Real work pays you. Pay-to-play comedy doesn’t.

“Can we do the lobby instead?” Anyone real will say yes. If they won’t, you have your answer — and you don’t go.

Send a friend the name, the place and the time, and when you’ll text after. Bring someone if you can; a real meeting doesn’t mind.

A meeting that becomes drinks, then somewhere private late at night, is not a meeting any more. Leave. “Alcohol and drugs can turn a comedy environment into a serious performance, health, safety, and business problem.”

The book says it to the people with the power: “Do not use access to work as romantic pressure,” and “Do not make someone else’s access to comedy depend on their relationship with you.” If someone does, it’s on them.

Write down what happened, when, and who, while it’s fresh — “Document serious issues factually” — and tell someone you trust. RAINN’s hotline is free, confidential and open all day and night: call 800-656-4673, chat at rainn.org/hotline, or text HOPE to 64673.

When scouts approached a friend at a club, she didn’t feel safe meeting them alone and asked him to come along and pose as her manager. He went, drove her to the job, and made sure she got paid. Don’t go to a meeting with strangers alone — bring someone.

“could you come and be and pretend you're my manager? Because I don't feel safe with these guys.”

During a TV negotiation, a powerful attorney physically cornered her in his office to get her to sign away her rights. She picked up her bag, asked him to step aside, and left. She had already hired her own lawyer before the pitch.

“i picked up my bag and i looked at him and i said can you step aside because i need to leave the room”

One comic says that when he was new to the business he was abused by someone in it, and that filling a young person with confidence can be how an abuser gets past their guard. He blamed himself for years. Flattery plus power over your career is a warning sign — and being targeted is never your fault.

At about 20, at an improv theater that was her school, her workplace and her bar all at once, a male teacher rubbed her lower back and complimented her hair. When she wrote about it, with the names changed, she lost a show and her team spot. Where teachers control your stage time, the lines blur — and speaking up can cost you.

“And I had a show that was canceled. I got kicked off my Herald team.”

New in Los Angeles, she paid about $35 a session for casting-director workshops — a talk, then an audition for them. It got her small roles and her union card. Paying to be seen can work, if you know you’re buying a class and a lottery ticket.

“so the gamble is that they'll actually see something in you and call you back”

New in Los Angeles, he joined an acting studio whose pitch was headshots and an introduction to an agent — a scam, he says now. Be wary of any class whose main selling point is access.

“Some, like, scam studio. I'm sure it's some type of pyramid scheme.”

His father maxed out a credit card to pay a web designer $5,000 for a site that, Jo says, could have been free. Find out what the basics really cost — someone will happily overcharge a hopeful comic.

“And that website could have been free, but I got ripped off by some guy, but he charged us five grand.”

His first set was a 2009 bringer mic, filled with sixteen cousins and their friends. Then he found the free open-mic listings, and went up nearly every day for a year and a half. A bringer can start you; free mics are where the reps are.

“i discovered you know badslava.com which has the list of all the open mics”

With three months to build eight minutes before opening on the road, she took a stand-up class. What classes sell, she says, is stage time — and the experienced comics in the room helped her with tags. Worth it as structured stage time, not for a secret.

“They don't teach you how to do stand-up. They just give you on stage. They give you stage time.”

He did TV talking-head shows that paid only certain people and offered everyone else exposure. Nobody watching knew who he was, he says, so it was worth nothing. Exposure only counts if people learn who you are and can find you.

“It was the biggest racket in the world.”

On a cable show around 2013 that paid very little, she was recognized in the street — and still babysitting to pay her bills. The line was that it was exposure. It can be real exposure and still not pay the rent.

“I'm on television and I still babysit to pay my bills.”

Comics she respected told her not to do a TV competition. She did it anyway, with one goal: make the top ten, so she could go out and headline. It worked. Take exposure when you know exactly what it should buy you.

“I need this exposure. So I made a plan that I was really going to make it to the top ten.”

She did ten unpaid minutes at Milton Berle’s 89th birthday party at the Waldorf. Barbara Walters was in the room; a few months later Behar was called in, and got the job on The View. Free can be worth it when the room is full of people who can hire you.

“Somebody booked me for free for Milton Berle's 89th birthday party.”

His radio job barely paid him, so he got the station to let him own his prank calls. He gave them free to morning shows in other cities, let them air for a couple of months, then called the comedy club in each city and pitched himself as the guy on their radio. It worked.

“I took the pranks. I gave them to other morning shows and markets where I wasn't booked.”

She asked a Los Angeles show for $1,000 and a car. They agreed — then paid her in hundreds, slowly, on stage in front of the audience. In Los Angeles, she says, the promise of a great crowd gets offered in place of money. Ask plainly anyway.

“Then the person paid me out in hundreds.”

Hired for a corporate party by fans, he met the hosts five hours before the show and learned they wanted five of his old bits. He relearned them from his own special. Private clients are buying what they’ve seen — ask what they expect before you agree.

“well we were hoping that you would do this this this and this like all like five old bits”

A couple rolled their eyes through her first ten minutes in Milwaukee. She asked if they’d come on free tickets — they had — and offered to pay their bar tab if they’d leave. They stayed. People on comps didn’t choose you; a papered room is a harder room.

“I'm like, was this free tickets? And they went, yeah.”

One comic handed his deal money to a friend who traded stocks on the side, and learned the hard way that every quick gain is taxed. When a windfall comes: a licensed advisor, money set aside for tax, something solid.

Another comic trusted a recommended accountant with his taxes and paid for it. Even recommended advisors need watching, and tax mail never goes away on its own.

On a hit TV drama in the early 1980s he was paid about $2,500 an episode — and after his agent, his manager and taxes, he says, maybe $10,000 a year was left, less than stand-up paid him. Learn the difference between gross and net.

“After taxes and paying everything, I was left with maybe $10,000 a year.”

Hosting a cable stand-up show early on, he was told he couldn’t have a lawyer look at his contract. Always have a lawyer read what you sign, and beware of anyone who says you can’t.

“You couldn't have a lawyer. And if you asked for a lawyer, it would be trouble.”

One comic got a $1,000 option on a script and signed it even though her only legal help, a law student, said it sounded like they’d own her forever. Nothing was made. Get real legal eyes on even a small deal.

A digital studio that had signed him shut down mid-deal. Many creators lost the rights to their work; he took less of the money he was owed in exchange for getting his rights back. Owning your work can be worth more than the check.

“I said, you owe me some of the money and I get the rights back.”

Green, and trusting a friend’s recommendation, he didn’t check out the business manager who would handle the money from his first TV show. Vet anyone who handles your money, however they come recommended.

“I was still green. I didn't vet.”

Thirty-five years in, he still worries the bottom will fall out, so he banked his writing money, took every kind of work, and drives a twelve-year-old car. If your goal isn’t buying things, you can live on a comedy career.

“I never spend money, and I never did.”

When the money finally came, he spent his first big check, close to $40,000, fixing teeth he’d broken as a kid — with his mother’s blessing, because she knew what it meant for him on stage. If you spend a windfall, spend it on something that lasts and serves the work.

“I spent all my money on my teeth.”

She worked up through every level of a famous sketch school, and at the last step was cut along with ten of her twelve classmates — a talented group. Her first lesson in show business: rejection often isn’t about merit, so don’t put your whole heart in one basket.

“It's not necessarily a meritocracy.”