Hello all,
My apologies for being away the last few weeks. Life has been rather hectic! But I’m still around and kicking and will give you the updates thus far. I will be updating for both weeks in each segment.
Youtube:
Week Three:
Youtube has had quite a bit of progress! Over the last week I’ve gotten 244 views, which amounts to 8033% increase according to VidIQ, which is both wonderful and horrific.
I’ve also got my first four subscribers, all within the last twenty-four hours and all organic. (As in, they subscribed due to my content, I did not petition friends or family to subscribe).
It is very, very small growth, and still very far from monetisation. However, it is still growth and I am very happy that I can watch as it grows, even by such a small amount. It’s proof that the hard work in creating those first fourteen videos and thirteen shorts has actually amounted to something, even if that something is small.
Youtube Shorts really have been the thing that helped my channel grow. So far my conversion rate for views from Shorts to views for my Long-form content is pretty crap. Like 2%. I’m hoping to better than conversion rate with thumbnails after November.
My plan for a video each day got off to a rocky start when my editing software continuously crashed for three days. But, I’ve almost managed to catch up and I am currently only one video behind my goal.
Views this week: 244
Subscribers this week: 4
Videos posted this week: 8
Week Four:
I was a tad sporadic with this one. I uploaded seven new videos that week. However, five of them came out over the span of two days. It took a definite toll on my visibility, which I noticed over the next few days.
I only received one new subscriber over that time period; bringing the total up to six.
My shorts are the most direct stream of viewers thus far, with each individual one getting more than most of my individual videos, aside from a few outlier videos that have a few hundred views.
I did notice a sharp decrease in video views and a small increase in shorts views with my “content dump” over two days. It was definitely better when I was consistently putting out videos each day rather than putting out a few one or two days and then sporadically for the rest of the week.
With six subscribers I am 0.6% of the way there to a thousand. I guess that counts as progress?
My take away from these last few weeks regarding Youtube is that it is better to be consistent than to just upload your content manically. It appears that Youtube will reward consistency whilst punishing content dumps.
Subscribers for the week: 1
Views for the week: 600 (Estimate, as I am currently in the middle of Month Two Week One and have 1283 views).
Videos posted during the week: 7
I am STILL slightly behind on my One Video for Each Day of November challenge. But I’ll damn well succeed.
I’m quite looking forward to November being over and then being able to cut back my content schedule to say, twice a week, and focusing on Photoshop thumbnails for a while. It’ll be an interesting skill to learn and – hopefully – incredibly beneficial to my channel’s reach and visibility.
Etsy:
I’m losing hope in Etsy. The sale and ads did absolutely nothing. I still get a decent amount of views, but no sales as of yet to report. A few items got favourited, but aside from that it has been dead quiet on Etsy.
I was getting between 50-80 views a day while ads were running. I found this interesting because it was getting quite a few impressions but very few clicks, but it seemed to increase the amount of views I received overall.
(For week Four onwards): Now that I’ve dropped the ads I am getting between 10-30 views per day, which is quite a drop.
Hamishmaccoll.com
(Both weeks compiled)
Due to my drop off from the world for a few weeks this site hasn’t had visitors since the 12th of November. Quite understandable given that I just disappeared and tehre was no new content. That makes this update rather short all in all.
NaNoWriMo:
I was REALLY hoping that with my increased burst in writing that I’d find the drive to sit down and write fiction again. However, it appears that is not the case. I keep finding a reason to procrastinate or to work on Youtube instead.
It bothers me, a great deal. I don’t understand why my mind works like this when I so desperately want to do something and then I talk myself out of even starting? It seems like such a waste.
Yes, I have work, university exams (that have no finally finished thankfully) and my social life. But I’ve managed to stay afloat. It isn’t as if writing is too time consuming for me, and I want to write the stories, so why am I not letting myself? What am I so afraid of?
Conclusion:
NaNoWriMo this year is a definite bust. I could start now and do some work but there is no way I’d reach fifty-thousand words now no matter what I did.
Which is a problem, because it has now reached the point where I see it as pointless to even start, which makes it incredibly easy to procrastinate.
It reminds me of a quote from some philosophy textbook in first-year uni. “Nothing has ever been accomplished by doing nothing.” Or something to that effect.
It is true, if I don’t just sit down and write as I intended, then I’ll never achieve what I wish to.
I think a part of the problem is that, with Youtube, Etsy and even this website. It is very easy to see the reward and motivation in real time. I can see my views, subscribers and comments increasing as I do something I enjoy.
When I am writing, I am alone. I am an introvert so that shouldn’t be a bad thing. But somehow, it’s much easier to have motivation for a project when other people are actively engaged in what you’re achieving. I should consider joining a writing group.
Youtube is far and away the potential-source-of-income that is going the best. It is slow, but it is growing.
Etsy, may not be worth the $5 I pay a month to have my listings up there.
But, this website, for all that it costs me $52 a month, is still a place where I can update people of my lack-of-financial-success and scream into the void.
That is precious to me, and fascinating.
Thank you for reading.