitewashed face? Don’t send that. You don’t need it to be TV quality – but the worse the quality, the more amateur you look.

4) Never send anything from a show packed with your friends and family. We have seen enough tapes to be able to tell when the cheering is artificially loud.

5) Send something CURRENT. Last week, I was sent a clip from Evening at the Improv, a show that went off the air 18 years ago. Sending an old clip makes it seem like you don’t work enough to get a new one. Also makes you seem irrelevant.

6) Make sure the tape is the impression you want to create. There’s no such thing as “good enough” – a booker can only judge you on the ammo you give them. If you don’t yet have the perfect tape, then you don’t yet have A tape.

Hope this helps you get a killer tape!

Hugs.