Many authors have considered starting a YouTube channel. Autumn and Jesper tried for a couple of years - and failed.

It's much harder than it looks. The questions is... will YouTube videos, focused on writing, actually help with fiction sales?

The extremely successful YouTuber, Jenna Moreci, joins the Am Writing Fantasy podcast to offer advice and guidance. She knows everything there is to know about leveraging YouTube as a marketing tool for authors and writers.

Check out Jenna's books:

The Savior’s Champion: https://books2read.com/tsc/ 

The Savior’s Sister: https://books2read.com/tss/ 

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday. 

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Read the full transcript below.

(Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Narrator (1s):

You're listening to The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need an literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now on to the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (30s):

Hello, I'm Jesper. And this is episode 148 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast, and Autumn is taking care of some editing today. And once you use a way I've secured an amazing guest speaker for you, because today I'm going to talk to the very talented Jenna Moreci so welcome to The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. Jenna,

Jenna (51s):

Thank you so much for having me. I'm super happy to be here.

Jesper (54s):

Yeah, it's a pleasure talking to you. And I just want to say for those who might not know, Jenna is a number one best-selling author of dark fantasy, and she also runs a very successful YouTube channel. So I couldn't think of anyone better to bring onto the podcast today to talk about YouTube for Authors, Jenna. Okay.

Jenna (1m 13s):

Well thank you. I'm super honored. Yeah. I kind of fell into YouTube sort of accidentally, or maybe not accidentally, but I didn't expect it to get to this level. So yeah, I'm, I'm super down to talk about it and everything that I've learned along the way.

Jesper (1m 31s):

Yeah, because wait, well maybe for context, I could just start out by saying Autumn and NAI and even myself before I sort of teamed up with Adam, tried my luck. If you want to call it that and running a YouTube channel and my God is difficult. And then Autumn and I tried for a while as well, probably like two years. And then we transitioned into podcasting and this is going much better to this, but the YouTube stuff is difficult. So yeah, it's, it's tough getting traction unusual. So I'm very going to be very curious during this episode here to sort of get your thoughts on it and maybe some tips and tricks for people who might want to try on their own to see if they can get a YouTube channel going.

Jenna (2m 19s):

Absolutely. I mean, I've been doing this for almost a decade now, so I've been, I've been around for awhile. I've made all the mistakes and you know, that's what you got to deal with in order to become successful. You got to mess up a few times. So I, I hope I can answer all of your questions.

Jesper (2m 37s):

Yeah, probably, but I don't know. Maybe we could just start a bit more on the, you know, not low side. I don't, that's not what you call it, but slowly and maybe, maybe you can just, yeah, a bit more about yourself and maybe put a more, a few more words on, on what you just said about why you started the YouTube channel in the first place.

Jenna (2m 56s):

So I have been wanting to be, you know, author since I was six years old, it's literally my lifelong dream. And around the time I heard what a lot of people, you know, are told when they're young, that's authors don't make any money. It's not, it's not a viable career. You should try something else. And so I started off in finance. I have a degree in business with a concentration in finance and I got a job in finance. I was a stockbroker and I hated it. It was driving me crazy. I, I just, there was a moment where I realized I CA like I can't do this every day of my life. I have to at least try to become an author. Even if it's just a side gig. I just need to know that I gave it a shot.

Jenna (3m 39s):

So at that point I started writing my first book and I started trying to build a platform. I researched the industry and, and I'm really glad I got a degree in business because I learned all about the business side of things and being an entrepreneur and creating a platform. And I started like most authors do with blogging. And I had a blog for a few years. It, you know, I had about 200 followers and I hated it. I hated blogging. I mean, I liked to write, but I like to write fiction. I don't like to write about, you know, normal life stuff. So I was blogging for a while. I'm working on my book, try to figure out a way to expand my platform even more. And a lot of people had told me, you should do YouTube.

Jenna (4m 21s):

You're funny. You're sarcastic. You give really good writing advice. I was also doing critiques at the time. So people were like, you should create a Writing YouTube channel. And like most introverted Authors. I was like, no, like there's no way I am. Yeah. The only way I'm sitting in front of a camera and putting myself on the internet like that, sorry, fast forward a couple years, my then boyfriend now fiance suffered a very terrible accident. He fell two stories and broke his spine. And I had to put, you know, I quit my job. I put everything on hold to be as caregiver. And when you go through something like that, it kind of changes your perspective on life. And you know how our time here, isn't guaranteed.

Jenna (5m 3s):

And I had paused working on my book. I had paused the blog and I just thought, you know what, like as he started to get better and I started to build my platform again, I was like, you know what, I'm just going to try YouTube. Okay. Like what have I got to lose? If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. But I, you know, my, my time here is it permanent. So I got make an account and I started the YouTube channel, made a couple of crappy videos and started to get the hang of it. Yeah. I mean, that's how it always works. It always starts off with the bad videos, but I started getting the hang of it and I started off trying to be very professional and like, you know, like, you know, oh, I'm a dignified writer and that's just not really my style.

Jenna (5m 46s):

And no one was watching the channel. And so finally I said, you know what? No one's watching anyway. So I'm just going to be myself and I'm going to be goofy and I'm going to be custody. I'm just going to be my normal personality. And literally the very next video, my channel skyrocketed, I went from a hundred subscribers to nine to 9,000 subscribers in a week. And, and the rest is history. Now I'm at 260,000 subscribers. I really did not expect to be in this place. But yeah. And because of YouTube, I was able to make Writing and YouTube my full-time career. And I'm doing a whole lot better at this than I was as a stockbroker financially. I'm making triple what I made as a stockbroker.

Jenna (6m 27s):

So it all worked out.

Jesper (6m 29s):

All right. Yes. Do you think actually considering that it was quite some time ago since you started out, do you think there's a difference in starting, you know, running a YouTube channel today versus back when you did it, do you think, has that sort of, is it more saturated market had more difficult now? How do you see that?

Jenna (6m 51s):

Absolutely. I really got in at the perfect time when I started my channel, I looked for other writers on YouTube and I could only find two and their channels were very small and they were really young. And I was inspired by that because at the time I was like 28 and they were teenagers. And I was like, you know, what, if these teens have the courage to do this, that I have no, excuse, I'm a, I'm a grown woman. I have no excuse. And now after my channel kind of blew up, now, there are tons of writing channels on YouTube. So it's, I'm not going to lie. It's definitely harder to get started. Now, the key is, is to find a way to stand out and authenticity.

Jenna (7m 34s):

Like I said, I started off very professional, a very phony and I wasn't going anywhere. Right. And once I became my authentic self people, people really, you know, gravitate toward that. You know? So I think that if you want to stand out in this market, you really have to create quality content that is consistent and authentic because people want someone that they can relate to. And they feel like they actually know.

Jesper (7m 60s):

Yeah. Because I think reflecting back on the time that we spent on attempting to run a YouTube channel, I think once I reflect back to it nowadays, look, you know, couple of years since we transitioned into podcasting instead, I think I was very much focused at the point in time around probably thinking too much about how do you make a YouTube video that is engaging. And also because, you know, usually when people watch YouTube videos, at least as far as I've sort of in investigated or re