New YouTube Channel and Promo Video

My publisher, The Pragmatic Bookshelf, offers an interesting perk to its authors. It shows us real-time statistics for direct sales. Channel sales (e.g., Amazon) are not included in these reports but it’s still a useful tool to guesstimate overall sales.

Looking at the direct sales subset to date, the numbers are encouraging. So much for the waning interest in blogging! 😀

Holding Your Book Is a Great Feeling

The book is finally in print and this week I received my complimentary author copies.

It’s always a great feeling to hold the final product in your hands after investing so many hours in a project.

When I received them, I grabbed a copy and immediately opened a random page and started reading it. I had a wow, this is actually good moment. I know the book is good based on early feedback, but I tend to be a perfectionist and hypercritical of my own work.

Yet this edition feels right. From the cover (which I prefer over the dated first edition) to the actual content and how it’s formatted in the book.

I’m Starting a YouTube Channel

Following my own advice in the book, I decided to get a little more serious about video. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do but for one reason or another, never did.

I’m happy to announce a brand new YouTube channel I’m starting, called Tony on Tech. The plan is to use this channel for both technical and marketing topics. Hence, you can expect videos on programming, tech, content marketing, and social media.

If any of these topics interest you, I recommend that you subscribe now (use the bell to get actual notifications from YouTube).

In a way, video is not the ideal media for me. I learned English in my twenties, so I speak with an accent. Unlike carefully crafted words on paper, when I speak on the fly, I’m more likely to introduce a few mistakes here and there.

Yet, I like being able to make a stronger connection with my audience by expressing myself through video. I also believe that video is going to become more and more critical in the future. Always go where the audience is and give them content in the manner they prefer. And most people binge watch video content.

My First Video Is a Promo for the Book

A nice side effect of me experimenting with video is that I’ll get to share everything I learn about producing and marketing through video with you.

Incidentally, my first video for this channel is a promo video for my book. I find this video very unpolished, but it’s a starting point. The good news is, I can only improve from here, audio and video quality wise.

(If you are the very generous and forgiving kind, a like would be very much appreciated.)

I Will Share What I Learn About Video

Truth be told, I’m sort of running an experiment in which I’m launching three channels (perhaps biting off more than I can chew).

Specifically, I’m launching a new channel for my hobbies (related to the outdoors). Plus, I’m revamping my existing personal channel, which will be about self-improvement.

It’s not an approach I would recommend to others, but there are some benefits and a method to this madness. I’ll get to see how the techniques I employ to grow these channels affect different channels on various subjects.

It’s sort of a race between the three channels and it’s possible I won’t keep all of them forever if one manages to take off in a major way.

Subscribing to this blog (and the channels) is the best way to stay up to date with this video experiment and my future comments on the subject.

Thank you, everyone, for your amazing display of enthusiasm towards this new edition of my book.