2. Steve's Workshop- The Commissioning and Production

[Wizard9999]

To put that into perspective, my Luthier Clamp video, which is probably one that has broadest appeal, hasn't (quite) had 100,000 views in five years.

I just watched it again if that helps :lol: .

Terry.

 

[monkeybiter]

To put that into perspective, my Luthier Clamp video, which is probably one that has broadest appeal, hasn't (quite) had 100,000 views in five years.

I've only recently started subscribing on YT, but only if there's a fair bit of content and it looks like there'll be more to come. If an account looks to be fairly static I don't bother. That's why I think you'd benefit from filling your channel with a few short and varied vids.

 

[Penny]

Personally I think that the idea of making a 'how to...' DVD and charging people for it is now a non-starter. With so many free Youtube videos available people just wouldn't buy it. If I am going to make something for the first time I always go to Youtube for hints and advice. I wouldn't pay out for a DVD and then faff around putting it on when I can just Youtube on my tablet in the workshop.

 

[Mr_P]

Paul sellars, Richard Maguire, Tom Fidgen and myself would disagree with you.

Plenty of free content on youtube yes but there is a market for people with the right skills and personality to charge for their expertise and rightly so in my humble opinion

The youtube model on its own no longer works unless you are doing it part time or don't need the moeny. Steve would need about 1/3 of million watchers per month to make about a grand, I don't see how that adds up for anyone doing it full time. Maybe if all you do is videos for teenagers with lots of waffley content or the best make up tips you can make quick videos whithout much work every day and rack up the money Steve and most of us on here don't live in that world.

Edit oops Yes DVD by post is a dead format, think Steve knows ths and will be choosing another option. I binned most of my dvd film boxes a few years ago and keep them in a case but still rarely watch them. Far easier to tape a film on the digi box, no long menus/ trailers first and it remembers where I stopped it.

 

[Wizard9999]

The most professional film maker in my opinion is Frank Howarth, who loads all his stuff for free.

I recall watching his workshop build a while back but had never returned, so thanks for reminding me about him as I have just spent an hour watching a few vids as I ate my sandwich. That is a workshop to die for.

I know there has been some negative comment re US YouTube videos but this guy's relaxed style is very appealing to me and (I know I am about to light the blue touch paper here) for me his accent is much easier to listen to than many from the UK, all a matter of personal preference I guess.

Terry.

 

[Graham Orm]

The most professional film maker in my opinion is Frank Howarth, who loads all his stuff for free.

I recall watching his workshop build a while back but had never returned, so thanks for reminding me about him as I have just spent an hour watching a few vids as I ate my sandwich. That is a workshop to die for.

I know there has been some negative comment re US YouTube videos but this guy's relaxed style is very appealing to me and (I know I am about to light the blue touch paper here) for me his accent is much easier to listen to than many from the UK, all a matter of personal preference I guess.

Terry.

How very dare you!

 

[Halo Jones]

100,000 views per month
Estimated Revenue:
Between $136.00 USD - $340.00 USD per month

$340 US Dollar = £235.44 British Pound (todays rates).

Well Frank Howarth has had about 19 million hits over the last two years (I assume his workshop build is the first serious stuff he put out).

Given the figures above that will have probably earned him the equivalent of £30,000 (using the mean of the two values above).

Not a huge amount but not just pocket money either!

Steve - If you came up with a plan for 10 - 20 "episodes" could you not approach the likes of Record Power and other "British" woodworking companies to sponsor your show along the lines of Woodwhisperer and other American examples?

 

[Mr_P]

Steve's workshop = Good size for UK but nothing wow sorry.
Frank Howarth = Wow omg thats huge even by American standards.

So not a very fair comparrison.

Didn't work it out but some videos are 9 years including one on turning chess pawns with nearly 200k at nine years old and thats included in the 19 million.

This is one of his famous ones, 900k views in about 2.5 years
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7l3_THa-Yk

Most of his videos don't appear to have ads ?

If all his videos had ads would he have as many subscribers / views ?

He's doing it for the love not the money.

This time 18 months ago had anyone heard of doing it anyother way than youtube ???
Patreon/vimeo are all pretty new to me. The internet is changing and its changing fast. I'm sure Steve could build a following on youtube but he might be retired by then, plus youtube revenues in another 5 years might be even lower. Might even be gone/ dead on its feet, who knows. Remember friends reunited or myspace. Yahoo had it all 16 years ago they even had ebay before ebay, I bought a car on yahoo auctions and loads of other stuff.

 

[BearTricks]

Steve, I hope you read this because this thread is getting a bit muddy.

YouTube started when I was 15. I've been using the internet for about half my life now. There are people old enough to vote, own a home and get married that can't remember a time when the internet wasn't everywhere. The people who are looking at your stuff at the moment are people who lived most of their life without the internet then learned how it works. From now on everyone who uses it will be using it their entire life and these are the people you want to be targeting because they, increasingly, will be making up the bulk of your views. If you aim towards the UKW crowd you're preaching to the choir.

I'll be completely honest. I don't pay much attention to a website if what I want isn't there on the front page. If I'm looking at someone's furniture design website, for example, I want the portfolio there right away. I don't want to be clicking through a million categories struggling to find what I want. I'll just go elsewhere. I don't even use the YouTube website because it's too messy, I use the app on my Smart TV or on my phone because my subscriptions are there in a sleek, easy to use format. In fact, if I can't get something on my phone I'm usually not interested.

I rarely use Facebook because it's a mess in the same way. I believe Facebook will go down the pan because it's not instant access. People who learned to use the internet later in life will tolerate it because we knew a time where the internet was much more difficult to navigate. It's not because I have a short attention span, it's because so much of the internet is quick and simple to navigate that using a clunky website is more effort than it needs to be. For years you had to click around badly designed websites to get where you wanted to go, now we're getting streamlined and you can get what you want in less time, meaning you have time to fit more in - whether that's accessing more content or actually going out and sawing some wood.

The other side of it is consistency. People will subscribe to you not because you're doing something different but because you're you. There are hundreds of woodworkers online but I can name maybe ten off the top of my head and I look at probably three of them regularly. They're subscribing to the personality as much as the skills, and following someone means that you need to have something to follow. That means weekly videos, whether they're five minutes or thirty minutes. You're competing with the likes of Paul Sellers and Frank Howarth and they're churning out content regularly. If you don't match it people will just forget about you and be more likely to go for what's reliable. I like Frank Howarth, but I only subscribe to Paul Sellers for his skills. I wouldn't bother with him if there were someone more likable offering up the same stuff.

My point is that everything needs to be in one place and as easy to access as possible, and it needs to be constant. You need a blog; the blog should probably be on your personal website because something like tumblr limits your amount of followers because you can only follow it and get it in your feed if you're actually on tumblr. Blogspot users would be more likely to follow an equivalent woodworker on blogspot etc. You'd be better off carving out your own corner of the internet with a personal url.

The other thing is that there's an increasingly prevalent attitude on the internet that you shouldn't have to pay for content and that copyright isn't moral or ethical. I can't help but think that these people haven't spent time making anything because they'd probably think differently if something they made was at risk of being stolen. Models of monetising circumvent this by going for advertising rather than a straight fee. Obviously this doesn't make enough money so combining free videos with premium content seems to be a way to go. Shorter videos, or certain topics go up for free. In depth tutorials or multi-video projects are paid for. You might want to offer the first video up for free then get them to pay for the subsequent set. The website Tested (Not woodworking but they build stuff) do weekly projects, putting up a free video on Monday and then making you pay for the rest of the week's videos. You could offer a discounted yearly subscription for people who want all your stuff, and individual prices per-video for people who just want a video on a tablesaw jig for example.

 

[Wizard9999]

Steve

The thoughts of others seem to accord with my own, that it is highly unlikely that there is a full time living to be made out of this. Sorry, but a bit like the recent concrete lamp thread, better to understand the potential before you have sunk a fortune into it buying kit. Earlier in this thread you said that you don't have a job, are too young for a pension and have to earn some money. If it is to be your full time single source of income surely making videos is not the only thing you can think of doing to earn a crust? I wonder if your thinking is limited by a predetermination about what you should do, rather than coming up with all the options and then sifting them down to those that are workable.

In short I wonder if you are trying to answer the wrong question. Rather than jumping to "how can I make money from woodworking films?", should you not be asking "based on my skill set what could I do to earn a living?"

Terry.

 

[NickWelford]

A most interesting thread. I feel for Steve, although we have never met, I think of him as a friend. I could never make any money from woodworking. I'm 64 soon, and have been in computing most of my working life, since well before email and even longer before t'internet. However, I understand and agree with what Beartricks has posted, although I can't get on with viewing on the phone. But aren't iPads wonderful things!

 

[custard]

Frank Howarth's videos have about as much to do with woodworking as "The Wrong Trousers" has to do with tailoring.

The woodwork content is just a vehicle to display Frank's delightful and entertaining stop frame film making skills. People watch them to enjoy the cute woody characters and the engaging filmic effects, rather than to learn anything about cabinet making, consequently they're pretty much an irrelevance in terms of benchmarking the audience potential for woodwork training.

 

[BearTricks]

Frank Howarth seems more about the completed project. I don't think he has much interest in training people to do what he is doing. I'm not even all that impressed with his finished work, but I do enjoy his videos over a lot of other woodworkers and I think his audience is probably almost entirely woodworkers and makers of some sort. Even the cutesy stuff is geared towards woodworking and there's plenty of similar videos out there with a more widespread appeal for those who just want clever filming.

I think Fidgen is similar in that he'll just say "Then I shaved the legs down with chair devils" without explaining precisely what a chair devil is and how he went about doing it. The insistence on using his own music on his videos turns me off though. I know he needs a backing track but I always feel like I'm being tricked in to listening to someone's rubbish band when I watch him. I've thought about this a lot and I think there's a fine line to walk before you start turning people off with your style, although I guess you can't please everyone.

 

[Graham Orm]

Frank Howarth's videos have about as much to do with woodworking as "The Wrong Trousers" has to do with tailoring.

The woodwork content is just a vehicle to display Frank's delightful and entertaining stop frame film making skills. People watch them to enjoy the cute woody characters and the engaging filmic effects, rather than to learn anything about cabinet making, consequently they're pretty much an irrelevance in terms of benchmarking the audience potential for woodwork training.

I don't think you've watched many of his Custard. He made a wall unit for his utility room, a complete kitchen over many weeks, Seating for a local charity, a bathroom re furb building all the cabinets, and more that I can't recall right now. As well as masses of technical wood turning.

 

[Graham Orm]

Here's a link to an interesting rant by John Heisz about copyright (music) infringement and the pitfalls even when you've paid to ensure it's not protected. Maybe the reason that Tom Fidgeon only uses his own music. http://www.ibuildit.ca/Weblog/blog-76.html

 

[custard]

I don't think you've watched many of his Custard. He made a wall unit for his utility room, a complete kitchen over many weeks, Seating for a local charity, a bathroom re furb building all the cabinets, and more that I can't recall right now. As well as masses of technical wood turning.

Fair point, if I get the time I'll try a few more.

 

[Graham Orm]

Steve, I hope you read this because this thread is getting a bit muddy.

I deleted the bulk of the post from BT because it was so long, I agree with his sentiments in general. "putting up a free video on Monday and then making you pay for the rest of the week's videos. You could offer a discounted yearly subscription for people who want all your stuff, and individual prices per-video for people who just want a video on a tablesaw jig for example." Rob Cosman has been doing it for several years now. I think he uses it as marketing for his courses, but I imagine he makes a tidy profit from his pay-to-view content.

I think that expecting the £'s to come rolling in is the wrong way to approach it. Like every business hard work and long hours will be needed to build it. Rob Cosman always looks knackered to me.....and stressed.

 

[Steve Maskery]

I thought I'd made it perfectly clear that I have never expected the £ to come rolling in!
This is about trying to do something good without having to subsidise every single one of my sales, which is what I did for the first few years of Workshop Essentials. And I'm not talking about labour cost, I mean hard cash spent up front vs receipts.

I'm happy to do the work, as long as it doesn't make me poorer!

Thank you all for the many, varied, considered and constructive contributions to this discussion, it really is much appreciated.

 

[Benchwayze]

So there I was wondering what to do with that 'cruddy' bit of oak, I had. In the end I made an asphalt spreading float for me old Dad! He was pleased as Mrs. Punch's husband! At the time I didn't realise the wood was 'Pippy Oak'! :mrgreen:

 

[Wizard9999]

I thought I'd made it perfectly clear that I have never expected the £ to come rolling in!
This is about trying to do something good without having to subsidise every single one of my sales, which is what I did for the first few years of Workshop Essentials. And I'm not talking about labour cost, I mean hard cash spent up front vs receipts.

No, sorry Steve, quite the opposite in fact.

I don't have a job, I'm too young for a pension and somehow I need to try to earn a living.

I am afraid I am very confused about what the 'exam question' is. Is it break even or is it about earning a living? I think the answer will be quite different, surely.

Terry.