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Question: Is there a book that you would recommend I read about creating a website-based business?
Here’s some basic information to munch on. I have a YouTube account with over 3000 subscribers, about half of which watch my videos daily. It’s based on the video game entertainment industry, so it’s a lot of fun for me, and has been a great hobby for the past year for me.
I still want my videos to be on YouTube for a few reasons:
1) Why pay to host my videos when YouTube does it for free?
2) I can still just as easily drive traffic to my website from YouTube.
3) I still want people to be able to watch my videos for free.
The last part is of greatest importance. I don’t want to start charging people to be able to watch my videos. At most, I was thinking maybe upload my videos to my website a day early before I upload them to YouTube, and maybe charge a subscription fee to watch them earlier. However, I think that’s just a bad idea and would turn off my subscribers.
My YouTube account currently entertains people via two parts of the same industry. First, I remix old video game music into videos. That was how I got my start on YouTube and built my first 500 subscribers. I even took requests from them, which really helped me get popular. Eventually, I became so popular that I couldn’t keep up with the demand, and outsourcing it would defeat the purpose, so I stopped accepting requests. Plus, it takes several hours to remix an average length song.
I still remix songs occasionally, but my primary focus is now on another part of the industry: the games themselves. I do in-depth commentaries on playing through the games, offering tips and making jokes every now and then. This is what really caused my subscriber base to really take off and get to where I am today.
My first thought is that if I’m going to drive traffic to my website, it would be a good idea to start accepting requests for music remixes again. I was also thinking of creating a second YouTube account for this purpose, and directing my subscribers to that account as well. This way, I can upload a video to each account, and my subscribers can see each video on their subscription list for the day. The reason for doing this is because I’ve found that uploading more than one video per day greatly dilutes the number of viewers who see the videos.
So far, this has just been a frivolous hobby for me, and I’ve done almost nothing to promote my YouTube account. I’ve heard of other people using other websites to facilitate their account, such as Myspace, Facebook, Screw Attack, and Something Awful. The latter two are more video game oriented.
Using all these resources, I would then direct traffic to my website. Recently, I’ve gotten more and more requests from subscribers to create a website, which is part of my motivation. I could write articles to supplement my commentaries, as there’s only so much that I can put into a 10-minute video on YouTube. That has been my greatest request so far.
The other function of my website could be to facilitate requests for music remixes. This would requires viewers to come to my website in order to make a request, instead of overflowing my email, like before. I might even do a Poll of the Day or create forums for people to discuss my videos and the games I play.
Back to the original question, I really don’t know much about how to really transform this into a money machine. I have a general idea, like adsense and pay-per-click ads, but having something in print would make it easier for me to reference some good information.
Another idea I had was to maybe charge people for their request to remix songs. Professional artists do that with paintings, don’t they? I wouldn’t even have to charge that much. This would also help in keeping my request list manageable. However, again, I’m concerned about turning off my subscriber base.
If this is just a silly idea that won’t make money, I’ll still be making my videos. I just wouldn’t go through the effort of promoting them so much. This is really a passion of mine, and it would be nice to make some money from it.
Thanks for your help.
Here’s some basic information to munch on. I have a YouTube account with over 3000 subscribers, about half of which watch my videos daily. It’s based on the video game entertainment industry, so it’s a lot of fun for me, and has been a great hobby for the past year for me.
I still want my videos to be on YouTube for a few reasons:
1) Why pay to host my videos when YouTube does it for free?
2) I can still just as easily drive traffic to my website from YouTube.
3) I still want people to be able to watch my videos for free.
The last part is of greatest importance. I don’t want to start charging people to be able to watch my videos. At most, I was thinking maybe upload my videos to my website a day early before I upload them to YouTube, and maybe charge a subscription fee to watch them earlier. However, I think that’s just a bad idea and would turn off my subscribers.
My YouTube account currently entertains people via two parts of the same industry. First, I remix old video game music into videos. That was how I got my start on YouTube and built my first 500 subscribers. I even took requests from them, which really helped me get popular. Eventually, I became so popular that I couldn’t keep up with the demand, and outsourcing it would defeat the purpose, so I stopped accepting requests. Plus, it takes several hours to remix an average length song.
I still remix songs occasionally, but my primary focus is now on another part of the industry: the games themselves. I do in-depth commentaries on playing through the games, offering tips and making jokes every now and then. This is what really caused my subscriber base to really take off and get to where I am today.
My first thought is that if I’m going to drive traffic to my website, it would be a good idea to start accepting requests for music remixes again. I was also thinking of creating a second YouTube account for this purpose, and directing my subscribers to that account as well. This way, I can upload a video to each account, and my subscribers can see each video on their subscription list for the day. The reason for doing this is because I’ve found that uploading more than one video per day greatly dilutes the number of viewers who see the videos.
So far, this has just been a frivolous hobby for me, and I’ve done almost nothing to promote my YouTube account. I’ve heard of other people using other websites to facilitate their account, such as Myspace, Facebook, Screw Attack, and Something Awful. The latter two are more video game oriented.
Using all these resources, I would then direct traffic to my website. Recently, I’ve gotten more and more requests from subscribers to create a website, which is part of my motivation. I could write articles to supplement my commentaries, as there’s only so much that I can put into a 10-minute video on YouTube. That has been my greatest request so far.
The other function of my website could be to facilitate requests for music remixes. This would requires viewers to come to my website in order to make a request, instead of overflowing my email, like before. I might even do a Poll of the Day or create forums for people to discuss my videos and the games I play.
Back to the original question, I really don’t know much about how to really transform this into a money machine. I have a general idea, like adsense and pay-per-click ads, but having something in print would make it easier for me to reference some good information.
Another idea I had was to maybe charge people for their request to remix songs. Professional artists do that with paintings, don’t they? I wouldn’t even have to charge that much. This would also help in keeping my request list manageable. However, again, I’m concerned about turning off my subscriber base.
If this is just a silly idea that won’t make money, I’ll still be making my videos. I just wouldn’t go through the effort of promoting them so much. This is really a passion of mine, and it would be nice to make some money from it.
Thanks for your help.
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