Authortube: Growing Your Channel

AUTHORTUBE: GROWING YOUR CHANNEL

I've been on Authortube now for a little under three years. I'm not someone to turn to when it comes to advice about making it big, but to be honest, I haven't. I have just over 300 subs and even then I don't get a ton of interaction. I've talked about authortube before and the pieces for that are found here, here and here.

However, I can tell you the ways in which I've learned since starting about how to grow your channel. I'm just being upfront that it takes time and that if you go about it the wrong way, you can end up shooting yourself in the foot. Youtube is not for everyone and growing an author platform can be an arduous task. I've been doing this for over a decade and I'm still very much a small fish simply because I either made mistakes early on, or I took too long to correct those mistakes once I started to get noticed.

I'm telling you this because I feel like being transparent about where I'm coming from is a very good idea. It's no good me telling you that doing x and y works because I'm still very new to this myself. It would feel like a bad thing to do and doesn't help you at all. And that's not what I'm about. My Monday advice pieces have always been about my experience and in that regard, so is this one. So, what are my tips when it comes to growing your authortube channel?

#1 INTERACT WITH OTHER AUTHORTUBERS
This is a big one because a lot of the time, it's word of mouth that will get you in front of new viewers. Don't do what I did, and make the videos, upload them and then sit and wait for people to roll in and watch because that doesn't happen. Not only will you make friends and writer buddies but you'll also get an idea of what content works and how to tailor your own to spread your message to authortube.

#2 TAGS, TAGS AND MORE TAGS
This is part of number one in that you want to be taking part in tags. Whether that's the newbie tags, which are a great way to introduce yourself to the world of Authortube, or other tags that you've seen and decided to do yourself. It's even a good idea to use those friendships from point one and create your own unique tags that then go around the community. It's a way to get yourself noticed and a way to find your own little niche of Authortube as a whole.

#3 MAKE YOUR OWN MARK WITH YOUR CONTENT
There are certain types of videos that do well. Whether that's advice videos, or writing vlogs, or even tags, you're going to find that there are a lot of ideas out there, but as to whether or not you decide to follow the trend or try and make your own is up to you. Personally, I shied away from a lot of the general advice topics and stuck to things about my own writing process and titbits of advice that I personally knew a lot about, such as writing disabled characters or writing crime scenes, or dealing with that self-esteem gremlin. I didn't stick to just plain old writing advice, and it's okay if you choose to do that, it can be very popular, but you might find it hard to be heard over the crowds of people already doing just that.

#4 GO WITH THE CROWD... SOMEWHAT
By this I mean that if you find something that works and that you do well, then by all means go with it. I don't mean taking someone else's topic each week and doing it the same, especially if it's something you don't know a lot about and find yourself mirroring their talking points. That's not going to help you grow your channel, it's just gonna make you look bad. So by all means, do all the tags and give out advice, just do it in your own style and personal way.

And finally, #5 BE PATIENT
I put this here simply because it takes a lot of time, energy and videos to get a huge following. I've heard that once you hit 1K, things seem to snowball from there, but I'm nowhere near that point and I know other channels that aren't either. It takes time. Just keep putting your videos out there, interacting, being polite and genuine and you'll find yourself growing bit by bit. It's worth it in the end, I promise.

So those are my tips when it comes to growing your channel. I'm still navigating the pathways and I don't know if or when I'll get to a point where I have a huge audience. I do know that I love making the videos and I am grateful for the few commenter and watchers that I have. I've found Authortube to be wholly positive and while we have our drama from time to time, the more people I meet, the more at home I feel.

So good luck, and remember that final point. It will take time, and that's okay!

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