I was amazed to learn last week that I have been approved for monetization on YouTube. Since August, I have been doing two videos a week, usually about the Overkill Software title Payday 2. The channel as of now boasts over 4,000 subscribers, and now makes money. It's no part-time job, for sure, but it's a lemonade stand of a channel that I've come to love.
The YouTube channel, like a great many of the things I start working on, begin as a means to keep my mind occupied and off of how many eggs the world's been sucking as of late. I told myself that I'd make videos for 4 weeks, and if after 4 weeks I had amassed less then 30 views (which I did truly consider a groundbreaking number at the time, a side channel I star on and oversee editing on was pulling one view from each of its three members thrice weekly for two years), then I would quit at it. It hit about 200 in that span, and has since broke half a million views and counting. It's been an amazing opportunity.
But with opportunities like that comes a commitment, especially when it's making a couple bucks here and there over something I love to do. I love writing, I consider it the one thing I feel I'm both good at and love to do, but I have never been paid a cent for the hundreds of thousands of words I've self-published. I want to get into indie game design, but the programming aspect overwhelms me and I've only ever had my name attached to two published games that were released as freeware (one on the ill-fated Microsoft Hololens). Video editing is something I do enjoy doing, as well as commentating and getting to share my game experiences with others, and now that's turning money, it's becoming a higher priority.
Now, I'll never give up writing, of course not, I'm not giving up game design, but working on projects like these will take a bit longer to happen. New Infinity: Disk 2 is well over half written by now and is just getting uploaded somewhat sporadically but at the same time continually, I've finished drafting where afterward is probably headed (but seeing how I only write that when I'm sleepy and not necessarily thinking about writing outside of the abstract sense, that can go anywhere) and that should be done sometime between this fall and next spring, and of course I have other writing and game design projects on every possible back burner (even your own!), but as of right now I'm trying to get the channel squared away and secure something that's future-shaped for me, as I've spent the last three years not planning for one and I dunno, I think I need to now.
I must thank you, the stammtisch of Penana, for indulging me in the oddness I post, as well as anyone who has been following me on Twitter and YouTube. Opportunities like these don't just fall into your hands, they spring up and sometimes you just gotta do a little bit of book learning and take a leap. It's been a journey to write this much for you guys, and here's to much, much more. Cheers.
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