Hi gang!

First I want to send a particularly sincere and heart felt THANK YOU to new viewers and especially my YouTube channel subscribers for sticking with me in 2022. This past year has proven to be a bit of a soul crusher for small niche channels like mine. Even though I’ve created more content and continually tried to improve the quality of each video, my niche channel viewership has stagnated, with double digit percentage drops in views and subscriber growth.

That truth stings a little more knowing that global YouTube viewership and revenue continue to explode through 2022. YouTube is running a business after all and needs to drive revenue, but I’m thankful that the development platform is free for us to use, regardless of the popularity of content. Having said that, viewers tend to prefer shock videos, gaming replays and strangely enough, people just watching and commenting on other people’s content. [Reaction videos, I’m talking about you] These are the videos getting the biggest hits, and then those hits drive video recommendations to other viewers. Views and view time equals ad revenue opportunity, so that is where the YouTube recommended video algorithm takes you. Niche channel content is just pushed off people’s recommended video feed even if they are already a subscriber to small channels like ours.

I was never in it for the money. I just like telling stories, building relationships with people and creating cool stuff down in the woodshop. It fits well with a big part of my former career working as a technical/architectural consultant for one of the world’s biggest and coolest software companies. I got to travel and work in most US states and 6 other countries, building relationships and educating people about our technology. I always tried to make my presentation content interesting and entertaining. The concept of connecting with people and showing them how to do something cool is what drove me to YouTube. I love doing this stuff and I’m thankful that I don’t need to run my channel like a business profit center in order to keep going.

But why woodworking? Hey, I’ve been working with wood since I was a kid and learned the basics from my dad and grandfather. The last 20 years or so I’ve really concentrated on quality, building some great furniture and art pieces for family and friends. Now even my son Matt has gotten the bug and produced some pretty awesome 3D artwork too.

As far as continuing with YouTube, my viewership growth is down but I can see that even poorly featured videos grow over time. That tells me people do find our content (sometimes months later) and recommend it after watching, which makes those people the absolute best ever!

We can see the improvement in our video content too. In the last year, I’ve upgraded my audio recording equipment and cameras. I’ve build a custom lighting system in my woodshop to provide clear, shadow free lighting on every project. I continually train myself on recording and editing techniques that do well on YouTube. What I’m trying to say here is that I value your patronage on our little journey. Matt and I try to provide the best content we can even though the video may not appeal to wide audiences or actually cover the cost of the project being featured. Still, we both want our videos to be crafty and cool, educational and entertaining, daring and difficult, and other pertinent examples of alliteration too. I’ll keep working to improve our recording techniques as we go.

And so my friends, I had to make a few decisions.

It’s clear that I won’t make enough money back in simple ad revenue to pay for a project I’ve just featured in any of our videos. I’ve decided NOT to beg people to be Patreon supporters. I will continue to do tool reviews without taking on any sponsors – so you get my honest opinion about the products I buy with my own money. I’ve decided NOT to push my little merchandise store in my videos (although I have one) because I hate watching channels spend the first 30 seconds of each video asking for money. Finally, I’m going to continue making videos in 2023 even though it costs more than we make back. I’ve decided to do this mostly because as my channel name implies, my projects and designs are for family and friends. I like sharing the process of creativity, engineering and wood craft with you all and YouTube allows me to continue that part of of my old career; educating and entertaining.

We will remain The Family Woodworker Channel. No matter how small we stay or large we might get, we’re still here doing this fun stuff yes for us, but for you too. I hope you enjoy some of our videos and wood / art projects. Please drop us a line, say hello, or please offer up an idea on a project you might like to see. Always happy to build new relationships along the way.

So please be well, stay healthy, stay engaged and interested in new things. Keep a smile on your face and join us once in a while as we do a few new things ourselves. And of course, STAY FROSTY! (That’s even cooler than cool!)

Mark & Matt – The Family Woodworker Channel

December 2022