For anyone wanting to get into standup comedy and not develop bad habits, this book should be your primary source, and essential tool. It shows you not only how to write the funny, and I mean REALLY funny, but also how to rehearse, how to get gigs, how to win the crowd and club staff over to liking and supporting you, it's got it all. Every single piece of advice Greg gives in the book is absolutely spot on. It made such a change in my on-the-mic presence that I think I'm approaching the point where I will be "unbombable", as I call it. Below is an email I wrote to Greg thanking him for sharing his knowledge.

Hi Greg,

I tried Standup Comedy in January this year. Being a fan of comedy all my life I thought I'd be good at it. I sucked. I was horrible. I didnt want to give up though, I knew I was missing something. In short, I bought your book, read it cover to cover, and followed all guidelines from jokewriting to mining for material, assembling acts, ....I even setup a mic and stand in my basement for rehearsals. Of course, though, I have another room for the critic's voice. I also joined toastmasters. All of it together made my second open mic attempt very successful. I was confident, smooth, and all but a couple of punchlines did well. It was all because of your book. You are a freaking genius.

I love you, man. Thank you!

Whilst I appreciate all I've done is read it (twice now) in the last few days and hence don't have my own material prepared, the book makes sense. Some folks find it easy to find fault-perhaps they bought the book for laughs rather than creating laughs (there is a difference).

If you want to learnt to write novels etc, there are good books on how to do that. Reading those books isn't necessarily as much fun as reading a really gripping novel is it? The same for learning the basics of composition or drawing or using a computer. The books even when well written don't really carry the emotional charge of the activity when you engaged in the finished product (your own or others).

So expecting the book to have you laughing like a comedy show etc is not realistic. The poor reviews are just that-poor in my opinion.

I find it very easy to see how a fair bit of work following this methodology would provide a pretty sure route to producing material that otherwise could be near impossible to produce unless you were born with some magic "talent". I'm intending to take a few workshops and build experience. For the cost of the book, and the mental investment you will get results. Sometimes you have to find out for yourself. Before I paid for it, I read the naysayers advice. It didn't convince.