Doing More With Video as a Creative Person

I think a lot about some advice I got from the Youtuber and speedrunner Karl Jobst during our Day Job interview: Everyone in a creative field should be using Youtube, because whatever you’re doing, it can only help you build your platform.

There’s a lot of truth to this.  On one level, people watch a lot of YouTube—like, billions of people watching billions of videos racking up zillions of views.  The YouTube algorithm also drives viewers to keep watching, to check out new YouTubers, and to watch videos related to what they’ve already seen.  So, not only is YouTube a HUGE outlet for sharing your work, but it can also help you reach people in new ways that can potentially be fun and natural.

Plus, YouTube advertising is like, an enormous industry that helps creators earn real, folding money, if that’s the direction you’re headed in.

On my end, though, I want to be a writer, not a YouTuber, so a big part of me doesn’t want to get wrapped up in the process of prepping, filming, editing, and hyping videos all the time, since I’m already busy enough as it is.

This begs a really important question: Is there a way for creative people to do more with internet video without it becoming their main focus?

On That Note, I’m on a YouTube Show Now…

Late last year, my writer’s group friend and fellow New Hampshirite Josh Bresslin approached me about doing a YouTube series.  He already does a channel called Write Every Day where he shares his daily writing progress, but he was interested in doing more of a discussion show where he and I could share our different experiences.

The result was Authors Bantering, a weekly show where Josh and I talk about the writing life.  The first two episodes are online now, Episode 1 about whether writing every day really works and Episode 2: Traditional vs. Self-Publishing.  You can check them out if you’re interested, or if you just want to see me on camera ;-)

Also, if you like what you see, hit the Like and Subscribe buttons, since it helps Josh and I out by pointing more viewers to the channel (a request a lot of people make, I know, but it really does help!).

Behind the Scenes Trivia: Josh and I actually filmed a bunch of these episodes on the same night, changing clothes in between topics.  The goal was to record more efficiently by doing more episodes at once so the show wouldn’t become a huge time commitment for either of us.  It’s way easier to commit to one night of recording every six weeks than to one night every week, which was key to getting a project like this going.

Fun With Instagram and Facebook Video

Lately, I’ve also been more interested in Instagram video (and to a lesser extent, Facebook video).  I like these formats because they’re more disposable, and people tend to be more forgiving of the video quality (for example, bad lighting, simple camera angles, lower-quality feed, etc.).  This makes me more comfortable with sharing videos that I make more or less on the fly that look and feel simpler than your average YouTube video.

One writer I’ve been taking inspiration from is Elaina Battista-Parsons, who regularly shares quick Instagram videos of herself reading from her books and talking about her writing life, but also just doing regular stuff.  I like Elaina’s videos because they’re simple and they all take place in different locations, which makes them feel fresh and interesting.

So far, I’ve been doing Instagram and Facebook Livestreams every so often—once per week after MFA Thesis Novel came out, and lately just occasionally.  I like livestreams because they’re even more impromptu than videos, because people can just drop in and out, and because the Instagram and Facebook algorithms tend to boost a livestream to the top of your followers’ newsfeeds, so people see right away when you’re doing one.  You can also save the video for later, which I usually do.

If you want to see one of my videos, here’s a recent one where I highlighted an MFA Thesis Novel review I’d gotten and read selections from the reviewer’s favorite scenes.  It was fun to start doing videos again, and it made me remember how I’d like to be doing more of them.

When I do the livestreams, I’ve been using both my laptop and my phone to record simultaneously by placing one literally on top of the other and hitting record on both.  (A quick Google search revealed that it kind of wasn’t possible to do both using the same device.)  It’s easy and helps draw in more viewers, and I’d like to expand to doing more with shorter videos in the future, especially on different topics.

Video Is Nice, But It’s Just One More Thing on My Plate…

I’ve written before about my dilemma over whether to spend more time on promotion versus making actual art, and even on the promotion end I think about which outlets are most effective and how I should be spending most of my time and energy.  Would it be more worthwhile, for example, to stop doing this blog and devote more time to online videos?  Or maybe just spend more time on Twitter, for example?  How about my email newsletter?

It can often feel like there’s a lot of outlets and ways of getting your work out there that are vying for your attention, and right now, I really want to experiment with more of them, but also find some basic rhythms that work for me.  Expanding my audience and platform is the ultimate goal, but as I’ve talked about before, building this type of platform really is a long game.  Right now, I’m really just trying to get more comfortable with these different outlets, expand my areas of expertise, and hopefully have a little fun too ;-)

New Zealand television broadcast cover image used under Creative Commons 2.0 License.