Just talked to Steve Beam. Volume 11 of SACT is at the printers and will be shipped at the end of November. His web site at Stevebeam.com is offering 15% off for pre-orders.
Doug Canning

I've been thinking about getting his first vol. Heard a lot of good things about his books.
Allen

I have the first eight volumes and they are absolutely fantastic. These routines are not your Uncle Bob's insipid deal the card into 5 piles and repeat 12 times. You will find card magic that performed well rank among the hardest hitting card magic you will ever witness. Each volume introduces new concepts and I have yet to read a volume where I haven't found at least 10 items I have either used in toto or taken parts of a given routine and incorporated it into a routine I already perform. The contributors to these fine volumes are superb card magicians and many have performed these routines hundreds if not thousands of times under fire in real paid performance situations. When I return to America, the inestimable Mr. Beam will be getting an order from me for volumes 9, 10, and 11.

I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Steve over the years as a member of our IBM Ring here in central N.C. He is a genius, and I don’t use the term lightly. He is a wealth of information, a brilliant thinker/creator, and a terrific writer. I’m sure that Volume 11 will not disappoint!

One of Steve’s effects from this book series was recently performed on Fool Us by the creator of Siri. As others have said, Steve offers material that is a cut above your typical self-worker.

Volume 11 is at the printers now and will return just in time for it to miss the conventions I'll be attending. Once again, I have caught some very creative guys in weak moments (or compromising situations -- it's not all pretty) and was able to wrest some great contributions away from them. This time, the list includes: Jeff Altman, Mick Ayres, Doug Canning, Yves Carbonnier, Derrick Chung, Paul Cummins, Tom Gagnon, Gabrielle Gentile, Keiichi Hiraki, Lewis Jones, Marty Kane, Alexander Kölle, Max Maven, Wolfgang Moser, Nobuaki Nambu, Nobuyuki Nojima, Shota Okano, Joe Rindfleisch, Ramón Riobóo, Scott Robinson, Daisuke Sato, Kiyoshi Sato, Giancarlo Scalia, Lorenz Schär, and Vic Trabucco.

There are great one-man chapters by Ramón, Vic, and Giancarlo. And, thanks to Daisuke Sato, there is a chapter titled "Made in Japan." (This is the first time I have had a chapter of magic from a country I haven't visited.) There is even a chapter on semi-automatic eye candy.

As for the details, it's the largest of the semi-automatic series at 320 pages with more than double the illustrations of any other volume at 260. I haven't tried it, but you could probably cut out all the illustrations, staple them together, and make your own video of all the tricks being performed. Of course you would need a second copy of the book so you could look up the tricks afterward to learn how to do them. You may even need a third volume so the visual effect is more like virtual reality.

Do you have a supplier in the UK?? The books are great but after postage to the UK they work out at a cost of £80 a book.

King, Volume 11 is only available direct (and not even direct, yet). However, I just did a test run on the website and the book retails for $60 with a pre-publication price of $51. When I punch in the UK as the destination, it gives me a shipping estimate of $24.55 for a total of $75.55 USD or £57.40. That's still a lot of postage, but it's less than my actual cost to ship it, and it's almost 30% less than £80.

I have them all to volume 8 plus the Trapdoor books. I will probably get these as I enjoy your writing style which is easy to understand and humorous. I couldn't recommend these books enough.

I have purchased from yourself before and I have no complaints. The only thing we have is this Brexit which has killed the Pound.

I am not downgrading your books. I was working out the exchange rate in my head, I think.

King, Not a problem -- I didn't take it as a negative. I understand postage and the exchange rate combine for a double wallop. I long for the days when we could send books surface mail for a fraction of what it costs now. And thanks for your previous interest!

The book has shipped. All those who participated in the pre-publication special should already have either a book or a tracking number. It's 320 pages, has 260 illustrations, and 127 hand-picked card tricks.

Why don't you e-book some of the earlier volumes so that, together, we can foil the Post Office's evil designs? Hey it's the 21st century, we've got the internet now.

John,

I know there are reasons to do that. The advantages and disadvantages of e-books versus books (and videos, for that matter) have been thoroughly discussed on the Café already. The short answer is that I'm a book guy. It may not be logical, but that's it. To me, that would be like sending a link so that those who have booked your show can download a video of it rather than have you drive across town and personally deliver it. Using the link would save you time, effort, wear and tear on you and your vehicle, and you could theoretically double or triple your money because you could do unlimited shows at the same time. One could argue that it's still the same show. It isn't, but it is.

Steve

Fair enough Steve. Thanks for responding. I too strongly prefer books where possible. Just the shipping costs can be too painful to bear - especially when there's 11 volumes to buy!

Anyway I got lucky earlier. I managed to pick up the first 5 volumes off a certain auction site for about $100. So I'll be busy working my way through them for a while. I promise I'll order the next 6 directly from you.

John,
Also fair. Apparently the wife didn't follow the deceased husband's request to be buried with the series. I sincerely hope you enjoy the series.
Steve

For those in Europe looking for a source of the Semi-Automatic Card Tricks series without paying the $110 postage it costs me to send it to you, you should check out Steen Pagani's website. He has the entire set (all ELEVEN volumes) and he ships from Denmark. You can find the set here: https://www.pegani.dk/en/products/magic-......eve-beam and hopefully this will ease some of the pain.
Steve