Channel Update & Announcing YouTube Channel Memberships
00:00 Intro. Where the channel has been & future direction
0:48 When I started thinking 'can I do content creation full time?'
2:50 I actually went full time... 12 weeks ago...
3:15 Changes to expect 1 - my website
4:06 Changes 2 - Streaming & the recorded content/stream balance I'm going for
4:51 Changes 3 - Timeline for fixing the camera issues
5:52 Changes 4 - Channel Memberships
9:28 Changes 5 - State of Channel Merchandise
10:25 Changes 6 - Discord
It’s been an interesting journey.
In the last quarter of 2020 I realised the channel’s average months were paying my rent (sharehouse in a cheap suburb, not including bills/food) and that there was a good history of sustained growth. Additionally, the plague meant I had all the overtime I wanted and could save some money. I started thinking – can I do this full time?
I clearly wasn’t making enough money to live off. I was fine with a pay cut but I still need around two-thirds of minimum wage to get by and I was making a quarter of that – but I did have leave and savings.
Last Christmas I made a decision – I’d give myself 3 months to change my mind, and if I didn’t, then I’d throw myself into content creation full time. Spoiler – I didn’t change my mind.
For tax reasons I put off leaving the old job until the new financial year (July).
While I made no waves about it at the time, I’ve been doing the channel as my sole ‘work’ for the last 12 weeks and plan to continue. It’s been part time (as in less than 38 hours work a week) but a lot of that will change as we hopefully leave the pandemic behind.
I’ve taken some time to learn basic audio editing, learning the basics of DaVinci Resolve, and to put more effort into thumbnails, which are the bane of a Youtuber’s existance.
So what changes can you expect?
First, I’m using my website a little more, www.sirgog.com – it’s very much a supplement to the Youtube channel and a dumping ground for notes on videos. Not suggesting bookmarking it or anything, but just letting you all know it exists.
Second, I’ve been streaming more over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/sirgog – I still regard this as a learning experience at the moment. Streaming is intensely distracting and it blows my mind that people like Steelmage, Zizaran, DSLily and Tytykiller (just to name a few) can play at such a high level while streaming. Expect to see me stream more in the future, although my plans are to (in the medium term) be a Youtuber focused on recorded content first, and a streamer second.
Third, I’ve had a lot of feedback about the camera. I want to fix it. The underlying issue is not the camera hardware, but is twofold – room lighting, and space. Because of space I have to operate with the overhead light off and using a lamp, which is behind me and in a bad place. What I need is ring lights behind my monitor; this can’t be done with my current desk and room. No short term solution in sight, unfortunately. I planned to move house mid 3.15 but we had a severe COVID outbreak and it’s not really doable at present. Hopefully late November. This is not a promise.
Fourth. I’m setting up Youtube channel memberships. This is Youtube’s competing product to both Patreon and Twitch subscriptions, a monthly subscription that I get most of the money from and that will come with some perks.
Tiers are priced at AUD 4/8/20 or whatever Google thinks is a fair equivalent in your country.
All tiers get a few emotes and badges, these are cosmetic only and really only matter when I’m either doing a stream or a premiere on Youtube.
The $8 and up tiers will sometimes get early access to videos. This won’t be every video and will mostly be limited to videos that I expect to have some lasting appeal to my existing audience.
The $20 a month tier will have priority replying to comments and access to monthly members-only livestreams.
There’s also a fourth $50/month tier but that has no extra perks. Obviously don’t sign up for that unless you are making a quarter million a year, but if you are I’ll take your money.
Fifth, I’ve looked into channel merchandise. For each market leader in content creator merch stores, I’ve either been underwhelmed with their products or read bad reviews. I’ve found a couple places that do custom printing that I think have good products and price, but I need to solve the dropshipping issue – I’ve never done any sort of ecommerce beyond selling Magic the Gathering cards on Ebay in the 20-naughties. The jacket I’m wearing now is a prototype (although these unfortunately wouldn’t be cheap, likely around USD 59). T-shirts I can do a lot cheaper (likely USD 19 if they feature my own art, or 24-ish if an artist needs a commission) and I’m looking into other prototypes as well.
Finally, I have a Discord. There'll be links to it in the Community tab every now and again.
this is also in writing over at https://www.sirgog.com/?p=267
Other Videos By sirgog
Other Statistics
Path of Exile Statistics For sirgog
sirgog currently has 16,673,853 views spread across 1,429 videos for Path of Exile. His channel published over 17 days worth of content for the game, roughly 98.89% of Path of Exile content that sirgog has uploaded to YouTube.