One Less Bitter Actor: The Actor's Survival Guide

Nothing is more frustrating than talent unrealized, and every actor struggles with bitterness when they aren't working to their full potential. One Less Bitter Actor offers sage, pragmatic, anxiety-calming advice on how to succeed in acting from one who has. Markus Flanagan offers encouraging, highly useful pointers on such vital matters as:

1. How do you combat getting typed?
2. Understanding the people you are auditioning for
3. Bad habits to avoid in the audition waiting room
4. The two deadliest questions you may be asked before starting your reading
5. What are they looking for in the call back?
6. Dealing positively with rejection
7. Finding the spirit to go on

Markus Flanagan has never needed to hold a day job throughout his 20-year acting career. Right out of acting school he starred in Biloxi Blues alongside Matthew Broderick. His first TV pilot audition landed him a series with George Clooney. So far he's starred in 3 prime-time series, made 50 guest TV show appearances, and acted in 10 feature films, 5 stage plays and 5 movies of the week. He lives and teaches acting in Los Angeles.

What others have said about One Less Bitter Actor:

This book is like a comfort blanket and self-esteem steroid all in one.
—Jake Newton, actor and musician

Save yourself five years of learning the hard way and read this book. If I could I'd make it required reading for everyone who dreams to be, was, or is a member of Screen Actors Guild.
—Melissa Gilbert, Screen Actor's Guild President 2000-2004

This book is everything it took me 11 years to learn.
—Austin Nichols, star of HBO's John from Cincinatti

Simply a wonderful book! For learning to deal with rejection, this book is a must read.
—Jerry Hall, actress

Terrific! It is full of so much information that is essential and absolutely impossible to learn unless someone tells you or you learn from mistakes made.
—Joy Dickson, Nicole Arbusto-Dickson/Arbusto casting

Markus Flanagan has taken his own personal struggle as an artist facing the crass and unfeeling world of marketing himself as an actor and turned it into a positive, upbeat book of mentoring advice to other young actors facing the same unknowns. This book rings with truth and integrity something not often found in the whirligig of show biz.
—Harold G. Baldridge, Executive Director, Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre