Ripping off the Band-Aid: Launching my YouTube channel
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Every evening, after finishing dinner and washing the dishes, I find my cozy spot on the couch and dive into YouTube. Whether I'm drooling over cooking tutorials, catching the latest book or movie reviews, or fawning over houses I'll never own, I consume a lot of YouTube content. I often wonder if could do something similar. I don’t like showing my face on camera, so did it make sense to be on a platform where most people do exactly that? Will people care what I have to say, if they can’t see me? Well, I won’t know until I try.
So, I’ve decided to take the plunge. Last week, I officially launched my YouTube channel, Life Made of Lemons. I’m a sucker for lemon desserts, so of course I had to have lemon in the channel name. I’m not aiming for prolific content creation to start; I think two videos per month is what I can handle. The videos will mostly center around me cooking and talking about the latest book I read or new recipes I found.
Just making the one video I have on my channel was a comedy of errors. Multiple times I thought I was filming…I wasn’t. I had to record the last few minutes of audio—SIX TIMES and it still didn’t come out right. But the first hurdle was accomplished—to get the video out there. It wasn’t without challenges.
Trust your instincts and stop overthinking: There are sooooooo many videos out there on how to launch a YouTube video. There is certainly a lot of value in that content, but too much of a good thing can result in sensory overload. I watched so many videos and took a lot of Skillshare classes. I had an idea of what I wanted my YouTube channel to be, but I thought I needed to listen to a few experts first. In hindsight, one or two videos would have sufficed. I kept tweaking and tweaking my video edit based on tips I saw from other content creators. If I could do it over again, I would listen to my own voice instead of so many others.
Editing software is so sensitive: I didn’t buy any fancy cameras or editing software. Eventually, I might, but I’m a cheap person at heart, so I filmed with just my iPhone and edited the video with iMovie, which is free. Editing the video was a bit frustrating. The cursor in iMovie is so sensitive. Initially, I was cutting parts that I didn’t want to cut. It just takes some getting used to.
Check your camera: I intended to film myself cooking three dishes in the video, but most of the video is from one dish. Why? I forgot to hit the big red button! I thought I had, but it was not meant to be. I had a few seconds of video of the last two dishes and a couple of photos. I will reform for future videos.
Moral of the story: just put it out there. If you’re on the fence about starting a YouTube channel, just do it. Stop overthinking. Things won’t be perfect to start, and that shouldn’t be the goal. Making content you care about it is all that matters!
Upcoming posts
Thursday: No Lost post due my vacation
Monday: Operation TikTok: review of Book Lovers
Thursday (7/25): Lost ReWatch of Season three episodes one and two
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