20 quotes from the Chortle comedy conference

• Alex Petty, Laughing Horse: ‘Comedy looks easy to get into but it is a long slog.’

• Pete Grahame, Downstairs at the King’s Head: ‘Just ask yourself if you're hungry enough for this. There's a whole strata for whom this is a hobby. It is a long schlep to paid work.’

• Julia Chamberlain, Highlight and So You Think You’re Funny: ‘Don't go for the lowest common denominator. You wouldn't be doing comedy in the first place unless you thought you had something to say.’

• James Woroniecki, 99 Club: ‘Courses are useful, but there are some dodgy ones run by failed comedians - avoid them. But Jo Caulfield's Things I’ve Learned As A Comedianblog and Stuart Goldsmith's Comedian's Comedian podcast are useful.’

• Alex Petty, ‘Get stage time and also observe what other acts on the bill are doing, don't disappear after your five minutes.’

• Julia Chamberlain: ‘Don't go for a reaction, go for a laugh.’

• James Woroniecki: ‘If you are London-based you can get into the bad habit of performing only open mic nights to other open mic comics.

• Julia Chamberlain: ‘If you're not getting any better, just please stop.’

• Ryan Taylor, The Pleasance: ‘Edinburgh is such a good thing to do, it’s the biggest arts festival in the world. It's a great place to meet other comics and performing over 25 nights you just grow and grow and grow.’

• Ben Farrell Objective Productions: ‘YouTube’s more important than Edinburgh. It's beamed directly into your office, and you can see what ideas have got a audience if they have hundreds of thousands of views.’

• Ryan Taylor: ‘Edinburgh works because there is an audience who wants to see shows - you just have to get them into yours.’

• Alison Vernon-Smith, executive producer of BBC radio comedy: ‘A lot of people send us scripts, most of which are absolutely awful - but we do read them all.

• Mob Dar, Baby Cow: ‘Write what you want to write about, don't try to write things to order. ‘

• Rachel Springett, Channel 4 commisioner: ‘At Channel 4, we don't take unsolicited scripts so align yourself with an indie [an independent production company]. But we do have a Blaps system - that's the online content that can come from anyone.’

• Ben Farrell: ‘I get 20 to 30 [unsolicited] scripts in a week and I can't get to them all the time. So sometimes it can take a couple of years to get to a script.’

• Mob Dar: ‘All this 360 degree programming bollocks? There's no substitute for a script with great storytelling, characters and dialogue. If a script is not making you laugh or intriguing you within ten pages, we stop.’

• Variety act Mat Ricardo on promoting his own shows: ‘You have to wake up at 6am going, “Ticket sales!” If you don't, you're not putting enough into it.

• Yianni Agisilaou, on trying to selling himself to club audiences: The idea is not to have 500 people a week just breeze past you after gigs.’

• James Mullinger, who markets his own shows: ‘You often go to venues and they say they had an Roadshow comic or a Week Mocker in the other day and they only sold 20 seats. Yes they’re on TV, but what did they do to sell the show?’

• Ben Walker, podcast producer: ‘If you’re putting something out, it’s going to be online for ever. Don't be relaxed about, make it as good as you can, great things can come of it.’

Published: 25 Jun 2013