If you want to be a comic, then you are heading into a career that doesn't have a lot of money to pay you. Small bars and clubs don't make that much to pay that much. Open mics, you perform for free.
After my last show, I had a conversation that took me a few days to digest. It is something that I knew, but never really thought about.
Selling merchandise after the show is the quickest way to make some money doing comedy.
If you come up with a joke that you can put on a t-shirt, that is great.
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If you come up with a joke you can put on a bumper sticker... that is great.
Find something to tie into your act that you can sell.
When you go on the road to do comedy and you are getting paid around $150 and a hotel to feature, then you can double your money by selling a few t-shirts and some stickers after the show.
If you are funny, and the joke is funny, people will buy your merch.
So when you are starting out, think about how to make one of your jokes into something you can sell. If you do it from the beginning, it will make the progression to paid feature a lot easier financially.
Good luck and let me know if you have any questions.
Thank you for reading.