Hello everyone, from the Zim house here in Washington state!
Where we had a white Christmas this year at our house.
And it was just the right amount of snow...
Enough to make things pretty, but not enough to cause any big problems for us.
Before I get started, I want to apologize for this thing on my lip.
My friends and family that know me well... Know exactly what happened because this has happened a million times before...
I burned my lip on some hot pizza!
I want to wish you and your family all the best for the new year.
I think it's always good at this time of the year...
To look back over the last year...
And look ahead to the new year.
So, in today's video...
I'll be reviewing how things went for my YouTube channel over the last year...
And filling you in on my plans for the channel in 2023 and beyond.
I started my YouTube channel a few days after Christmas in 2008.
By sharing a video of a model airplane that my family gave me for Christmas that year.
And in the 14 years since then, my channel has had a total of 356 million views...
And 13 million of those were in 2022.
So, that's not a bad year.
A lot of YouTubers would kill for 13 million views in a year...
But when you consider that two years ago, my channel got 42 million views...
And then in 2021 it dropped to 31 million views...
And then this last year 13 million views...
That's not a good trend.
But the good news is that advertisers seem to be willing to pay a lot more to get ads on my channel this year...
More than double the rate that they were paying two years ago, so...
As far as the amount of advertising revenue that comes my way...
It was definitely a lot less than it used to be, but...
It's still enough to pay for all the expensive model trains...
And the camera gear, and the travel...
That make up my costs of creating these videos.
So, the bottom line is...
Even though I definitely do plan to eventually, someday retire from YouTube...
It won't be happening anytime soon.
My channel has 473,000 subscribers now...
As well as some very generous patrons...
Who have been helping me keep this thing going in spite of the decline in views and ad revenue.
Now if you enjoy the videos here on my channel...
I want to just encourage you to head over to...
Patreon.com/JimZim
To find out why you might want to become one of my patrons.
Spoiler alert: It's because there are perks involved!
The most successful new video that I made over the last year was called...
"Big Model Trains Take Over The House For This Model Train Video".
I made that just this last September, a few months ago...
And already it's had over 432,000 views.
But sadly, out of all the videos I made over this last year...
That one was the only one that got hundreds of thousands of views.
Some of my older videos, that I made in years past...
Got a lot more views than that in the last year, but...
This one was the only new video, made in 2022...
That seemed to really catch on and get a lot of views.
As far as those older videos from years past that continued to get lots of views this year...
#1 was "Big Model Trains Running Inside My Small House"...
A video I made back in 2015, when we lived in California.
That video just keeps rolling on!
It got 2.2 million views this year alone...
Bringing it up to over 74 million total views since I made it.
But I don't know if you ever heard me tell the story...
About the bad business decision I made with this video.
Years ago, a company made me an offer of a sizeable amount of money...
If I would sell them the rights to that video.
And at that point the video had already received about 17 million views...
And I had no way of knowing whether 17 million was all it would ever get...
Or if it would go on to get a lot more views after that.
So, I decided to take the money that they were offering me...
Which in retrospect was a bad decision...
Because the video just kept getting more and more views...
And if I had retained the ownership of that video...
I would have made a lot more money...
A LOT more!
Than what they paid me to give them the rights to the video.
So, with that one being my #1 most viewed video of 2022...
And me making absolutely zero dollars off of all those new views...
That was a little frustrating.
All my most-viewed videos in 2022 were model train videos.
In fact out of my top 30 most viewed videos this year...
28 were about model trains...
And only two were about cruise ships.
A video I made about Viking's expedition ship, Viking Octantis...
Came in at #15 on the list...
And a video I made about Royal Caribbean's Oasis Of The Seas...
Came in at number 18.
But that's just views.
Advertisers are actually willing to pay a lot more to advertise on a travel video...
Than they are on a model train video, so...
While the model train videos get the most views around here, by far...
The cruise ship videos still generate some income for me...
And I'm still really passionate about wanting people to see what a great vacation cruising is, so...
I definitely plan to keep making the cruise ship videos...
Along with the model train videos.
But what I've discovered, after living here in our Washington house for over two years now...
Is that I really like being here at home, and especially spending time out in the yard...
In the Spring, Summer, and Fall.
So, I probably won't be doing many cruises, If any at all...
During those months.
Most of my cruising is probably going to be in the November to February time frame.
So, during those months, my YouTube channel will have an occasional new model train video...
But probably quite a lot of cruise ship and travel videos during those periods of the year.
And then the rest of the year...
The cruise ship and travel videos will probably be few and far between...
And you'll end up seeing a lot more model train videos.
But in 2022 I was fortunate to be able to go on four really good cruises.
In February, we were in the Mexican Riviera...
On one of my favorite cruise ships, Carnival Panorama.
In April, Viking invited us aboard their new expedition ship, Viking Octantis...
At their expense...
So that I could help publicize their very cool new ship.
In May, American Cruise Lines invited me, at their expense...
To make some videos in Puget Sound on their ship, American Constellation.
And just a few weeks ago, Kellyn and I got to spend a week in the Caribbean...
Aboard Carnival's new ship, Carnival Celebration...
At our expense!
So, that was four cruises for me in 2022, but...
I don't expect to cruise that often in this coming year.
So, you model train fans will probably see...
A lot more new model train videos from me...
In 2023 than you did in the past year.
In looking back over 2022...
I should mention how much fun we've had with our Cocker Spaniel, Carli.
She is such a fun-loving...
Friendly, sweet little dog...
It wouldn't be the same around here without her.
And since she's only just a little more than a year old...
She's probably going to be keeping us entertained for many more years ahead.
I'm also happy to say that my health has been really good over the last year.
I don't know if you're aware, but...
I had a big problem during the summer of 2020...
With a medical condition called Polymyalgia Rheumatica...
Which caused so much inflammation throughout my body...
That it was painful just to move.
To try and get up out of a chair caused so much pain that it was just almost unbearable.
I made a video about it at the time.
I'll put a link to it up in the corner of the screen if you want to watch it.
There's a medication, Prednisone, that was like a wonder drug for me...
Relieving me of all the inflammation and the pain I was having...
And I stayed on Prednisone for about two years...
But when my doctor tried to wean me off of it...
The inflammation started to come right back.
So, now I'm on a new drug.
I am finally off the prednisone, but...
It's probably going to take about two more years...
Before I can get off of this new medication...
And hopefully put this whole thing behind me.
Before I go, I want to just thank you for the time that you've spent watching my videos...
And if you're not already a subscriber... But you do like my videos...
You should subscribe!
So that you don't miss any of the new videos that I'll be making in 2023.
Just click that red SUBSCRIBE button...
And then after you do that, don't miss the second step...
Which is to click the little bell icon next to it...
So that YouTube will let you know whenever I release a new video.
Now, just so you know, there's no money involved.
Subscribing is free...
It's just the way to teach YouTube what kind of videos you like...
And to make sure that they recommend my future videos to you whenever a new one comes out.
I'm Jim Zim. Thanks for being with me here on YouTube in 2022...
And huge thanks to my patrons...
For helping me offset the decline in ad revenues.
With my patrons help...
I do hope to be able to keep this channel afloat in 2023.