 Well shagun, my name's Cam, welcome back to another video. And uh, you know what? Thanks for watching. Thanks for clicking. Am I the only one who thinks it's kind of weird to think about the fact that author tube is only four years old? I mean, the movie Zootopia is literally older than author tube? I don't know. That's uh, it's weird for me at least. It feels like author tube is something that's just been around forever. It feels like author tube's been around at least as long as book tube, but it's not even close. And you know what's even weirder though? And it's honestly, it's surreal for me to think about. And that's that I was on here when author tube became a thing. I was here when it started. I was on YouTube making videos about reading and writing pretty much the day that the term author tube was coined. I remember the specific video. I think it was on Lily Mead's channel. I think I even made a video when it became a thing, a video basically talking about this new weird thing called author tube. Don't get me wrong, that's not me trying the flex or anything like that. I mean, I'm sure that the first thing people think when they see this big ass head is, wow, what a trend setter. Look at that outfit. So trendy. But no, really it's just a bizarre feeling looking back on that video. That's all. I watched that old video of mine again recently, which normally I hate doing. Not that I don't think I'm a cute little handsome man boy or anything. It's just watching myself feels just a bit too goofy anyway. Watching that video felt a bit like looking into a time capsule. I mean, in the video itself, I don't even sound entirely convinced that the term author tube is going to catch on in the video. I'm talking about how cool it would be if author tube became a thing. This could be the start of something beautiful booktube's been around for years and years. Let's see if we could be issuing the start of author tube as we know it. Fast forward to today and author tube is a huge community. It's massive. If author tube was a meme that is way too old for me to be referencing, it would be big chungus. An author tube newbie tag goes up like every day or two and the author tube platform itself has launched or boosted the careers of at least a few people to varying degrees of success. I suppose I should clarify just in case you're new to author tube or if you haven't even heard of it before. Basically author tube is in the grand scheme of things a small community within new tube although it is still quite large. I would even say it's a branch of booktube, consisting basically of creators that talk at least almost exclusively about writing. Not particularly the writing in books that they're reading but rather their writing that they are doing. Writing process videos, writing tips, author interviews, publishing insights and more. The list goes on. There's even drama sometimes which is obviously really cool and fun and not f***ing lame at all. Author tube. It's a big thing and as far as I would expect it's only going to get bigger. So I have a few different topics I want to chat about on the topic of author tube in this video. This is a discussion video by the way. I like discussion videos. I really enjoy making them. More than any other video I make about writing discussion videos on author tube really feels like I'm having a direct conversation with the community so it's always really fun to do. Plus it also gives me a bit of a break when I'm editing the videos. Isn't that right Cam? By the way if anyone wanted to make a response video to this video or just wanted to join in the discussion in general I would love it if you did. Let me know if you do. So I was watching a Kate Kavanaugh video recently and the topic of author tube being rebranded as writer tube kind of came up. It gave me massive day job at the time and I couldn't figure out why. It honestly had me really confused. It felt like I just watched Inception backwards after shelving a fistful of wacky tobacco. Then I remembered I talked about pretty much exactly this conversation in that old video of mine. When author tube started that's actually how I ended up rewatching it again recently. See it all came full circle. Basically when author tube first became a thing and I made that video about it that discussion video I did mention in there that I felt not calling it writer tube was a bit of a wasted opportunity specifically because I felt that there was a bit of a risk that people may think it's only for published authors rather than anyone who is writing. And from what I can tell that has pretty much been the focus of this discussion again with it popping up in 2020. People feeling like the term author tube might seem a bit exclusive. Although there are a few more angles as well that I hadn't even considered when I made that old video. My concern at the time was that people who were writing something but weren't yet published might feel like they can't call themselves author tubers. But something I hadn't really even thought about was that if it was called writer tube then it would also feel more inclusive to not just people who are in the process of writing a novel but also ghost writers, screenwriters, poets, basically all of the different types of writers that we don't generally think of when we hear the term author. And to be honest I think that's a pretty good point. What do you think? I'm genuinely interested in what you think on that point. Honestly, I wouldn't mind in the slightest if author tube was somehow changed or rebranded to be writer tube. I'd be completely on board with that. And if people, I don't know how they would, but if people somehow wanted to kind of try and make that happen I would actively participate in that, sure, why not. However, allow me if I can to also play devil's advocate. I know when people say that they usually follow up with something really dumb and maybe that's what's about to happen but I've come this far so I may as well dip my beans in, so to speak. Hang on, let me make myself comfortable here. While I feel that not calling it writer tube is a bit of a wasted opportunity, that looked stupid. While I feel that not calling it writer tube is a bit of a wasted opportunity, I also don't think it really matters anymore. I definitely don't think it matters enough for it to be a big deal, not that anyone in particular is really making it out to be a big deal. You get my point, I just don't think it's that important really. In the beginning I feel that there was a very real risk of the name author tube feeling exclusionary to people who weren't authors. But luckily, I just don't think that's what ended up happening. Author tube happens to be filled, I would say, primarily by a heavy, heavy majority, by unpublished writers of almost every kind. And I think everyone's just accepted that's fine. If the term author tube really did exclude anyone who isn't an author, there would be like three people here. With a few extremely rare exceptions, I feel like everyone on author tube is pretty supportive and accepting of anyone who calls themselves a writer. I can count on one hand the amount of people that have even come close to seeming like they were trying to push others out of author tube based on their writing or how successful they are or aren't. And it's probably because communities of creative hobbyists are usually pretty accepting. Partly because I think we all know how hard it can be to be a creative hobbyist. We all know just how cutthroat it can be putting your writing out there for the world to see and hoping for the best. So supporting each other has become somewhat of a survival mechanism for writers at the moment also. And it's something that I very rarely see people mention, but the bulk of the author tube community isn't actually the people making the videos like me. The very, very vast majority of author tube isn't the creators. It's the audience. There are tens of thousands of other people in the author tube community who choose to just watch the videos while they work on their own writing projects. It's basically like that scene in Spartacus. We are all author tube. I am Spartacus. I am Spartacus. I am Spartacus. I am Spartacus. I am Spartacus. The creators, the audience, we're all Spartacus. Anyway, my point on this particular topic is simply that if author tube were to change to writer tube, I think that would make sense and I'm on board for that. But also, I don't think it matters that much. I do not plan to do any more writing advice or writing tip videos. I've said this in a few videos very briefly, but I'm glad that I can now dedicate some time to really giving you clarification and letting you know what I mean when I say that. When I started on author tube, there was only really two types of videos people would make or two types of videos, at least, that people would watch on author tube. And that was tag videos and writing tip videos. And that's the real reason that I did so many writing tip videos back in the day. It's because that felt like it was the only type of video that people were interested in watching. The idea that people would want to watch videos where you're literally just talking about your own writing and how it's going, it was just a little bit unheard of. I'm not saying it didn't exist. Maybe it did, but it definitely wasn't a popular thing, especially on author tube. Also, aside from tag videos and writing advice videos, we didn't really have many other ideas today. We've got creative writing challenge videos. We've got writing sprint live streams. There's a ton of stuff on author tube now for you to enjoy, which is brilliant, obviously. It's great. The clout is being more evenly dispersed nowadays, which is great. Back then, it feels weird saying back then. Back then, it was mostly business rather than personal videos. Author tube was more about trying to make yourself look professional and smart so that people trust your opinion and your advice, which in turn would mean they trust your ability as a writer, which in turn means, hopefully, that they would trust your ability to write books and then they would buy your books. Anyway, I don't really want to do writing tip or writing advice videos anymore because I just feel like I'm not really all that qualified to do so. And there happen to be people on author tube now who are. I want to be clear, though, and I hope this makes sense, considering everything I just said, but I don't really think there's anything wrong with the old writing tip videos that I did make. I've taken down quite a few, some that were fine, some that I feel were bad. I actually even did a video very recently on what was probably the worst of my writing tip videos, it was a video about self-publishing verse traditional publishing. Anyway, I've taken down a lot of them, but I still think some of them and some that I might have left up are good or at the very least, fine. Some of the writing tip videos I did was me just talking about my personal preferences or giving recommendations like the videos I did, giving you recommendations for great apps that writers can use on their phones. One of the most popular series on my channel like ever has been the writing cliches to avoid videos. It's entirely possible that that's how you watching this video right now might have actually found my channel. And I think those videos do qualify as me giving writing advice. But I think the important distinction here is that it wasn't just me saying, do this, don't do this. It was more so me just basically me just having a chat about some of the things that readers were out there saying that they were sick of seeing in stories. So videos like that, I think are fine. Feel free to disagree on that. Let me know what you think about the whole writing tips on author to discussion. Anyway, to be clear, I'm still going to be doing videos on author to where I talk about my personal tastes and things that I think are good and bad practices in writing. But what I'm saying is that I'm not going to be doing videos where the goal is to try and educate people or anything like that. Just because I don't want to stir anyone on the wrong track, you know. And to be honest, it just makes me happier talking about writing as someone who is still just learning the ropes like everyone else. Now, I know that some of you might be wondering what my views are on other author tubers that do videos, giving writing tips and writing advice, that kind of thing. I'm not going to shade anyone. I've seen bad advice on author to before. Some of it was from me, but I've also seen a lot of good advice. I really, really detest the idea that someone has to be an expert in their field to pass on any of their knowledge about a certain subject. I just think that's such a smooth brain mindset. So I absolutely think author tubers can do writing advice videos if they aren't published. I would probably just say this to those people. Don't feel like you have to do writing tip videos to be an author tuber. You absolutely don't. I know the idea of not doing writing tip videos might be a bit scary because that's where all of the big views come from. But making the decision to educate people also means that you are taking on the responsibility of an educator. People are going to be way more critical of you and your writing. And they should be. I'm not an expert when it comes to writing, and I really, really hope that I've never given anyone the impression that I am. If I have, I'm genuinely sorry. Like I said, I'm still just learning the ropes, man. I'm learning like everyone else. So hopefully my future videos will reflect that. I guess I should say as well really quickly that the same kind of goes for author tubers who sell courses and other educational material. I'm cool with it. But when it comes to you actually making people give you money for you to educate them, I really hope you know what you're talking about. Listen, if you try to rip people off with some half arsed Google copy paste job that has the same structure as home is barbecue pit kit, you are going to get blasted online and you deserve it. So I think it'll be really interesting to look back on author to in another four years and just see how far it's come. It'll be interesting to see if author tubes changed a lot since then. It'll be interesting to see if it's perhaps known as writer tube by then. I can't imagine how looking back on the year 2020 could be anything but fun. My hope for the future of author to would probably just be that it does stay drama free and I hope author tube is just relax a bit. You know, don't worry so much about what the other author tube is doing and just consider the fact that the author tube community is like less than 1 percent creators and 99 percent audience. I personally like to pay more attention to what the comments are saying on author to videos rather than what the creators are. Just look after yourself is all I'm saying. Being a writer can be pretty stressful. People will downplay it because it's a hobby, but it really can take a lot out of you. So just take it easy. In four years, I should have quite a few books out by then, unless the first couple of books I release don't go so well. In that case, I'm probably living in a cave in the Australian desert alone with my shame. Hey, if you watch the video this far, I want to give you a special thank you. I'm not about the plug a sponsor or anything like that. I'm just I literally just want to say thank you. In fact, allow me to get sappy for just a minute. The amount of love and support that I've gotten on this channel over the last couple of years is just it's nothing short of incredible. I've been thinking about it a lot recently, and it's legitimately made me a bit emotional at times. I get so many nice comments and messages, and despite not having any books out at the moment, it really does make me feel very passionate and very enthusiastic about writing and the community around it. My channel, it's a little bit odd in a way because I don't want to seem like I'm not grateful for all of the subscribers I have. I really am. But also my videos don't get as many views as other channels around my subscriber count or channels with even a lot less. And that's fine. But to be honest, I just don't really care because at the end of the day, when I think about it, there are at least 12,000 people who have seen my videos and thought to themselves, yeah, he seems OK. And they've gone and hit that subscribe button. And that's just so much more than I could have ever hoped for. So knowing that there's even a few hundred people out there who care about me and care about my writing is enough to make my soul feel like it's being wind and dined on a daily basis. And yeah, I'm standing by that comparison. Just thank you so much. I see you. I appreciate you. And whether it was your intention or not, you really have made my life better just for being a part of it. OK, I'm out before this turns into any more of a Nicholas Sparks novel. Catch you.