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Andy Ward | Episode 922
Andy Ward hand builds pottery from natural materials using primitive tools. Andy personally gathers and processes all the raw materials he uses for his pottery. Andy’s work is a product of the earth, a piece of the Southwest desert, inspired by the ancient potters who came before.
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This conversation has been edited for ease of reading.
Does it require a commitment to run a YouTube channel? I heard you say one a week. How important is that commitment to consistency?
When you fist get started that’s what they always tell you. You’ve got to keep up on a regular release schedule and then people are more likely to subscribe to you because they can look and see your videos and see, Oh he releases regularly. Where if it’s hit and miss they might be like, Well, I enjoyed this video but I am not going to subscribe. Yeah, I’ve worked really hard at being weekly.
Does that mean that you have a set time and a set day that you actually release the videos?
Yes, my videos always come out at six o’clock in the morning on Wednesday.
At what point did YouTube start to make you more findable?
Yeah, that’s good. It increases as you grow, so when I had 500 subscribers they would open the door a little more, the more you have right? So at 50 subscribers they might let ten people a week find you. But when you have 500 subscribers they might let 500 people find you. It’s funny but I think as you grow they open the door wider and wider and I don’t think there’s any end to that. I think when you get to MrBeast the door opens really wide. So I think I am still growing in that regard.
Is there a perfect video length?
No, you know a lot of people do really short videos and are very successful. And some people do really, really long ones. I started out doing four or five minutes but I have found that really to tell the story, if you are making a whole pot, the whole process, you really need fifteen to twenty minutes. But I don’t think that is the factor of success or failure on YouTube.
What tools do you use for editing?
It’s called Final Cut Pro. It’s an Apple product. And fortunately for me I was working for the University when I bought it and I got the education discount. When you are just starting on YouTube you are counting your nickels and dimes. There’s so much expensive equipment. When I was a web developer I didn’t need to have nearly as much stuff as I have to have as a YouTuber.
Does producing videos result in sales of any kind for you?
Yeah, so that’s the other end of my business. I sell online classes and I also sell things like polishing stones and gourd scrapers and some pottery tools and things on my website. And definitely the more views I get the higher the sales go up on my website. They are definitely correlated.
There’s this idea that all one needs to do is to create a big enough YouTube channel base that you can just live off of the revenue that YouTube actually gives you. Is that truth or is that fable?
Yeah, that’s mostly fable. You’ve got to have a lot of views to live off of that. As it is right now I think the actual money that I make from the ads on my videos is maybe a third of my income. So it’s not anything to sneeze at but if I was trying to live on that I don’t think I could do it. All the experts tell you you want multiple streams of income. You want merch and classes or like an eBook. Some other things you can make money on.
Book
Messages from the High Desert by Clint Swink
Contact
Youtube: ancientpottery
Instagram: @ancientpottery