[TheChamp-Sharing]

SHOW NOTES

Quick overview of this week's show:

• Why I started my YouTube channel for writers and why it went into a hiatus
• Why I'm bringing it back
• What it takes to design, run, and maintain a YouTube channel

TRANSCRIPT

In this week’s episode I’ll be talking about why I’m returning to YouTube and the fun, sometimes stressful process in building a channel.

Birth of Author Level Up

Hello, and welcome to episode 14 of the podcast. Can I just say that fourteen is a really good number? Just sayin’. There’s a thunderstorm going on outside my window, I’ve got a cup of my favorite tea, and I’m behind the mic bringing you another episode of the Writer’s Journey Podcast. So thanks for listening.

As a creative entrepreneur, one of the most difficult things to do is reign in your imagination. You have so many ideas and you want to run with them all, but at the same time you know you can’t and you have to pull yourself back.

This was the case with me in 2015, which, in many ways, was the most important early year in my publishing career.

I was doing a LOT of stuff. I wrote my first official series, Android X, which is still doing pretty well today. I published my first nonfiction book, Interactive Fiction, which did surprisingly well. It’s a steady little earner for me. I did my first collaboration with my friend, Justin Sloan, which resulted in our Modern Necromancy series.

In my personal life, my daughter was still a newborn so I was getting zero sleep. I had just started a new job in a new department with people who I would get to know and respect very much.

I look back at 2015, and it’s all a blur for me.

Somehow, some way, I had an idea to start a YouTube channel for writers.

I don’t even remember why. Honestly. I just remember being very inspired, and spending lots of long nights planning the channel’s design, the programming, and doing lots of research.

I called it Author Level Up, and like most of my projects, I launched it with zero expectations. I focused on creating good content and getting better with every video.

It was actually one of the most important things I did in 2015.

Video Marketing for Writers: New Territory

 

When I started Author Level Up, there weren’t very many YouTubers serving the writing community.

Writers seem to prefer podcasts, which are great, but sometimes the popular podcasts are guilty of covering the same thing at the same time, and it turns into an echo chamber.

I love podcasts—obviously because I have one!—but I’m not an interviewer.

In fact, I’m terrible at making conversation. Really terrible. So I didn’t want to embarrass myself by doing an interview show. There were plenty of those.

I also didn’t want to do a solo podcast because I didn’t think I’d be interesting enough for people to care.

Instead, I started a YouTube channel, and I focused on being visual.

Now, I’m a socially awkward, shy, introvert, so decision to put myself on camera was a strange one. Again, I credit having no sleep.

But surprisingly, because there were not many YouTube channels on writing, mine grew pretty fast.

I did over 100 videos and racked up 2500 subscribers in one year. Not great results, but pretty good.

It also landed me on Joanna Penn’s Podcast, which led to some other opportunities for me to build my brand.

I had to put the channel on a hiatus because my life got hectic, but I received a lot of emails asking me to bring it back.

So I’m bringing it back.

 

Starting Over

 

Author Level Up has nearly 5,000 subscribers now, which is double what I had when I pressed pause. That tells me a lot.

It tells me that my videos were doing a lot of things right.

It tells me that that’s how I can make my mark in the community.

I loved shooting video and kept wanting to go back to it. Now that I can, I want to do it better.

Some of my videos, such as my outlining methods video and my Ulysses writing app review, have been wildly popular and have racked up tens of thousands of views.

 

 Again, not incredible if you compare it to say, a beauty channel or a gaming channel, but for the writing community, that’s pretty impressive.

One thing I didn’t do with Author Level Up was monetize it. I cared more about creating good information and sharing it to help people.

But I’ve learned a lot since the hiatus and will be doing some things to turn the channel into a business.

Don’t worry, I’m not selling out.

But doing videos is something I love almost as much as writing fiction. I would be a fool not to do something more with it.

People have told me that the videos I made helped them. That’s not going to change. Instead, I’m going to figure out how to deliver even more value to my videos, and do some experimental things that haven’t been done in the writing space yet.

Anyway, I’ll share more on that in a future episode.

But I’ve purchased a new camera, lights, software and technical gear to up my production quality, which was already pretty good. It’s going to be better now.

I’m also shifting my focus to writing craft, product reviews, and marketing. Like this podcast, I’m going to focus more on my own personal journey, as I feel people resonate with that a lot more than just giving basic advice.

So I’ll wrap up this week’s episode by inviting you to subscribe to my YouTube channel, Author Level Up. You can find it at www.youtube.com/authorlevelup.

You can also visit my website at www.authorlevelup.com. 

The new videos will launch in July, and I couldn’t be more excited.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.” – Joseph Campbell

 

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS WEEK'S EPISODE?

 Let me know!