Getting Better All the Time
Issue #2
Hi guys,
I’ve released two new videos since last week’s newsletter, and thankfully as expected I feel more confident with my performance and am getting better at actually producing them. I finally figured out multi-camera editing, so I can now switch between my main camera and the screencast much more fluidly than the wonky method I made up for myself before!
Also several frame rate and audio sample rate quirks have been worked out. But if I had waited to get started until all of these things were perfect, I never would have! I’m so glad I took the leap to just start making videos and trust that they would get better over time.
My current plan is to get 10 good videos up on my channel as quickly as I can, which seems to be about one every 3-4 days. 10 feels like a good number to me to appear like the channel actually has some substance; if someone enjoyed a video there’s a good chance at least one of the other 9 will interest them as well.
Once I have that initial chunk established I’ll probably slow down to release one video a week, so that it will be more manageable. Ideally I would like to be several videos ahead of myself, so I could stop working for even two weeks and there would be the next 3-4 videos already scheduled to publish.
So the overview of my plan is:
Get 10 videos up ASAP
Go down to one video per week and build up a backlog of 4 videos
Once the backlog is in place and I can comfortably produce one new video per week, begin working on a product or other materials I can sell like an ebook.
I’m currently 6/10 of the way through step 1.
Onwards!
Ryan
What I’m Reading
Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story by Jerry Weissman
I picked up the Kindle version of this book after Blender Guru recommended it in his video How to make a GREAT Tutorial. It’s part of my effort to get better at making YouTube videos that people actually want to watch!
A few lines that stood out from reading this week:
Every communication has as its goal to take the audience from where they are at the start of your presentation, which is Point A, and move them to your objective, which is Point B.
Everything you say and do in your presentation must serve the needs of your audience.
For people to act on anything, they must have a reason to act, and it must be their reason, not yours.
One seemingly obvious aspect of the WIIFY (What’s In It For You) principle that proves to be a stumbling block for many businesspeople is the danger of the incorrect “you.”
This Week’s Recommendations
Video - How to Talk to the Camera!
The greatest weakness in my videos right now is my delivery and performance, so I’ve been watching videos looking for advice on how to get better. The best I came across was this one by Daniel Schiffer. He does a great job showing how comfortable he is now, compared to how he was when he started out, and he offers some good tips. One reason I might have found his video particularly useful is that he seems a lot like me so I was able to relate.
Channel - Cathrin Manning
A channel I’ve been getting a lot of value from is Cathrin Manning, where I’ve been watching her videos on growing a small YouTube channel. It’s especially fun watching her video where she says “You’ve probably seen how many subscribers I have.. and you’re not that impressed.” I’m guessing at the time she made that video two years ago she was around 500 subscribers, but if you look now she’s at 332,000! So I like that line about being “not that impressed!”
Game - Immortals: Fenyx Rising on Nintendo Switch
Not exactly a productivity related recommendation, but I love this game! If you’re a fan of Breath of the Wild you will like this game. In a lot of ways it’s simpler than Zelda, but it’s designed in a way that’s very rewarding for short bursts of playtime (as much as I’d love to play video games all day long, it’s usually a few hours a week). The voice acting took some getting used to (the heavy Greek accents feel a bit overdone), but the game doesn’t take itself seriously and is a lot of fun to play.
