My Experiences on YouTube & Plans for 2018

Description

I have been on YouTube for a while now. Its been a fantastic platform for sharing interests, skills and communicating with others. Its changed a lot over the five years I have been making videos and I thought I would share my honest experiences and talk about the future of my channel and whats coming up in 2018.

Thanks for watching.

MCQBushcraft:

If your interested in Bushcraft & Survival skills, fishing, hunting, fire lighting, plants & mushrooms, camp cooking, shelter building, self reliance, wilderness & primitive living skills, weaving plant fibers, knives, axes, saws and maintaining these tools in the field and much much more then check out my channel page below for playlists and more videos.

All my Videos:

https://www.youtube.com/user/MCQBushcraft/videos

Check out my Shop for hand made products and more:

http://www.mcqbushcraft.co.uk/shop/

Have a look at my Amazon Stores:

UK Store - http://astore.amazon.co.uk/mcqbushcraft-21

US Store - http://astore.amazon.com/mcq-20

Follow me on Social Media:

Connect On My Website - http://www.MCQBushcraft.co.uk

Connect On Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/MCQBushcraft

Connect On Instagram - http://www.instagram.com/mcqbushcraft1

Connect On Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/MCQBushcraft

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Video Transcription

hi there guys it's Mike from mcq bushcraft here and welcome to another video on the channel it's 2018 I'm filming this not long after the new year has happened and a Happy New Year to you all I thought I'd start the year by doing a channel update video if you follow me on social media Instagram Facebook things like that then what I talk about in this video will probably be no surprise and you would already have a good idea of what's coming up this year as myself and Megan have a very big trip plans that we're gonna be documenting but if you're not aware of all of that then this will probably be new to you but I wanted to start the video off really by talking about the channel I've been on YouTube for a while now and I think last year was probably the year which I put the least amount of content type 2017 it was quite a tough year for me obviously I started running my own bushcraft courses as well as doing a lot more courses anyway that I normally do and I wasn't able to put as much time into the channel anymore and that's not because I didn't want to that's because YouTube is a very different animal than it used to be four or five years ago and it's changed a lot you've got to remember that YouTube is an advertising platform earned by Google and I don't think in its existence or when it's been owned by Google anyway it's never turned over a profit and a lot of you probably don't realize that and YouTube is actually quite a new website even though it's been around some some time Google kind of classify it as a website that some in its early stages of development so it's still not expected to make a profit yet and because of that it changes all the time and as a content creator and someone who has a channel like me I see and feel that quite a bit in fact when I first started my channel and I kind of left my normal job and I was working as an instructor part-time I was doing the the two things together I was actually earning a bit of money from YouTube and I was sort of thinking wow this is amazing you know I can I can I can make videos about things I enjoy earn a bit of a living and work as a bushcraft instructor at the same time and the two things kind of work together because obviously they're about the same thing and it developed and it developed and it got to the point where I was doing okay off of YouTube and I could actually do it as a job and it was an unusual thing and you for those who have followed the channel for a while you probably remember a couple of years ago I was putting out maybe two videos a week really churning out the videos and the channel was really kind of thriving at one point and then everything kind of changed and YouTube decided that they were gonna restructure everything a little bit the algorithm all that kind of stuff that sits in the background and suddenly I lost I think 60 or more percent of what I was earning from YouTube within a week or two or a month or so so suddenly I was left thinking wow this is really unstable and I had a chat with a friend of mine who knew people who worked at YouTube and he sort of said to me um he does YouTube videos as well but he said to me look Mike you've got to get out of the game it's crazy to rely on this platform and effectively it is it's kind of like building a business in somebody else's back garden and then then just deciding to change everything because it's not working and they don't really care what you say and that's that's YouTube in a nutshell really they don't really care about their content creators unless they're massive creators like some of the huge channels out there with 15 plus million sometimes a bit less subscribers who do a lot of work so everything changed overnight for me I ramped up teaching as an instructor I started expanding a little bit more and doing leather work and selling my products and I was back on my feet again within about a year so it took me about a year to kind of sort that all out and you probably didn't hear me talk about that on the channel but there's no reason for me to do that because it's my problem not yours really so I just kind of got all that sorted and about a year later I was back on my feet again but it taught me a valuable lesson and kind of the reason why I'm telling you all this a valuable lesson where YouTube is a highly unstable platform and it shouldn't be something that should be relied on for making a business and now is the hardest time if ever to come on YouTube and make a living out of it and my intention was never to make a living from it if I chose to make a living off of youtube I wouldn't have started a channel about bushcraft which is a subject that exists on the fringes of society that very few people know about things are a bit different now on YouTube I also did patreon as well you probably remember Pat tree and we've you've heard a lot about patreon or patron or have you pronounce it my wife actually started patreon for me as a bit of an experiment and I didn't even know it was happening for a while and then one day she sat there and when I want to show you something and I hope you're not angry and I sat there and she opened up this website and there were like a few however many hundred people donating to the contribution of the channel and initially I was like ah this is horrific people are giving me money and I wasn't happy about it and I've never been particularly happy about it but it did help me out a lot in hard times and it allowed for a lot of things like a lot of camera gear a lot of equipment even clothing and stuff like that I use when I'm outdoors it really did help me out and I've nothing but gratitude for the people out there that helped me on patreon but now I'm at a position where I don't need people to help me on patreon I've shut it down and hopefully I can give back to everyone this year what they gave me last year in patreon and if you stick around I will let you know exactly what's coming up on the channel so if you followed me on Instagram and Facebook you'll know that I have a Jeep Cherokee and I've been working on that Cherokee for two years it's kind of my hobby in the spare time and I really enjoy working on it but myself and Megan are going on a bit of an overland trip this year 2018 we leave April so early April will be leaving and will be traveling through Europe doing a combination of wild camping and rooftop tent camping with the Jeep basically around Europe and then we'll be going into Norway I'll be staying with a couple of friends of mine hopefully in Norway if they'll have us I know they said they have they will but you know I'll test that as well closer to the time and I totally respect if they don't want me there but it'd be nice if they did hidden him but we'll be going into Norway we'll be doing a series of wild camping in Norway and using the rooftop tent and camping around living out of our vehicle most of the time and then we'll be travelling into Sweden a lot of you remember we went to Sweden in 2016 we were invited over there and sponsored like destination South Lapland to go to Sweden in the part of southern Lapland basically and stay with Kristian a husky kennel Lapland he showed us the Huskies we spent time with him he basically convoy us around and dropped this off we did canoeing and we did some sort of expeditions out in the wilderness kind of mini trips here and there and we had an amazing time they're still actually is one more video to come of that trip that I struggled with because the audio failed on me we've stayed with a family out there of knife makers that gifted us some knives and that video will be coming up soon I've kind of managed to rescue almost all of the footage and it's just me voiceover in it in parts where there's no audio so hopefully you're enjoy that video and it will kind of honor the guys who let us stay with them as well because I always felt a bit bad that I never managed to get that video out but um we're going back there we're going back to Sweden and we might be staying there for quite some time exploring the north of the country traveling around in some of the trails and off-road trails in the Jeep just exploring really and staying in our little abode which will be our rooftop tent and awning preferably as well and I've been gradually building up the equipment but I still have a lot to do so base

I've been working on my workshop I've got it all kitted out I'm gonna get the Jeep in there and I'm gonna get all the work done on it got to rebuild the diffs there's a little bit of work I've got to do on the engine I've got to fit the roof rack I've bought a front runner slimline two aluminium roof rack which is a South African roof rack very nice quality one and then we'll be choosing a roof 10 and I don't know which roof 10 I'm gonna choose yet I'd like to keep the weight of the vehicle down as well just because I think fuel economy is quite important really there's a squirrel over there making a lot of noise and it just keeps its messing up my my attention you know my cheese getting fingers are starting there it's cold as well it's not temperature cold it's just bitterly cold but anyway I hope you guys enjoy what's coming up I wanted to make this video really to kick off the new year so you weren't surprised that I'm suddenly in a garage building a winch bumper for my truck I'm wondering what the hell's Mike suddenly doing now he's lost the plot it's not like that

preparing for a huge trip got a lot to do and you know I've only got a short space of time to do it so thank you for watching the channel I really appreciate it and you know I'll see you very very soon in another video happy new year take care I'll see you again