Whats up everyone! 😁
Making 30 shorts in 30 days? Let me tell you, it was no walk in the park.
Sure, editing the shorts was a blast, that part didn’t even take that long. The real challenge? Coming up with 30 different ideas for videos. At first, I was on fire, cranking out one idea after another. But by the time I hit video 15, things started to shift. I found myself stuck. What should I film next?
The ideas were there, plenty of them, but I was too scared to try most of them. What if people hated them? What if I embarrassed myself? The fear of others’ opinions kept me from experimenting the way I wanted to.
By the time I got to the last four videos, it was hard. Not just hard to film, but hard to edit too. I managed to finish the challenge, but it felt more like a grind than a creative adventure. The fun had vanished, replaced by this lingering question: What should I even create?
The cool thing about shorts, though, is the freedom to experiment. You can test out different ideas, see what sticks, and maybe even turn the hits into longer-form content. That’s the theory, at least.
So, how did my experiment go? Well... awful. I thought I’d get thousands of views. Easy, right? Nope. Most of my shorts barely scraped past 500 views. As for subscribers? Almost none.
When shorts first became a thing, it was like striking gold, tons of views, new subs rolling in. Now? Not even close. Maybe my videos just weren’t good enough. I mean, my swipe-through rate was around 30%, and it needs to be over 70% for a short to really pop.
Still, there’s something valuable about shorts. You don’t have to obsess over perfect titles or thumbnails, and you can try all kinds of ideas. But let’s be real, it’s not much fun when nothing you do seems to work.
To put things into perspective, my channel went from 1,000 public shorts views to 14,000 during the challenge. Impressive, right? Except I only gained about 30 new subscribers... and none of them came from the shorts! They all came from my older long-form videos. Go figure. 🤦♂️
So, what’s next? Honestly, I’m in a bit of a creative rut. I’m starting to accept that I might never hit 4,000 watch hours or make money through AdSense. Maybe I’ll turn some of my newsletter content into scripts, go for a more vloggy style, and stop caring what people think. I just want to document my life, and if people like it, great. If not, that’s fine too.
I’m done chasing perfection, perfect videos, perfect thumbnails, perfect titles. None of it has made a difference. Just because someone clicks doesn’t mean they’ll stick around to watch.
❄️ My Art Journey
I have not created much this past week, because I have been so tired! 🥱 I did some blood work before Christmas, so its not the problem.
Just sucks that 6h just goes away “sleeping”.
I tried to follow one of the steps from the book “House Sketching”.
❄️ New Video
❄️ What to Read Next?
Thank you so much for your generosity and support!
Well you didn’t really ask but I think it is really awesome that you started a project and no matter how hard it got you kept going! I’m sorry you didn’t get more subscribers. I’m just super impressed that you made your goal of 30 shorts in 30 days!
Great work Jezz. I did a similar experiment with TikTok about a year ago and it was just as painful.
I’m not sure my videos were very good to be honest. They were a little cringy.
Maybe one to have another go at!