What I've Been Up To... (& This Week's Update)

Hi everybody! Hope all is well on your end, wanted to touch base and give you a big old update as to what we're doing here at the channel.

I've been posting a lot of vague references to changing things and back-end optimization and what not, and I thought I'd give you a little insight as to what I was talking about. You see, as you probably know from being this fiercely loyal as to join the Patreon, we have been slow to grow. The fact is, some comic channels that started long after we did have far surpassed our numbers. I've heard varying reasons for this from a number of professional sources ranging from network admins to YouTube reps two professional YouTubers themselves, and they all say the same thing: "We're stumped." The fact is, the last two networks we joined promised us quick and Swift growth and could not deliver and it's because they assumed there was some fundamental roadblock that we just didn't understand. but the fact is, we understood all too well and have been following trends and taking full advantage of every element of YouTube's interface, to no avail. I recently got some information from a friend and colleague who cited categorization as the main culprit. what that means is, how your channel is categorized matters and when we first started before we were a comic book channel (yes, that's right-- we were a weirdo vlog thing), we were lumped into a category called Entertainment, which is about the broadest category you could possibly be in. Later on of course I noticed that many prominent YouTubers are in that same category, so it really wasn't the catch-all we thought. However, we were essentially told that there was no fixing it, and we may never grow at the rate we would be growing if we were a new channel with an all-new integration and relationship with the algorithm.

That was a lot to take in.

Basically we were faced with the possibility that we needed to completely rebuild ComicPOP from the ground up on a totally different channel if we were ever going to grow big enough to sustain ourselves long-term.

I had probably a dozen conversations with the entire team and with individual members of the team and with professionals I knew personally and intimately about what the next best step was, and there was no clear answer. Despite this potentially bombshell revelation, very few people advocated for a channel switch. I took some steps to see what that would entail, and it did not look appealing. It would require so much work and effort and at the end of the day, as we know from the opinions of "professionals," there was absolutely no guarantee it would work.

Meanwhile, we also got a pretty strong indication that YouTube does not like video diversity. What I'm saying is, the multitude of shows we've tried may have actually hurt us along with any number of unseen roadblocks that unbeknownst to us also helped to hinder us. in essence, what makes our channel unique and special is what also kept us from growing.

Coupling that with the very real fact that pretty much every new venture that would be a runaway success on any other channel was, in essence, a dud. ComicPOP Draws and Harbor Patrol are two of the most recent examples, but scour the channel and you'll find any number original shows that not enough people watched.

I recognize this is turning into a kind of off the chest complaining blog, but I'm getting to more updates soon.

Ultimately, I decided not to make a separate channel. Like I said, there is no guarantee of success, and in fact it may alienate people who have already subscribed or who are on the fence about unsubscribing. We worked incredibly hard despite some very real impediments to get to this point, and I am not convinced that this channel is beyond saving.

So to give you an idea about what I've been working on for the past couple of weeks, I essentially spent about 6 to 10 hours a day (not including the usual amount of work like editing and shooting) going through our back catalogue and removing every old video that has nothing to do with what we're doing. If you are a 5-year plus subscriber, this means all of my old blogs and references to Little House Entertainment. I believe the term is called culling, and as such we culled dozens and dozens of videos that, upon re-examination included verbiage and tags and titles that would only hurt our search options and confuse new subscribers. There were videos from six or seven years ago that included copyrighted music and violated terms of service but because they were so old and the issues settled long ago oh, they didn't come up as technical copyright strikes or dings on the channel currently. but because no one really truly knows how YouTube actually works, it behooves me to do my due diligence and remove those offending videos entirely.

Now, at the end of a two-week process, I can't say for certain that I have removed every tag or every description that references TV little house or Little House Entertainment and I can't very well go back into the old videos and remove us referring to websites that don't exist at a company that had no chance of success. But Off the Rack has almost 300 episodes and we are some of the earliest comic book reviews you can find on the platform, and I think there's a value there that I'm hopeful new and old subscribers will find valuable (albeit perhaps momentarily confusing).

Like I said, I really don't know what the magic combination is, but this entire experiment has been guesswork and stumbling in the dark while also producing shows hopefully people find entertaining and criticisms that people hopefully find insightful and valuable. We have been having a lot of fun, and I don't see any signs of stopping now. And I have no intention of robbing you (or us) of the identity this channel has developed over the years, so don't worry.

But we do need to grow and change with the times. And so I will continue to push and try new things while curating what we have and reinventing it as needed.right now YouTube doesn't really want us to have a ton of shows. This is evident by The view count. Most of our subs simply don't watch the other shows we make. And while that crushes me, I can't afford to take it personally or be sentimental about it. I just have to be pragmatic. So, for the foreseeable future, we will be pushing and promoting and evolving the shows which gets the most engagement from you. This means Back Issues, Off the Rack, Elseworlds Exchange, and really that should be it but I know that there is value in having a fourth slot open for other shows. Shows like Letters Page, and Comic Line, and many more. We have a few episodes of Letters Page that are backlogged, and we are truly sorry for the delay in those, but it seems that other things usually got in the way. But I have no intention of getting rid of that show, and so the only thing I can ask is that everybody please continue to be patient. I'm really very sorry for that delay.

A silver lining in our retiring of very old shows in our catalog is that there may be new life for some of them on new platforms. For example, if you are a member of the Facebook page (facebook.com/comicpopofficial), you may see some old familiar faces in shows like Powers, Busted, and classic Tangents. You may also get little mini reviews of new comics, but that's a different topic. We are hoping to grow this incredible audience using every tool in our arsenal, and if that means Facebook then so be it. You never know, one of these shows might be a runaway success on the Facebook platform and suddenly were producing a collectibles review series for Facebook. I have a few other show ideas that I really can't shake and really don't want to kill, so maybe they belong over on Instagram (instagram.com/comicpopofficial).

Sorry for hijacking the weekly update, but I really thought that you should know what's going on behind the scenes and what we are trying to do to ensure that ComicPOP is around for another five years. there will be a live Off the Rack today, there will be a live Elseworlds Exchange on Wednesday, and there is no way I will be able to finish editing last week's episode of back issues in time but that Star Trek/Green Lantern episode will finally come out. I think there are ways around making too many shows, and one of them is to try to make elseworlds a little more diverse in its format. Shore, hearing me and Joel or whoever talk about something for an hour is fun but I know many of you really enjoy those creator interviews, and there are other ideas and host I'd like to incorporate into that show. And many of you seemed to enjoy the format we tried with our latest Spawn episode, which was reminiscent of our previous Maxx episode before that. And Off the Rack could be a lot of fun if it was on location or at a convention or featuring a creator, so there's room for that as well. And honestly, we like making new shows and trying new things, so there will always be innovation and new ideas here.

Thank you all so much for sticking with us and helping us try everything and do what we can to make what you like. We are truly lucky to have you here.

Talk soon,
Sal