I Started a YouTube Channel. Here's What I Learned

Hey friends! Welcome back to the Loose Leaf List. This month, I launched two pretty cool things: a new website and a new YouTube channel!

During my time making videos for Instagram and TikTok, I’ve learned I enjoy creating video essays, and YouTube seemed like a fun new challenge. Having now uploaded my first video, and filmed another which I’m currently editing, I can say it certainly is a fun challenge, but perhaps a tougher one than I anticipated.

Why I Thought It Would Be Easy

I’ve made some pretty long videos in my time on TikTok. Turns out, I can natter about Doctor Who for ages, so I’ve created quite a few videos that that push the ten-minute mark, and even one over 12 minutes the other day. (Thankfully, some people still seem interested in watching all ~10 minutes of my Who content — I love Whovians!)

I can churn out one of those long TikToks in the space of a few hours, so I figured YouTube would be a breeze. But there are a few factors that speed up the process of making TikToks relative to YouTube.

First, it’s quicker to edit a vertical video — I can use CapCut on my phone, which is a super fast and handy editor, but I’m currently using iMovie on my laptop, which is a bit more fiddly. Second, with all the hugely high-quality YouTube videos out there, viewers tend to expect a bit more polish on YouTube.

Not to mention that 10 minutes is on the low end of what I would post on YouTube — my first video, about fictional planets that orbit real stars, is only about 11-and-a-half minutes, but the Doctor Who series review I’m editing right now is more like 33 minutes. What can I say? I’m a blabbermouth.

What I Hope to Learn

So, having been taken down a peg by the challenge of creating and uploading my first video, I’m looking forward to developing a few skills with my YouTube channel:

• Writing scripts that are long but still well-structured

• Slicker and more professional editing

• Speaking slower and more clearly (you can get away with talking a bit faster on TikTok and Reels, but even then, I’ve had my fair share of comments on those platforms asking me to slow down!)

These things take time. My goal is to post a new video to YouTube about once a month — I have some really fun ideas for video essays on sci-fi and fantasy, Doctor Who, and maybe some linguistics nerdery as well. Basically, geeking out in long-form! I’m excited to see how I improve with practice.

I once attended a talk by a highly accomplished professor who said that every so often, she takes a workshop or joins a club for an activity she’s never done before and knows she will suck at. That way, she broadens her horizons, stays curious, and doesn’t get too big of a ego from only focusing on her area of expertise.

That’s what I want YouTube to be for me. I might never be as skilled as my favorite video essayists, but I hope this will be an opportunity to try something new, develop new skills, and have fun.

Are there any new skills you’re trying to learn? Share in the comments!

What I Read This Month

June was a slow reading month for me, thanks to work stuff taking over my life a bit, but I did discover a new favorite!

The Principle of Moments by Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson

The Principle of Moments is an epic science fantasy novel featuring time travel, magic, advanced technology, taking down an evil space empire, and an age-old prophecy slowly coming true. I picked it up when I heard it’s good for Doctor Who fans, and it certainly has all the wibbly wobbly spacey wacey goodness a Whovian like me could wish for!

For more thoughts, see my full review of The Principle of Moments here!

In Case You Missed It …

In which I round up my favorite fun posts that I made this past month!

Of course, the video that took the most effort this month was my very first YouTube video, about fictional planets that orbit real stars and whether it would actually be possible for those planets to exist:

Speaking of space, I also posted a shorter video on Instagram and TikTok about three planets outside our solar system that I think should be the setting for a fantasy novel:

On Instagram and TikTok, I talked about four words that are actually diminutives of other words. (What’s a diminutive, you ask? Well, you can watch the video to find out!)

For the Whovians over on TikTok, I not only finished my series of reviews for every episode of the new season of Doctor Who, but I also did a deep dive into the character of the Ninth Doctor:

@looseleafellie

Never. Skip. Nine. #DoctorWho #WhoTok #NinthDoctor #RoseTyler

And finally, on Instagram, I shared my tips for traveling with loads of physical books without hurting them:

Thank you so much for reading! Until next time, bookish friends.

Love,

Ellie