Yeah, I'm not saying go completely silent, but like maybe describe your slacker approach to gathering firewood as an intro followed by video of you doing it with Gonzo making cameos. Drop in the occasional comment, sit at the picnic table and drink tea when you should be working, etc. People will watch the **** out of that if you can shoot and edit it well.

Sapo,

^^that.

Also if you can have a hot girl in a bikini in the video lounging around by the fire and stuff, that’ll help too.

This.

Plus yeah, hot girl in a bikini lounging around is obv. low-hanging fruit opportunity for pretty much any situation on YT.

I checked out the Kickstarter; pretty sick +$40 delivery rate from USA#1 to lol-Canada for a $24 subscription. Is that a Trump-induced added cost to get the comic over the soon to be Border-Ice-Wall?

NOTE: Your writer-ly skills in answering this question will go a long way for me deciding whether to commit to clicking all those buttons to finalize the sign-up process. No pressure.

Yes, one mistake I made was in not knowing what international shipping would cost. I put in a one-rate-fits-all approach to anything outside the U.S., but clearly it is a bit ridiculous for some places. ****.

Next week I'll hit the post office and get actual costs, though I'm not sure I can change the Kickstarter cost on that. Damnit. Clearly, it should not cost much to get it to Canada, Mexico, etc. Sorry about that.

Just had lunch with a friend and we talked about the YouTube channel stuff. Thanks for all the advice, everyone. Very much appreciate it. It feels a bit overwhelming, but maybe the key is to just do one piece at a time.

Unfortunately, getting a hot girl in a bikini out here may be a problem.

Good thoughts, thank you Any thoughts on length? I was thinking five minutes and under, but seems like everything online is longer than that.

You pretty much convinced me with:

And then just about lost me with:

But I knew the book and Youtube things aren't related so I just said **** and mashed the buttons before I came to my senses about the insane delivery charge. Can't help thinking that you would be doing a hell of a lot better if the delivery rate wasn't twice that of the product. ****.

Here's a good example of off the grid vlog.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm2...IUxq1eyqhbivfg


They don't get tons of views but videos are educational and interesting.

gonzo would totally kill the role of the hot bikini girl!
He is cute, he is cool and for attracting female audience he is a lot better than hot bikini girl!

I think you have done a pretty good presentation on Kickstarter.

For what I'm thinking I'd say under 5, and maybe under 2. The stuff you post here sound like they'd make good vignettes to me, and I also think you'd do better with a bunch of frequently posted short videos than a small number of long ones.

NB: I am in no way a social media expert and I'm mostly talking out my ass.

I put together this video as an update for the project.

Wow, thank you so much. I will work on the shipping options. I can't change them at this point, but I'll figure something out and get it right.

Yeah, I like this. Personable and not trying to teach me too much .... the guy made me laugh out loud, which is a good sign.

Even as simple as their video is, it's pretty good, the voice over on other video, the kids' cameos ... I don't think any of it seems too difficult to learn, but who knows.

Does anyone have experience designing a channel? Like, do I need to basically start a new account specifically for this?

I've never really used YouTube for anything but listening to music and ... actually that's about it.

Yeah, this works for me. Informative, casual, some humor, and Gonzo makes a cameo.

I gotta agree. Stretch it out to 8-10 minutes showing how you take care of living off the grid, a bit of chit-chat mixed with some humour will work out just fine.

Good luck.

Random advice from a random. I liked the first part of the video, but as you were showing pages it seemed to go too fast. Maybe show half the pages for twice as long. Or even a third for three times as long... just my gut reaction. Love what you're doing. Good luck.

As mentioned above, eight to ten minutes is ideal. It allows for a commercial at the start and one in the middle. Check out channels by The King Of Random, over 8 million subscribers, and Crazy Russian Hacker, over 10 million subscribers. These guys make a very comfortable living just off youtube. I remember when the King of Random announced he was quitting his job just to do youtubes. The key is putting out lots of videos, at least one a week.

Ha! Gonzo is there hunting!

Cool vid. Very cool and not a given is that you expressed appreciation for support.

Generally what was for me the most interesting in this last bunch of posts is description of your energy setup, because it made me think, and comparison of your work with other works, because I have no clue and it made me google.

Nice video ElSapo. Have you tried looking into reddit for your book?

It's definitely can be a fickle place, especially if you're obviously trying to promote something, but there will certainly be some subs that would be interested to see this/hear your story. You could even try do a little AMA on there.

If you run out of real time ideas you can always do a Flashback Friday or something and tell stories from your cross country trip. I thoroughly enjoyed that thread as it happened. If I remember correctly you're a pretty fair photographer so maybe show some of your better pictures and tell the stories that go with them.

Edit: I'll always remember your magnetized screen window covers! I haven't put the idea to use yet, but I will damnit!

If you cook the way ElD cooks maybe you should make a cooking channel!

Went out for an evening hike and found this poor guy.

I don't have any problem with responsible hunting, but there seems to be a shortage of it around here. Each year, hunters harvest what they want and leave carcasses to rot beside the road. Last year I had to eject two guys who were trespassing.

It looks to me like someone took a bad shot. A very small deer. Looks like the shot went high, it traced along its spine, a deep gash at the top of its back. It bolted and died on my land.

I asked some people what to do about it, and they said if I wasn't going to harvest it ("it's on your land, it's your deer), then just let it be for the coyotes and all that. Not a very enticing strategy, considering this is a spot where I hike often.

Big goddamn hole to dig, though. Guess I'll figure it out tomorrow.

Appreciate the feedback. It's something others mentioned. ... My intention was not for people to really look hard at an individual page, but more to have them flip by quickly just to give an impression. But maybe I'm overdoing it.

Definitely something to think about, since it wont be the last time I want to use the technique.

Regarding the deer, it's been cold the last couple days. You can still eat it. I'd probably let the coyotes eat it though.

Regarding other stuff, you've inspired me to be an youtube star. It'll be a while though, I'm just working on the script.

Venison is delicious, screw the coyotes!

You should get a gravity powered light. You lift a 22lb bag of sand and then get LED light for 30 minutes.