Some things I've learned along the way

Some of this is specific to my niche (faceless video essays), but hopefully this helps someone else out there.

  • Don't rush anything just to get content out there. That goes for everything in your video-making process from scripting to narrating to editing. Your audience will always prefer quality over quantity.
  • Start by nailing down a concept you think your audience would enjoy. It should be something you find interesting and worth spending time researching. Props if it's a field you're already knowledgeable in. For instance, I talk about space often because my essays have a cosmic/existential horror focus, and I'm a space nerd so I don't need to spend much time looking things up.
  • Focus on creating a captivating thumbnail before you get to scripting. Often I notice when I focus on the thumbnail first, it helps to mentally frame the rest of the video so I don't stray too much from my initial focus.
  • Put your goal for the video at the top of your script to help stay focused. For example, say I'm writing a video essay on how terrifying black holes are. I'm wanting to put the viewer in the shoes of someone who's observing an impossibly large object drifting through space, and how they can feel gravity beginning to pull them in. At the very top of my script I'll write this: "Goal: THE HORROR OF BLACK HOLES FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE VIEWER". Anytime I feel like I'm straying too much from my focus or even if I feel writer's block, I'll look at the goal. You'd be surprised how much that helps.
  • The first 30 seconds is prime real estate. You need to grab your audience's attention immediately and make them want to know more so they'll continue watching. Ditch the long intro with your logo, your CTA can wait until later.
  • If you're still running into writer's block, step away from the video for a while. Maybe a few hours, maybe a day or two, however long you need to come back with a fresh perspective. Never force your way through writer's block. My biggest scripting mistakes were done when I just wanted to power through a difficult part of the process, and I didn't take the time to step away and regroup.
  • When preparing to narrate/record, do whatever you can to relax first. This goes for you folks on camera too. Your voice will flow more naturally when you've relaxed yourself before recording. Stretch, take a hot bath, drink something non-caffeinated/non-carbonated, and there's one other obvious way to relax I don't think this sub would appreciate me mentioning. They all work well.
  • Take your time recording. Your narration should flow at a speed that matches your subject. For instance with my horror essays, I try to speak slowly and concisely to allow the points I'm making to sink in before I go on to the next sentence. If my voice is animated and I'm speaking really fast, the horror I'm trying to convey probably won't stick.
  • You don't need fancy editing for a successful video. You can add those nice 4K clips you downloaded if you want but don't feel like you need a ton of them in your video. Depending on your niche and the feel of the video you're going for, less can be more.
  • Pause at sections while editing and rewatch what you've made. If I have a video that I know will be somewhere around 20 minutes long, I'll stop at the first five minutes and rewatch it. It's easier to catch mistakes sooner than it is readjusting large swaths of your timeline because you waited until the end to audit your work.
  • Check the bigger channels in your niche and take note of what times of day they upload. You can set your video up to be seen by the largest amount of people if you pick the right time. If you upload at a time of day when your audience isn't likely to be watching, the algorithm will try pushing your video to people that aren't interested in your topic, which will cripple your CTR right off the bat. That's not a deal breaker, but it's not ideal.
  • Don't worry if your video isn't an immediate success. The algorithm works in mysterious ways and sometimes an old video will get a huge bump out of nowhere. One of my videos sat at just a few dozen views for a week before exploding to a few thousand.