Introduction
She was fourteen years old in a small town in southern Sweden, opening a letter from the church. It invited her to do her confirmation. Her family had never talked about God or Jesus at home, but the program came with a camp aboard a big sailboat. Caroline Ravn signed up for the boat. That accidental yes would launch five-and-a-half years of theology studies, a near career in ministry, and, eventually, the detour that turned her into one of the most visible professional magicians in Scandinavia.
Today, Caroline is a professional magician and emcee, an author, an entrepreneur, a five time TEDx speaker, the founder of the Magician's Book Club, and the creator of the Ravn branded playing card series, which has sold over 40,000 decks worldwide. She has won titles at the Swedish and Nordic Magic Championships, performed sell out shows in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Amsterdam, Oslo, New York, and Las Vegas, and earlier this year became the first woman in Scandinavian history to perform and lecture at the Blackpool Magic Convention. Her book, "The Business Side of Show Business: How to Make a Living on Stage," now published globally through Collective Ink, is a field manual for entertainers who want to build an actual career from their art.
This conversation traces the full arc of that journey, from a grandfather's card tricks and a church sailboat to sponsorship deals negotiated without a driver's license, and the second book that Caroline revealed, for the first time, on this podcast.
A State of Wonder
Magic found Caroline through her grandfather, though not in the way most performers describe their conversion. There was no single trick, no revelatory performance. Caroline was one of five siblings and one of several cousins clustered around her paternal grandfather, and she was the only one in the family who took up magic. She treasured that uniqueness. It was not the tricks themselves that pulled her in, but what she saw happen in the faces of the people she performed for.
"I loved the ability of getting people into a state of wonder because I didn't see that anywhere else."
For a girl who, by her own description, had a lot of undiagnosed ADHD and did not fit in especially well in her small town, that little bubble of wonder was a place to belong. A career in it was never in view. "I never thought in a million years that this could be a career," she says. Even now, she still pinches herself.
The theology detour began with a letter from the local church, inviting her to do her confirmation when she was fourteen. Her family had never discussed God or Jesus at home, but the camp that came with the confirmation was aboard a sailing ship, and she signed up. She loved it. She felt seen. When the church asked if she would lead the next group, she said yes. The sailing ship became a recurring part of her life, and five-and-a-half years of theology study followed. Why she stayed for that long, she admits, is still a little opaque to her.
"But now I've sold my soul to Satan for card tricks, and it feels good!"
The First Year
Caroline's father was her biggest supporter, and he was also, briefly, skeptical. His own father had been a magician, an unprofessional and unsuccessful one, and when Caroline announced she was leaving the theology path for the stage, he gave her a year. Then he gave her everything else. He drove her to venues she did not yet know existed. He paid for groceries. He protected her first year from as much financial friction as he could absorb. Two years before our conversation, he died from ALS, a disease that moved through him far faster than the family had been told to expect, just thirteen months from first symptom to the end. Going through his phone afterward, Caroline found that ninety-five percent of the photos on the device were of her, or her Facebook updates, or the places he had driven her to.
"And it really breaks my heart every day seeing my twins growing up and knowing that they will never know the greatest man that I knew."
That first year of business, supported by her father and no one else, was a year of trial and error. "I ran on everything. Like, every single opportunity that I saw, I just decided to go all in." Her wardrobe had no through-line. Her script did not exist. No one had told her she needed a contract. But one principle came through. The entrepreneurs she admired networked relentlessly. "Your net worth is in your network," she says, borrowing a line she hears often in entrepreneurial circles. She believes the same logic applies to entertainers, and she applies it at the park: every time she takes her children there, she mentions to the other parents that she happens to be a magician. She has gotten gigs that way.
Six Weeks in Egypt
The book began as a thought experiment in a hotel room. With her family napping around her in the Egyptian heat, Caroline asked herself what one gift the magic community could have given her at the start of her career, and realized, with a jolt, that the answer was a book. Within an hour or two, she had the shape of a table of contents. Six weeks later, the manuscript was complete. It was the fastest she had ever finished anything, which mattered, because her father had spent years gently teasing her for the opposite pattern. "You never really finish things," he used to tell her. "You start a million projects at the same time."
Ten days before he died, during the last stretch when he was still conscious, she sat at his bedside and told him the book was done. He was no longer verbal. But the pride in his eyes was unmistakable. The finished book carries a dedication to him.
"The Business Side of Show Business" began as a self-published PDF and then as a run of one hundred printed books Caroline ordered herself. One of the early PDF readers happened to be the owner of the publishing company Collective Ink, himself a magician, whom Caroline had met at a convention. He came back with an offer. The press works in more than seventy countries. The process of expanding the book into a global release, she says, has been joyful.
A Product With a Point of View
The opening chapters are built around what Caroline calls the offer foundation, a unique selling point that separates one performer from the next in the eyes of a booker skimming Google results. For Caroline, the USP has at times been an inconvenient truth. She does not love that being a woman is, in itself, differentiating in her field, but she acknowledges it is, and she has designed her brand accordingly. Her website uses a feminine visual palette. Her photography skews modeled rather than action shots. She leans into the fact that a booker typing female magician into a search bar in Sweden will find two names.
She also has pointed things to say about how many magicians present themselves. The number one error, in her view, is trying to sell everything on one website. Corporate shows, children's parties, and keynote speaking do not belong on a single site. A corporate buyer wants to see a corporate magician, cleanly presented in that frame. A parent booking a birthday party wants bright colors, balloons, and something that says fun. Coloring up the world of the specific product you are selling, as Caroline puts it, makes the buyer's decision easier.
The book argues hard for knowing one's own price, and Caroline arrived at that conviction the hard way.
"The only reason you have never gotten $10,000 for a gig is because you never asked for it."
The first time she quoted $2,000, she was terrified. The client did not blink. She has not quoted lower since.
Eyes and Ears Open
Before the book, Caroline wrote a piece for The Hermit magazine titled "Leave Your Dove Pan at Home," which argued that a magic trick is generally not the right way to distinguish yourself at a networking event. She illustrates the principle with a Swedish networking dinner at a spa. Seated next to the marketing chief of a car rental company, she mentioned offhand that she was about to go on tour and that he really ought to sponsor her with a car. He agreed. He said they should stripe it, too. She texted her agent from under the table. When she showed up to sign for the Mini Cooper, she leaned over and asked if this was a good time to mention she did not actually have a driver's license. He laughed. She had her license two weeks later.
She returned to the same principle days before her Blackpool trip, for reasons she had not anticipated. A major Swedish morning radio show had devoted a segment to dismissing card magicians as not doing real magic. The hosts, one man and one woman, riffed their way to a question.
"And then the girl says, 'Is there one female magician in Sweden?' And the guy responds, 'Probably, but if we have one, she's not going to be any good.'"
Break for commercial. Caroline saw the opportunity for what it was. She went on LinkedIn, told the story in detail, quoted the radio hosts word for word, and introduced herself to the country. She mentioned her upcoming trip to Blackpool, noted that she was the first Scandinavian woman booked there, and closed with the career goal that, in her telling, still sits at the top of her list: one day hosting the Eurovision Song Contest. She was at the airport gate, about to fly to Manchester, when the morning show called asking her to come on the program.
She offers a related tip for any performer who wants press. After a corporate show, go into the office kitchen and look at which magazines the company subscribes to. The masthead on page two or four lists the journalists. Find them on LinkedIn. Mention the show, the client, the magazine connection. That, she says, is how she has earned interviews in some of the biggest publications in Sweden.
Social Platforms, and What They're For
Caroline is practical about social media. Her Instagram shows her family life alongside her career, aimed at a broad audience and particularly at women who want both a stage and a home. Her LinkedIn is pure business, aimed at corporate buyers. She rarely posts about her children there, and when she does, the response is always the same: people are surprised she has kids, which tells her the separation is working. One of her core LinkedIn habits, she says, is not posting at all but commenting. She treats the platform like a slow conversation: someone shares a new job, she congratulates them by name. It costs nothing and it builds everything.
She is equally practical about YouTube. Most magicians think about the platform in terms of AdSense, which requires subscriber and watch-hour thresholds that can take years to hit. Caroline prefers affiliate marketing. A product video she recorded nearly four years ago for Epidemic Sound, a music licensing service she already used, still earns her at least $1,000 a month in commission. The same logic applies to Amazon Associates links, she notes, for any performer who could plausibly recommend a juggling prop, a deck of cards, or a piece of gear.
Her Ravn branded playing card series, now past 40,000 decks sold worldwide, carried her through the pandemic. Card tricks were not exactly a growth business in 2020, but the decks were. She estimates they brought in over $100,000 during that stretch.
The Show Must Go On
Caroline's book is candid about the physical and emotional cost of a full-time performing career. The seasonality. The feast and famine. The pressure of always being on. She was back on stage four days after her father died. She canceled one show, when he was in hospice, and has not canceled a show otherwise. A professional service, in her view, carries a professional responsibility. Her solution for every major gig is the same: a pre-arranged backup performer, briefed and ready to step in. Three days after her twins were born, when an emergency C-section made her own show impossible, the backup was in place and the show went on without her.
The cruise she boarded two days after her father's death tested the discipline. Before walking on, she felt something like panic for the first time in her life. Then her name was announced. "I was back into being a jumbo jet." She cannot remember a single moment of the performance itself. Only the feeling, afterward, that she had done it.
Blackpool
Earlier this year, Caroline performed and lectured at the Blackpool Magic Convention, the first woman from Scandinavia to do so. Performing for magicians, she discovered quickly, is a different proposition from performing for lay audiences. During her first show, in the middle of a mentalism routine, she looked out and saw Banachek in the audience.
"I can't breathe in front of God!"
The first show, she did not enjoy. The second show, after a short break, was a different experience entirely. "It was 11 out of 10. It was so fun." She was able to pull out the material she cannot use on a corporate stage, and she felt, finally, at home.
Her lecture drew a room of working professionals, and her message reflected the through-line of her career.
"We don't have to be starving artists, we can actually be thriving entertainers if we want to."
The Book Club
The Magician's Book Club was born during the pandemic, from a Facebook post by Caroline's friend Per, a Swedish magician and teacher who had gone out to his summer cabin with a copy of Tarbell, Volume One. Caroline commented that she wished she had someone to hold her accountable to read it, too. A few months later, she asked Per whether he would start a book club with her. He took it seriously. He wrote a curriculum. A dozen or so Swedish magicians began meeting on Zoom, Per as the teacher and Caroline as the enthusiast, with breakout rooms for discussion.
When Caroline posted about it on Instagram, the international response made clear that Swedish was not a language large enough to scale the idea. She launched an English version in late 2021 or early 2022, and seventy people showed up to the first meeting. The club has since read more than 45 books, often bringing the author in for the final discussion. Joshua Jay and Andi Gladwin from Vanishing Inc. have joined. So has Asi Wind, and Jim Steinmeyer appeared for a conversation about his book, "Hiding the Elephant."
The Lost Luggage Show
One chapter of "The Business Side of Show Business" is dedicated to what Caroline calls the Lost Luggage Show, a complete backup performance packed into her carry-on at all times. It has saved her, by her own count, four times.
The first time, the one she remembers most vividly, involved a family cruise out of South Korea. Caroline flew from Stockholm, her sister from Copenhagen via Thailand, and by the time they met in port, Caroline's luggage was somewhere else entirely. The bag contained her show and, critically, a camcorder with batteries still inside, which is why it had been held up. She boarded the ship and was reassured, each day, that the luggage would arrive in time. On the morning of her show, the staff told her they would collect the bag from the airport. Two hours before her rehearsal, they walked up with a different message.
"Oh, sorry, we did not have time to go to the airport to pick up your luggage."
She had two and a half hours to invent a show from whatever she could find on board. She did book tests with pocket paperbacks from the ship's library. She forced a photo of Leonardo DiCaprio. She built close-up with coins, rubber bands, and a borrowed deck. She constructed a magic square that could be projected on the ship's screen so the entire audience could follow along. The show was filmed. It is still unlisted on YouTube somewhere. Since then, she has referenced the experience often as proof of something she now believes about herself and about most magicians:
"We can put together a show in 30 minutes if we need to."
What's Next
Caroline's most cherished magic books, she says, are "Stage by Stage" by John Graham, which she recommends to anyone trying to construct a show, "Maelstrom" by her fellow Swedish performer Tom Stone, and “The Tarbell Course in Magic” which she notes has to be on the list.
Caroline is also at work on her second book, an announcement she made for the first time during our conversation.
"It is ‘The Business Side of Show Business,’ but for the other side of things. It is everything that I wish that a booker knew about booking entertainers before they started booking us."
For a woman who walked away from the ministry to sell her soul to Satan for card tricks, the business of thriving as an entertainer is not a mystery. It is a discipline. And she is apparently not finished documenting it.
Books and Publications Mentioned
Works by Caroline Ravn:
"The Business Side of Show Business: How to Make a Living on Stage" by Caroline Ravn (Collective Ink, 2025)
"Leave Your Dove Pan at Home," an article by Caroline Ravn for The Hermit magazine (2023)
Books Caroline Cherishes in Her Personal Collection:
"Stage by Stage" by John Graham (Vanishing Inc., 2021)
"Maelstrom" by Tom Stone (Hermetic Press, 2011)
"The Tarbell Course in Magic" by Harlan Tarbell (in book form: Louis Tannen, 1944-48)
Additional Book Referenced:
"Hiding the Elephant" by Jim Steinmeyer (Carroll & Graf, 2003)
Resources
To purchase "The Business Side of Show Business" and receive a signed copy, visit: book.ravnmagic.com
For Caroline's broader work, performances, and YouTube content: ravnmagic.com
Follow Caroline on Instagram for a broad view of her career and family life
Follow Caroline on LinkedIn for her corporate business strategy in practice
Timestamps
00:00 Cold open: the Lost Luggage Show
00:28 Introduction to The Magic Book Podcast
01:01 Guest introduction: Caroline Ravn
02:18 Growing up in southern Sweden and a grandfather who performed magic
03:13 Five and a half years of theology study
06:03 Family, twins, and belonging
08:05 Caroline's father, his support, and his passing
09:42 Becoming a full-time magician
10:00 The first year in business
11:37 Sponsor message
12:04 Writing "The Business Side of Show Business" in six weeks
14:35 The book's promise: zero magic tricks
14:48 The offer foundation and unique selling points
17:41 Common mistakes magicians make with their websites
18:55 "Leave Your Dove Pan at Home" and a sponsored Mini Cooper
21:23 Eyes and ears open: the Swedish radio story
24:54 LinkedIn, Instagram, and separating audiences
28:02 YouTube, AdSense, and affiliate marketing
30:26 Entrepreneurship and the Ravn playing cards
32:01 The emotional cost of performing, and the backup plan
34:47 Sponsor message
35:07 Signing with Collective Ink
37:11 The Magician's Book Club
40:09 Blackpool as performer and lecturer
42:19 Cultural differences in audiences
43:25 The Lost Luggage Show in South Korea
46:49 TEDx and building credibility
48:28 Raising your fees
50:36 Most cherished magic books
51:48 Where to buy the book
52:17 Following Caroline's work online
53:25 The second book
54:08 Closing