FAO Steve Maskery : Patreon

[MusicMan]

Deem - AL;RIA

(appropriate length; read it all). I thought you analysed the business situation very well. That's excellent advice for anyone wanting to make money from youtube etc. Identify your customers and your business model.

One further thing that I would add is making it easy for your customers to buy. DVDs are so 20th century; I don't even have a player on my computer, so it is a hassle to view them. I have a player in my living room but that's not where I go when dressed for the workshop. But I have a modern Mac and awesome broadband, and do most of my financial stuff online. So it is easier for me to buy stuff that I order online, download and can view immediately; then print out key pages or take the computer to the shop for a specific build.

I do want to get Steve's complete DVD set sometime and I am sure the price is good value. But it's still significant ££ to lay out. I know they are available as sub-units, but funnily enough, the big discount for the set is putting me off buying these until I can launch out on the whole set. If the units had been available online, with only a small or zero discount for the set, I'd probably have them all by now.

Keith

 

[petermillard]

It's easy to produce tat every month, but I don't want to do that, there is enough junk in the world without me adding to it.

I waited a bit for somebody else to comment, I don't think they have so I will; from a business point of view if you want to make some money back make what sells, if you want to make what makes you feel good, then you pay, or you could mix business with pleasure and film popular clips/tips AND the sort of stuff that you would buy. Different people have different values, don't be a victim of snobbery and undervalue more basic work; some like it and are prepared to pay for it, their willingness to pay is just as valid as your willingness to provide that service.

Have to agree. I was a little surprised to see another woodworker (the first patreon link in the first post) dissed like this, especially when they're doing exactly what Steve Maskery seems to aspire to i.e. making a living from online content they've created. You may not like what he makes (and come to that I'm sure a lot of people here wouldn't like much of what I make) but perhaps he's just making what sells, or drives views on his youtube channel?? Incidentally, his name is David Piccuito and he's a fairly prolific YouTuber - I've never watched him regularly, but with 100k subscribers, ~160 videos and 5 million cumulative views he's clearly hitting the right notes with a few people. He's also just produced his first book "The New Bandsaw Box Book" - maybe Steve could buy a copy

I only know of him because he also does a weekly 'woodworking and making stuff' podcast with Jimmy DiResta and Bob Claggett (another YouTuber) and they talk a little about making a living and YouTube on this weeks show -makingitpodcast.com, episode 42 - starts around the 38 minute mark, and only lasts for a couple of minutes, but the bottom line is that nobody makes a living just from YouTube unless they have millions of subscribers - Jimmy DiResta says that he makes '...at most a couple of thousand dollars a month, which is nice to have but not enough to live on'; this is from someone with a sizeable following, a few TV series' behind him, 300k subscribers to his YouTube channel and 30 million views.

As they say, they have ads on their website, they sell project plans, t-shirts, use patreon, and do client work and sponsorships, and accept donations; they cultivate their followers via all the social media types (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest) - all of which feeds the bottom line of being able to make a living from what they do, which is clearly not 'just' making videos for YouTube.

HTH, Pete

 

[Steve Maskery]

Fair enough, perhaps I should watch more of his work. I just watched the first few minutes of him drinking a bottle of beer and saying not very much and that was enough for me. Just not my style, I suppose.
I have to say that I think the social media side of it seems very daunting. Why does life have to be so complicated?

 

[Mr_P]

Apologies that might be my fault, originally I linked to his weekly round-up. Very much on the filler side of things.

That's my opinion and I'm entitled to it, would I write that on his you tube feed ?

No but plenty would and have written far worse I'd wager.

Thick skin def required if you want to play on the big wide web.

 

[mind_the_goat]

Mr Picciuto also does a weekly podcast with 2 other makers, Jimmy Diresta and Bob Clagett (many of you will probably know of Jimmy) In some of these episodes they discuss issues around youtube, making videos, attracting funding and use of social media and patreon, among other things, well worth checking these out if you considering taking the youtube route, and well worth checking them out if even if you are not.
http://makingitpodcast.com/

 

[Steve Maskery]

I do want to get Steve's complete DVD set sometime and I am sure the price is good value. But it's still significant ££ to lay out. I know they are available as sub-units, but funnily enough, the big discount for the set is putting me off buying these until I can launch out on the whole set. If the units had been available online, with only a small or zero discount for the set, I'd probably have them all by now.

I really don't know whether to laugh or cry at that! But thank you, and all the rest of you, for your very constructive suggestions.

BTW, I've just listened to the MakingIt podcast about selling out (in a good way) to fund your work. Slow start but once they got going they did talk a lot of sense. I'll probably listen to some more on the subject.

 

[sploo]

I do want to get Steve's complete DVD set sometime and I am sure the price is good value. But it's still significant ££ to lay out. I know they are available as sub-units, but funnily enough, the big discount for the set is putting me off buying these until I can launch out on the whole set. If the units had been available online, with only a small or zero discount for the set, I'd probably have them all by now.

I really don't know whether to laugh or cry at that! But thank you, and all the rest of you, for your very constructive suggestions.

BTW, I've just listened to the MakingIt podcast about selling out (in a good way) to fund your work. Slow start but once they got going they did talk a lot of sense. I'll probably listen to some more on the subject.

Slightly off topic, but...

Steve - with regard to MusicMan's comment: how about a discount system whereby buying a first set of DVD's is full price, then later buying another set (with proof of purchase of the previous set) gets you a small discount. Buy a third with proof of the first two gets a further discount and so on.

Worked out appropriately, you might be able to get a pricing structure that means it's still a good discount, but not quite as good as buying the lot in one go (to account for the extra logistics at your end for handling multiple orders vs one), but it still gives someone an incentive to buy incrementally and not wait until they can buy the whole set at once.

 

[MusicMan]

That would work, spioo.

Steve, I think that short courses could be quite rewarding, and you have a wonderful workshop to do them in now. Making Jigs with Steve?

Keith

 

[Zeddedhed]

Not sure if anyones already suggested this but making the current vids available as (chargeable) downloads would be a start.

It would require some work to re-rip them or whatever it's called into MP4 format or whatever, but nonetheless would only use overnight processor time once the format is decided upon.
Handbrake is a free open source Mac program that does all the conversion - there's an awful lot of options but again, once the correct options have been figured out the original files can be queued up and left to process. Not sure what the optimal file size is for a download but a bit of research should deal with this..

If you want Steve I'll have a go with one of your DVD's and give you the settings.

 

[Harbo]

Handbrake works on a PC too

Rod

 

[Steve Maskery]

I could probably re-issue them as MP4s directly from the original edits, that way there would be less loss of video quality, I should think. The trouble is that I have had 4 changes of address since making them and I'm not entirely sure where all the files are. I have a box of various external hard drives but I have no idea what is on which.I have a lot on at the mo. But thank you all for the ideas, it's all helpful.

Can those of you who have done this give me an idea of the MP4 file size when a 4.7G DVD is converted?

 

[Zeddedhed]

I did WSE 3 (Ultimate Table Saw Tenon Thingy) last night just to see and the MP4 is 1.63GB for the runtime of 1hr 17 mins 38 secs.

HTH

 

[Steve Maskery]

Thank you. What's the video quality like compared with the original DVD?
S

 

[Zeddedhed]

About the same.
I'll upload it to my dropbox and give you a link if you like.
PM if interested.

 

[sploo]

Thank you. What's the video quality like compared with the original DVD?
S

It'll depend on the bit rate used, but the more modern encoding algorithms are more efficient than MPEG2 (used for DVDs) so it's likely you won't see a difference.

There may be an argument that it would be better to go back to your original source (assuming you've got them in a video editing program) and render them out using an MPEG4 codec, as opposed to transcoding the MPEG2 material. It might not make a big difference though.

 

[Zeddedhed]

Thank you. What's the video quality like compared with the original DVD?
S

It'll depend on the bit rate used, but the more modern encoding algorithms are more efficient than MPEG2 (used for DVDs) so it's likely you won't see a difference.

There may be an argument that it would be better to go back to your original source (assuming you've got them in a video editing program) and render them out using an MPEG4 codec, as opposed to transcoding the MPEG2 material. It might not make a big difference though.

Sploo knows stuff about all this. I'm just playin' around. He's the man for the techy stuff for sure.

 

[sploo]

Thank you. What's the video quality like compared with the original DVD?
S

It'll depend on the bit rate used, but the more modern encoding algorithms are more efficient than MPEG2 (used for DVDs) so it's likely you won't see a difference.

There may be an argument that it would be better to go back to your original source (assuming you've got them in a video editing program) and render them out using an MPEG4 codec, as opposed to transcoding the MPEG2 material. It might not make a big difference though.

Sploo knows stuff about all this. I'm just playin' around. He's the man for the techy stuff for sure.

It's been a while, so I'm a bit rusty in this area (I don't know the exact state of play with what's "in" these days).

1hr 17 mins 38 secs is... 4658 seconds.

1.63GB is ~1669MB is 13352.96Mbits.

13352.96 / 4658 = 2.86Mbit/s (2935Kbit/s).

A quick bit of Googling indicates that standard def video in MPEG4 or H.264 can be done in the 1400-1700Kbit/s region, so you may be able to squeeze it down a bit and still get good quality - especially as I'm assuming Steve's videos don't have the fast movement of a Michael Bay film :wink: