Trail Thoughts ✦ November 2022 (Patreon)

Hi everyone! Sorry I'm a few days late on sharing the monthly newsletter. I hope everyone is doing well and getting all ready for Christmas! I still haven't put up my tree and I meant to do that like three weeks ago. At this point, I'm not even sure that I will put it up, but I would like to! Gotta make the time.

Before we get started, welcome in to all the new patrons that joined during the month of November (and the start of this month)! This is my Trail Thoughts newsletter that I write at the start of every month. This is where I share my data and analytics from my Twitch stream and YouTube channel, talk about the previous month and what happened, and discuss what I have planned for the month ahead and often a bit further out. Many folks look forward to reading my newsletter and it provides some different content here on Patreon to sprinkle in between everything else that I share. I really enjoy writing these posts, sharing my progress, and being transparent with you all about how things are going, as you are all such a big part of the journey and the success! Thank you for being here.

• # of Streams: 9 ⬆
• Avg Viewers, incl. Hosts & Raids: 24 ⬇
• Avg Viewers, excl. Hosts & Raids: 23 =
• Unique Viewers: 778 ⬆
• Unique Chatters: 135 ⬇
• Chat Messages: 3,774 ⬆ (avg 419 per stream ⬇)
• New Followers: 59 ⬆ (avg of 6-7 per stream ⬆)
• Subscriptions: 51 ⬆ (avg 5-6 per stream ⬇)

The symbols beside each data point indicate if the figures are up or down relative to the previous month. If there is an equal sign, there is no change.

It was a pretty casual month on Twitch, but honestly, ever since I started putting more focus on YouTube and Patreon, Twitch has kind of become my chill place. I think that's evident in the downward trend of my viewership this year and then the change to morning streams that I did back in September, but it's all good. November continued with more Dragon Age: Origins and getting closer to the end of Star Wars: KOTOR II! I also checked out a new game to me called Telling Lies and played that for a stream. It was neat!

The final stream of Star Wars: KOTOR II will be this Wednesday morning and I am so excited to finish this game! I've been playing the KOTOR games on stream for over a year now and it will be nice to have that chapter closed. It was all thanks to the first KOTOR game that got me to watch the movies and react to them to put on YouTube, which then grew and evolved to become this *points around*. Forever grateful.

So what is next after KOTOR? I am so excited to revisit the Wasteland by firing up Fallout 3. This will be a FIRST PLAYTHROUGH, as I have only played Fallout: New Vegas. I cannot wait to check out this game as I know a few people who think 3 is better than NV, and others who feel the opposite. I'm so excited to see for myself which game I prefer more.

I also hope to finish Dragon Age: Origins this month and carry over all my terrible decisions to Dragon Age 2. 

As for flex days, I want to play Insurmountable as my best friend Bree gifted it to me. And maybe I will dust off my Nintendo Switch and get into some Switch games again. We'll see!

If you haven't had a chance to stop by my Twitch stream, I am live every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 09:00 MST / 16:00 UTC. My streams are my place to chill out and start off those three days well by hanging out with all of you. If you ever have the time, come say hi!

• # of Videos: 35 total ⬆ - 7 public videos ⬆, 1 short ⬆, and 27 for Patreon ⬆
• Impressions: 3,291,051 ⬆
• Total Views: 134,183 ⬆
• Views on November's Videos: 87,475 ⬆
• CTR (Click-Through Rate): 2.7% ⬇
• Watch Time: 36,847.30 hours ⬆
• Average % Viewed*: 33.6% ⬆
• Unique Viewers: 64,909 ⬆
• Net New Subscribers: 3,260 ⬆

The symbols beside each data point indicate if the figures are up or down relative to the previous month. If there is an equal sign, there is no change.

* 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!

Well, it's clear that November was a really great month for the channel and I am very pleased with how it went overall! Starting the MCU resulted in the boost of new viewers that I had hoped would happen and a lot of those viewers have gone and watched my Star Wars reactions (I've had more comments on those videos in the last few weeks than since I first watched them) and other videos. 

In the last Trail Thoughts newsletter I said, and I quote, "I'm trying not to overcommit myself" and what did I do in November? That's right, overcommit myself. 🤣 Y'all, I'm just too excited about all these movies! And I'm still terrible at estimating how much time things will take. 

Maybe one day I will figure it out.

To wrap up my thoughts on November...

• Favourite Movie: The Last Samurai
• Favourite Reaction: The Last Samurai
• Best Comments Received On: I can't decide this month... I had a lot of really sweet comments across multiple videos this month! 
• Highest Liked Video: Season 5 of The Clone Wars Review (99.1%)
• Lowest Liked Video: Passengers (89.7%)

ICYMI, I already shared what is coming in December in this post here. So check that post to read about what's to come this month!

In terms of other YouTube-y things, I still need to finish updating thumbnails, titles, descriptions on older videos to get everything looking consistent and fresh. I went into more detail about this in last month's newsletter.

I'm skipping over the YouTube Updates section of the newsletter this time around as I don't really have much to share! I'm glad to have a pretty firm plan for the channel as we close out 2022 and I am very excited for 2023. But more about that in a month from now.

IMPORTANT: TIER CHANGES FOR 2023

This post has been pinned every since it was shared, and I've updated my tier descriptions for the two tiers that will be deleted, but if all of that was still missed, this is your reminder to go read up on those changes, ESPECIALLY if you are a new patron (signed up in November or so far this month). I have made a calendar entry for later this month to reach out privately to those of you who are still in the tiers that will be deleted. 

Regular Reminders

• Annual Memberships: If you know you're going to be a part of the Patreon for a while, this is my THANK YOU for the commitment! When you switch from monthly to annually, you'll receive a 10% discount on the cost of the tier. Just go to your Membership settings to do this. 
• Discord Server: This is the best place to say hello to me every single day and interact with other people in the community in real-time instead of just through Patreon comments. Sync your Discord account in your Patreon settings and you'll be auto-joined to my server.

Early Insiders Tier

My discounted tier for exclusive reactions that has 100 spots always has some availability and there are spaces available this month, BUT this tier is starting to get close to being completely filled (which is incredible, thank you)! So if you've been considering checking out some of my exclusive stuff, now would be the time to switch your tier! There are a lot of videos to watch now too, so 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!

I'm also happy to announce that this week I will be starting the show BREAKING BAD to put into these tiers! I'm very excited to start another TV series and I know this one has been asked for by a few people. So Star Wars Rebels and Breaking Bad will be the exclusive shows for the near future.

Last month, Ella had her 13th birthday and I bought her some new treats to celebrate. I wish dogs could know when their birthday is. It was honestly a pretty average and normal day for us. Here's a couple pics of my sweet old girl.

Honestly, I don't really have anything super exciting to share here. 🤣 After the huge vacation I had in October, the last half of that month and all of November were pretty chill for me. I did get to spend time with family last month, which was needed.

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That concludes this month's newsletter! Thank you so much for reading it and being a part of this community. I love what I do and I really enjoy getting to talk to all of you.