Because sometimes numbers feel so small, but at the same time so impossible to achieve that you feel like you're climbing a set of stairs in a dream; the closer you get, the further and further away the top actually seems to be.
 |
| And to illustrate my point, I want to talk about an ongoing struggle I'm having with a project. |
Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!
Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more!
So Close, But So Far
The numbers-related issue I'm currently dealing with is related to the ongoing struggle I and Azukail Games have been dealing with when it comes to YouTube. Speaking of, if you haven't yet, please subscribe to the Azukail Games channel.
So, let's talk numbers, and bring everyone up to date.
For those who don't know, YouTube requires a channel to have 500 subscribers, and at least 3,000 watched hours of content in the past 365 days before it monetizes you. Until that happens, every ad that runs on your videos is going 100% into the company's pockets.
Now, that 365 days part is just as important as the 3,000 hours part. Because if your channel is more than a year old (as the Azukail Games channel is), that means every new day knocks off some of your old hours, and reduces your overall count. So every day you not only need to make up those hours you've lost, but you also need to get fresh, new hours to increase your overall count. And this can be extremely frustrating, particularly since the changes to website algorithms have drastically limited the reach of social media since November 2023, and this has led to a slow bleed on the progress I've made so far.
For harder numbers, going into May, the channel needed roughly 380 additional watch hours over and above what we'd earned up to that point to get monetized. Fast-forward to August, and we've dropped back down to needing another 500 hours to cross that finish line.
500 hours is, in the grand scheme of YouTube, not hard to get. But at the same time, it feels absolutely impossible.
Consider the above video, The Liminal Horror of Changeling: The Lost for just a moment. This video essay about the tabletop RPG Changeling: The Lost is about 24 minutes long, but we'll just go with a nice, round 20 for our count. That means every 3 watches of this video is 1 hour of watched content. So if we need 500 total hours, all it would take is 1,500 people watching this video.
That sounds like a lot... and it both is and isn't.
To begin with, the channel has over 1,160 subscribers. If every one of them took 20 minutes or so to watch this video, that would put us most of the way to our goal. I have over 700 people following my Facebook author page, and if all of those folks watched the video and shared it on their own pages, it would definitely hit the numbers that it needed to. I've shared this video in Chronicles of Darkness groups and subreddits with thousands of members, and if even a fraction of them watched and spread this video, we would smash past that goal and get the channel monetized.
But at time of writing, this video only has 421 views. It has an overall positive reaction, some good comments, and it keeps getting seen... but it's a very slow burn, indeed.
What makes this so frustrating is that view counts, signal spread, etc., typically have nothing to do with the quality of the content you've made, any more than the quality of a novel is directly reflected by its sales figures. It's often far more about advertising, keywords, whether the algorithm does or doesn't support your current efforts, how many subscribers a social media page or profile has, and most importantly, how many people are actually trying to boost something's signal.
Because if a majority of my friends list on Facebook all watched, left a heart, and shared this video, it would easily smash the channel past that 3,000 hour mark. If Onyx Path, the company that makes Changeling: The Lost, shared this video on their Twitter page with 15,000 followers, it very well might catch the attention of the community and push us up over that goal. Or if Changeling just started trending for some unfathomable reason, that could lead to this video (as well as the audio dramas I've made for the setting) getting huge views and exploding overnight for no apparent cause.
But if none of that happens, then you're left fighting the algorithm, and attempting to persuade people to give you a hand up. And while you get lucky sometimes, you roll a lot more 1s than you do 20s on these tries.
Fae Noir, And Why This Number Matters
But I told you that story so that I can tell you this story.
Because for a little over a year, now, I've wanted to start making bigger, more involved audio dramas set in the Chronicles of Darkness TTRPG setting. I've done all the research on the legalities, I've put together a rough plotline for 2 seasons, I've tapped interested voice talent, and I've spent the past several years telling short, snacky stories to give examples of how this project may sound (like this story, taken from the supplement 100 Gateways Into (And Out Of) The Hedge).
While I've talked about Windy City Shadows before (as well as giving an elevator pitch for the first season, titled Grimm Promises which I covered in "Windy City Shadows," A Chronicles of Darkness Podcast Proposal), something I've tried to emphasize is that this is a project I want to take on after the Azukail Games YouTube channel gets monetized.
The main reason for this is that taking on something this big isn't easy, and it's going to take a lot of work, time, energy... and money. So I want to make sure that one of the sources that could help fund this show (namely ad revenue from the channel) is in place and ready to go before I begin the undertaking. And the more discretionary budget Azukail Games has (again, they are my publisher, not my channel, nor my company), the more they'd be able to help me get this very hefty project off the ground.
Which brings us back to the matter of 500 hours.
The Back Door To Hell is only about 8 minutes and change. It's a very small story... but if it got 3,000 watches, that would be enough to get the channel over the goal. Again, a number that is both astonishingly high, and completely possible if the necessary elements were in place.
And that is the struggle I wanted to talk about this week, in addition to asking folks to help me make this project a reality. If it's something you're interested in, and would like more information about, then check out the recent post on my sister blog, Ask Me Anything About "Windy City Shadows" A Chronicles of Darkness Podcast Proposal!
Support The Literary Mercenary
If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!
- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)
- My Rumble Channel (longer videos that won't show up on YouTube)
And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!
Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel, as well as my Rumble channel listed above!
Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!
That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!
And to stay on top of all my latest news and releases, collected once a week, make sure you subscribe to The Literary Mercenary's mailing list.
If you'd like to help support my work, then consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page! Lastly, to keep up with my latest, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now on Pinterest as well!
No comments:
Post a Comment