Trail Thoughts ✦ September 2022 (Patreon)

Hello Adventure Club! Happy October 1st. 🥳 My vacation has kind of, sort of, officially begun! I have a few last minute things to wrap up around the house and I still have to pack! I always leave it until the last minute, anyone else?

I've been working so hard these last couple of weeks to have videos scheduled for you so there are no interruptions while I'm gone. I'm so proud of myself that I was able to do this, so that I can enjoy my vacation peacefully, but I'm also very happy to jump back into my regular routine when I return. The lack of adequate sleep I've had these past couple of weeks has been not okay, LOL. And I've been neglecting my daily walks, I know I know. I'm okay doing this a couple times a year and glad it's not all the time.

This post is long this month because I have some BIG announcements within it, so I hope you enjoy reading it!

First, welcome in to all the new patrons who joined us in the month of September! This is my Trail Thoughts newsletter that I write at the start of every month. Within this newsletter, I share my data and analytics from my Twitch stream and YouTube channel with you all, talk about the previous month and what happened, and discuss what I have planned for the month ahead and possibly even further out. These are posts that many folks look forward to reading and it provides some different content here on Patreon to sprinkle in between everything else. I really enjoy writing these posts, sharing my progress, and being transparent with you all about how things are going for me in the content space!

• # of Streams: 5 ⬇
• Avg Viewers, incl. Hosts & Raids: 29 ⬇
• Avg Viewers, excl. Hosts & Raids: 27 ⬇
• Unique Viewers: 591 ⬇
• Unique Chatters: 116 ⬇
• Chat Messages: 2,476 (avg 495 per stream) ⬇
• New Followers: 28 ⬇ (avg of 5-6 per stream) ⬆
• Subscriptions: 52 ⬇ (avg 10-11 per stream) ⬆

The symbols beside each data point indicate if the figures are up or down relative to the previous month.

This month I cancelled a lot of streams and then came to the realization that I needed to change my schedule to make it work. So I started testing out morning streams! My new schedule is Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings starting at 9a MDT which is 3p UTC. There have only been the 5 streams so far, but it feels really good to do this and it is going to be this way for the forseeable future. Naturally, I expected a drop in viewership, which I clearly had. But I'd rather stream at a time that works better for me. I'm still happy with how this month went overall. I don't care as much about the numbers on Twitch like I used to. Twitch has become my happy place to vibe, and I'm happy that I have figured out a schedule that works for me and makes me happier.

On Twitch this month I continued through my playthroughs of Dragon Age: Origins and Star Wars: KOTOR II and then also played Dinkum for the first time! That game is so much fun and I can't wait to continue building my island and unlocking more of the game.

The charity stream that I was a part of for F*ck Cancer: Would They Lie To You? was hilarious and so much fun! You can watch it here if you missed it. We raised well over $2,000 for the charity! 

My first stream back is on Monday, Oct 17th and the schedule will resume then. Though my friend who is visiting (Davy) and I are going to do a Just Chatting style of stream on the evening of Friday, Oct 14th, starting around 6p MDT (midnight UTC). It's going to be a fun stream so come hang out!

October is my BIRTHDAY MONTH and my birthday falls on a Sunday this year (Oct 30). I don't currently have firm plans to do a birthday stream, but I WANT TO. I just need to discuss some things with some family members first. The stream might not fall exactly on my birthday, but that's okay. I've done a birthday stream the last two years and they are so much fun for me to do! So please stay tuned for updates on that. I will communicate here with you all when that will be.

Otherwise, October will see more of me playing through the same games. Though on Fridays I will swap out Dinkum for some new games to me that I've never played before. Just not sure what to play yet...

• # of Videos: 27 total - 7 public videos and 20 for Patreon ⬆
• Impressions: 946,910 ⬆
• Total Views: 42,292 ⬆
• Views on New Videos: ~21,000
• CTR (Click-Through Rate): 3.1% ⬇
• Watch Time: 9,968.3 hours ⬆
• Average % Viewed*: 29.4% ⬆
• Unique Viewers: 22,708 ⬆
• Net New Subscribers: 307 ⬆

The symbols beside each data point indicate if the figures are up or down relative to the previous month.

* This data point tells me how long a viewer spent watching a particular video. If a viewer watches 10 minutes of a 20 minute long video, then that is 50%. Because my videos are long, I like my percentage to be around 30% but it is typically between 16-21%. Most viewers will skip the intro's and thoughts/review portions of my reactions and I've noticed with a lot of my movie reactions they like to watch particular scenes and skip to those instead of watching the whole video. It's just the nature of doing YouTube!

I've added a new metric to the above stats which is Views on New Videos, that way I can properly separate out how many of my total views in the month are on my new videos that were uploaded!

I am very pleased with how many videos I was able to get out this month across both YouTube and Patreon. It was a busy month, but it means that I can truly relax and not work at all from tomorrow until the 16th and I'm super pumped for that!

Thank you for all of your views, comments, likes, etc. It's absolutely my favourite part of doing all of this and I love the community we are building, not just here on Patreon, but on the channel as well. You are so awesome!

The numbers really intrigue me this month as they weren't at all what I was expecting. I uploaded quite the variety of movies this month! There were a mix of popular movies and some not-so-popular movies, older films and newer films, sci-fi horror, romance, comedy, etc. I had a lot of fun watching these, editing them and getting them out. Many of the videos did not get many views, but can we look at that average percentage viewed?! It was nearly as high as it was during my Star Wars reaction months! That's really cool to see!

This month was kind of an experiment for me to see how putting out a variety of movies would go for me. Yes, I had more views overall than in August, but that was due to putting out more videos and the figure also includes new views on existing videos in my library, which was about half the views I received. I am specifically referring to per-video-views relative to what I've done in the past.

I have had to sit back and think of a road map for the channel moving forward if I want to be able to make this work financially on a full-time basis. There's a part of me that hates that I have to consider that. But I am so passionate about what I'm doing here and I really want to make this work and turn this into a successful career. I haven't had a job I've loved so much and worked so hard at in many many years. And that makes me so happy. 😇

I don't think that my channel is in a place where I have the freedom to be able to do a true variety all of the time... yet. But I really want to get there and I know that I can if I can find areas of films that do well for me the way that Star Wars did. So keep reading to find out more. 😉

To wrap up my thoughts on September...

• Favourite Movie + Reaction: Edge of Tomorrow, even though I rated some other movies higher. It was just so fun!
• Most Negative Reaction: Man of Steel. The Snyder fans really did not like that I thought the film was just okay. I received a lot of negative comments and this video has a LOT of dislikes. 😂
• 100% Liked Video: Season 3 Clone Wars Review & Ranking - nobody has thumbs downed this!

It was a great month and I hope you all enjoyed the videos that I created!

PS. I had wanted to put out my review and episode ranking videos for both Season 4 of Clone Wars and Stranger Things 4, but unfortunately I just did not have time to get to this. It is high on my list when I return from vacation, though!

I've talked about this so much at this point, but kaiielle-oween is happening all month long and I am so excited for it! Here is the schedule for the month:

• The Shining (1980) ✦ October 7
• Halloween (1978) ✦ October 14
• The Silence of the Lambs (1991) ✦ October 21 or 22
• Psycho (1960) ✦ October 31

The first two are all scheduled and ready to go for you all! The other two will be watched, edited, and premiered when I am back from vacation. I didn't have the time to get them watched before now.

In addition to these reactions, I want to get out S4 (and hopefully S5) of The Clone Wars and Stranger Things 4 review videos before November begins.

It's going to be a fairly straight-forward month, to be honest! If you are not a fan of scary movies, we will be back to our regular programming in November.

And speaking of November...

As soon as the scary movies wrap up, I am kicking off November with a MASSIVE series... the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yes, I have never seen a single movie from this massive franchise of films.

Now before y'all get excited, I will not be watching them consecutively the way that I did for Star Wars. There are too many films in this universe that I know I will get burnt out fast if these movies are the only ones I watch. Not to mention, if I decided to only do these films, it would remove one of my popular Patreon benefits: the polls! And I love when you all vote on movies for me to watch. It makes me so happy! If I remember correctly, I believe the MCU also includes some TV shows too, which I may also do on the channel, but it depends if I feel that I can fit those in.

So my plan is to alternate weeks. I'll put out an MCU movie and then the following week will be a different film that eligible patrons vote for, repeat. If I have the time (as I'm getting faster with editing), I may try and squeeze in two movie reactions in a week. But I am still not comfortable committing to that just yet.

My strategy for the polls will change a little bit too, starting in November. I will be having you choose between some more popular films, the ones that "everyone reacts to", if you know what I mean. There are so many of these massive films that I have never seen before. Movies like: Saving Private Ryan, Braveheart, Gladiator, The Terminator movies, Jaws, E.T., the list goes on.

I discussed this direction with my closest friends and they all were both very surprised that I have never seen MCU films and confident that it would be a good move for me and my channel.

The purpose of this plan is to try and reach more people. I really want to grow my community on YouTube and here on Patreon and in order to do so, I need to get my videos in front of eyes so that the clicks can happen. And the only way to do that is to react to movies that are searched for the most on YouTube. There will always be people who want the more obscure and less popular films that are not reacted to very much, if at all, but unfortunately they are films that have a very low search rate and they typically don't reach a super wide audience on YouTube to get the clicks in the first place. They're the kind of movies that you can safely do once you have that large and loyal audience, but when you don't have that, it's a lot of time spent for not much return, either in community growth or dollars.

By the end of December, I should have a general idea of how things are going and since it's the end of the year, I'll be doing some big evaluating at that time and making a game plan for 2023. 

I fully acknowledge that this is all business and strategy talk and I know that not everyone vibes with this kind of discussion. I hope that in no way I come across as ungrateful for what has happened so far. I feel quite the opposite! I'm massively grateful for how this opportunity got plopped into my lap this year and it's my main focus in my life right now to keep this going. It has been so much fun and I have loved meeting you all and getting to connect with you about these films and TV series. I love what I do and I just want to keep that going as long as I possibly can and work hard to be able to give you more. It is my DREAM to give you more.

I am very welcome to suggestions and if you support this plan, please let me know so that I can feel some relief that I have made a good decision. 😅

Billing

The largest update this past month was just a few days ago when Patreon announced that creators can opt-in to a different billing model for their pages, where patrons are charged monthly on the day they pledge and are no longer restricted to the 1st of the month charges. If you missed my post about it, please go read it. The short of it is that I have switched my Patreon to this method because I think it is more fair for pledgers and it also spreads out my income more throughout the month along with spreading out cancellations so that they don't always happen at the same time.

A reminder that if you are currently pledged and therefore paying on the 1st of the month, this will not change. However, if you cancel and re-pledge to me at a later time, you will fall under the new billing model that I have set up. If you like paying on the 1st, just keep this in mind if you ever come back!

Exclusive Reactions

Andor

Andor is starting this month, YAY! So excited to get the reactions out for you all! I hope those of you who are watching it are loving it so far. I've heard really good things and have avoided big spoilers and details too.

The Clone Wars

The Clone Wars is wrapping up this week with the arcs from Season 7 scheduled to post on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. While watching the final arc, I had a really neat idea come to mind. I discuss this idea in one of the videos in that arc and toss out the idea to you for feedback. But in between watching it and writing this post, I decided that I will go ahead with the idea anyway.

I didn't realize that the Siege of Mandalore arc occurs during the events of Revenge of the Sith; I thought it would happen before. Once I realized this, I thought that it would be a neat idea to combine my first reaction to SoM with my second reaction of RotS into one video. I have already watched a couple of videos that break down how SoM fits in RotS chronologically, so I would edit it in that chronological order instead of just placing one reaction before the other in spearate videos or even in the same video. That way story-wise, it just flows better.

I searched high and low on YouTube to see if anyone else has done something like this and as far as I could find, nobody has done exactly this. I did find one reaction creator who watched a 4.5 hour long supercut that contained RotS, SoM, and moments of the 2002 2D Clone Wars show. The only big difference is that they were watching all of that for the very first time and had not seen any other Clone Wars episodes. So they did not have the backstory and development of any TCW characters or events leading up to SoM, like I did.

In general, I feel like I've set myself apart a bit from other channels with my review/ranking videos of The Clone Wars. People are really enjoying them and this idea is another unique one that I think would be fun to create and put out as the GRAND FINALE of my Clone Wars experience. I will say right now that it will not be released on the channel until I have done all of my Season Reviews for TCW up until SoM. I may combine S6 and Ahsoka's Walkabout/Bad Batch Reels into one video since there are fewer arcs to talk about.

Please let me know what you think of this idea! I've basically committed to it, but I would still like to know if you support it and are excited for it.

The Bad Batch

I have decided not to wait until House of the Dragon is finished before starting TBB. I am diving into this show when I am back from vacation and I will put out my reaction to Episode 1 the week I get back. I can't wait!

And Your Regular Patreon Reminders...

• Declined Payments: I likely won't have the time to send out my standard decline message to anyone who has a declined payment, so if you all of a sudden lose your access, that'll be why. Please check to make sure your payment method is all good to go!
• Annual Memberships: At any time during your membership here, you can switch from monthly to annually and receive a 10% discount on the cost of the tier by doing so! Just go to your Membership settings for me to do this.
• Exclusive Reactions: My Snack Break discounted tier that has 100 slots always has some availability and there are spaces available this month too! If you've been considering checking out some of my exclusive stuff, the library is getting quite stacked with videos now, especially as The Clone Wars will be fully completed this week, Andor and The Bad Batch begins, and House of the Dragon will also wrap up this month. Come join us! You can switch tiers in your Membership settings. And if you would like to see what the exclusive stuff is all about for free, click here to check some reactions out!
• Discord Server: The best place to say hello to me every single day and interact with other people in the community in real-time. Sync your Discord account in your Patreon settings and you'll be auto-joined to the server.

I don't have much to say in this section in this month's newsletter as I've been laser focused on work for the past while and haven't done anything too exciting in my personal life. If you want to keep up with me on my vacation, please follow me on Instagram, Twitter, or join my Discord server. I'll be posting a lot of photos in all three places!

The only thing I will say is that I think a handful of you were sneaky-sneaky in my spoiler channel in my Discord server (that I don't go into) discussing a gift for me. 👀 Thank you so much to Absher and Yoshi1990 from here on Patreon along with one of my Twitch community members, JerseyGryphon, for contributing funds in a pool to get me my very first lightsaber!

I decided to get Obi-Wan Kenobi's first lightsaber from his Padawan days in The Phantom Menace. I chose this one because I love the duel with Darth Maul, I love Duel of the Fates, and I love Obi-Wan. 💛 Sometime in the future, I would love to also get both Ahsoka's lightsabers from The Clone Wars, and Anakin's second lightsaber that he used all throughout The Clone Wars, when he turned to the dark side, and then eventually ended up with Obi-Wan and then given to Luke. And that'll be my little saber collection. I have some other SW items in mind that I would like to get to kind of build up a little collection for my home.

Thank you for being a part of this community and for reading this month's newsletter! This one was long, but packed full of information and plans and I hope you are all as excited as I am! Thanks for being so wonderful! ✨