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Happy New Year! Hello everybody! I am Joey Paul and I am an
indie author. And today is the first video of 2020. So to kick it off, I thought I would
look back over the past four years that I've been on Authortube. What I've learned, the
mistakes I've made, and where I see my channel in the next coming year and beyond. You can
no longer see the first year of videos since they were poorly made, and I didn't want to
keep them up. So I went through, about a year ago, and deleted them from the interwebs,
and so I only have three years of videos on the channel, but I did join Authortube in
January of 2016. So what have I learned in that time? Did I make mistakes? Here's my
low down on that time. Number one: Mistakes I made, and the things you should avoid. I
didn't connect with other Authortubers, which meant I didn't find my community until I'd
been on Youtube for a long time. It meant that I didn't have people watching my videos
or connecting with me. I didn't worry too much about the quality of videos and that
bit me in the backside because people passed me by since it didn't look like I
knew what I was doing. I didn't post my videos anywhere, but Youtube, and I didn't promote
my channel beyond the odd post about my subscriber count. Because I didn't tell people via Twitter
or my blog or tumblr and the like, no one knew I'd posted and therefore I didn't have
people leaving comments or watching my videos because they didn't know they were even there!
There I was, just posting videos, and expecting people to watch but doing nothing to help
myself! I also really wasn't that sure what I was doing. For a long time, I called my
channel a "booktube" channel. It was only when someone pointed out that it wasn't booktube,
and then I started to realise that I was part of the Authortube community, and because of
what I said before, I didn't know anyone! I planned my videos so far in advance that
I didn't leave space for things like tags. I didn't do the newbie tags, and because of
that, I didn't do any tags because people didn't know what I... who I was. And I didn't
do any tags even though I saw people doing them, it took me a good year or so before
I realised that this was a great way to get people looking at my channel. I didn't do
a schedule, as in I posted on random days, and dates, and for a time I went for the 7th,
the 14th, the 21st and the 28th. But it wasn't a great way to gain an audience. It was only
about two years ago that I switched to a Thursday posting with Sundays for bonus videos. So
those are the majority of my mistakes and the things you should avoid. So number two:
what have I learned? It takes time to grow your channel. I'm still sat at over 300 subs,
and it's taken me all this time to get there. Remember, like I said before, I made a lot
of mistakes, so I'm still a newbie even though I've been here for like four years. One of
the first things I learned was to work out how to keep HD to my videos because it adds
a good viewing experience for the people watching. I also learned that closed captions, while
a lot of work, open up my content to a lot of people. As someone with Auditory Processing
Disorder, once I knew how to caption, it was one of the first things I did starting out.
I also learnt that commenting and watching other people's channels is a great way to
be part of the community and also make connections. As I've said before, tags are a great way
to get the word out and get people watching your channel. Setting a schedule was one of
the best things I did because it meant people knew when I was posting, and were ready to
watch. I also learned that if you need to take time off - I have missed a couple of
posts because of hospital stays - then communicating with your followers is the best thing you
can do. Even if it's just a comment on your social media to let them know that there won't
be a video this week. Posting now is something that is almost automatic. I post to Twitter,
and Instagram, Tumblr, my blog and my Facebook page. I also post on my Goodreads page which
gets a lot of views that way. And number three: What should you do if you want to join Authortube?
Do you research! That's a big one. Decide on what you want to be and to do, whether
that's advice pieces or all about your writing process. There are so many different ways
to put your own stamp on Authortube and knowing that ahead of time is a good way to stay on
target. Be aware that it will take time to make your channel grow, do all the cross-postings
and making friends and connections to help to speed that up a little. Use sites like
Canva, which I'll link to below, to make your thumbnails stand out. Make sure that as a
start you have good basic knowledge of video editing, or at least someone who you can ask
to edit for you. You don't need to invest in an expensive camera, one of my best purchases
was a HD webcam, and the light for my office. A lot of the time, if it's something you want
to invest in, you need to take your time to make sure that this is something that you
really want to do. Don't go out and buy all the expensive equipment, because it can be
something that you find you don't enjoy. Another tip is to make sure that the volume on your
videos is neither too loud nor too soft. Because I have the oxygen [LAUGHS] machine droning
on in the background, to begin with I would add too high a level of background noise for
people to hear what I was saying without the captions which deterred people from watching.
So learn from my mistakes, and don't make the same ones. Overall, Authortube is a wonderful
community. We have a number of published authors, both traditional and indie, and it's a nice
place to be a part of. I look forward to many many more years here. So there we have it,
my four years on Authortube, what I've learned, what mistakes I've made, and how you can join
if you want to. Overall, I don't feel like I made a mistake becoming on Authortube. I
wish I'd done my first year better, but I can't change that now. It's one of those things
that once you start doing, you'll find your feet and you'll find the people you want to
connect with. There are so many resources out there to help you. Like Sarah Schwarweber
Newtubers and tags and stuff like that, and it can be a great way to welcome you to the
community, and get people's eyes on your videos. Another thing I would mention is do things
like giveaways when you hit certain milestones for your subscriber count. I haven't done
that, simply because I haven't had much interaction to do it, but I do plan to do it once we hit
like 400, so we shall see how that goes. So that's all I've got time for today. If you
wanna support my channel, you can comment or subscribe. I post new videos on Thursdays.
You can find me all over social media, and my books are available everywhere. Don't forget
to pick up Dying Thoughts - Eighth Ending, and don't forget to pick up Lights Out. All
the links for which are listed below. Thanks for watching, and remember to keep writing.
Bye!