YouTube After 7 Months | Wakizashi’s Thoughts

I try to keep this blog focused on book reviews but I wanted to share some of my thoughts on YouTubing. This is coming from a “newbie’s” perspective and is not meant to be read as advice. Because after all, what do I know? I’m making this up as I go!

Wakizashi’s Teahouse on YouTube

I’ve recently started doing more “livestreams” on my channel. This has been a real challenge for me because I’ve always considered myself a listener more than a talker. I take after my mum in that regard. When you do a livestream or a podcast, you have to be able to waffle well. Some of the people I watch on the platform can talk and talk like there’s no tomorrow. I’m hoping this is something I can learn or at least get better at doing with practice. Is talking a skill? I guess so. Just ask any actor or public speaker.

Anyway, I think I’m improving, but the main thing is I’m really enjoying it. In the last few livestreams I managed to get a (very) small audience. I’m talking around five or six viewers, but they’ve been coming back for more. This is much more satisfying than talking away to nobody! But I will happily do that if I have a topic to waffle about. The best thing about the audience is they usually drop comments in the “Live chat” which gives me more to talk about. It also provides me with some great info or recommendations regarding the topic(s) I’m blabbing on about. And there’s a rewarding social side to it, too. It can feel a bit like being out in a bar or cafe chatting with friends or strangers who may become friends. Remember those halcyon days?! But I’m waffling.

My main content is still comic book reviews with the odd TV or movie review thrown in here and there. The Spawn comic reviews have been doing the best. They regularly generate the most views and comments. To put that into perspective, I’m talking between 200 to 400 views. I know right, not exactly huge. But I hadn’t realized that 200+ views for a channel with only 400 subscribers is actually pretty decent. A couple of YouTube buddies told me this the other day. To make a very basic generalization, average views tend to range between 10 to 20% of your subscriber count. So I can expect views between 40 to 80, which is what I get for quite a lot of my videos. The views on the Spawn videos are mostly coming from non-subscribers. If only I could get some of them to sub.

To return to livestreams, aside from my ahem “skill”, the main problem I have is time difference. Most of my views come from the US, and Japan is between 14 to 17 hours ahead of American time. I think it’s +14 hours for EST and +17 hours for PST. So there you go, living in the future does have its drawbacks. Timing is everything, as they say.

Moving forward, I’m planning on doing regular scheduled livestreams to see if I can build an audience. I’ll be focusing on “American time” because I hardly get any views from the UK or Europe. My country of birth has abandoned me! Ah well, whattayagonnado? I will let you know how it goes.

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Thank you so much for reading this far! I appreciate it.

-Wakizashi, *typing this first draft at work between classes. I have a rare quiet Wednesday today. Only two classes out of a possible six.*