Quitting To Be A YouTube Magician [2]

I've taken an 8-month career break to turn my passion as a YouTube magician into a living. One Ahead invited me to share the highs and lows of my pursuit every few months. You may want to read part 1, in which I went from 2k followers to 107k in only the first two months.

Hello again, fellow ‘One Aheaders’ (is that the right term?). We’re back documenting the highs and lows of the social media magic world.

In the last article (spanning July - September 2023), we covered how I’m taking a career break from my day job to try and pursue a career as a full-time magic content creator. Within that three-month timeframe, I gained over 100k followers on Instagram, became ‘mates’ with David Blaine and earned just over £200…

• Quitting To Be A YouTube Magician [1]

Long story short, these next couple of months, I really need to start improving income-wise if I even want a chance at making this my full-time gig. Remember, I only have until March 2024. That's when my agreed 'career break’ from my day job as a Nuclear Engineer ends.

This is a good time to say if you haven’t read the previous article, you probably should. It’s very good. 

Although I would say that; I wrote it.

October 1st

We’re starting off with a bang. I’ve just uploaded a 10-minute-long single-take magic routine, and in terms of pure ‘magic’ content, this is my best video.

Let’s take a moment to discuss the planning that goes into a video like this.

Firstly, the packaging needs to be right and when I say ‘packaging’ I mean the title and thumbnail that YouTube shows to users.’ This is what gets the click. You could have the best video in the world, but if nobody’s clicking on it, what’s the point?

Here’s the rough plan I had going into the prep stage. I don’t do this for every video, but it definitely helps to get the rough ideas down for packaging and scripting:

Now, in terms of getting a lay audience to watch magic videos, there has to be more on offer than ‘magician does tricks’. At least, there has to be more on offer in the packaging stages. Hopefully, your performance and personality are engaging enough to get them to stick around once they’ve clicked on your content. It’s just getting the click that’s the hard bit.

So, I spend a lot of time thinking about how I can package a video to make it appeal to as broad an audience as possible. 

In this case, the hook is you’re clicking to see someone do something impressive whilst blindfolded. This could work in other niches; it could be a golfer blindfolded attempting ‘Golf Skill - Level 100’. I don’t know; I’m making it up as I go along, but you get the jist.

In terms of the video itself, I’m basically doing a glorified cylinder and coins routine with a load of different little tricks thrown in along the way. Okay, that’s a bad way of putting it. I have a habit of playing down what actually goes into this stuff… off the top of my head, here are all the big tricks/moves I’ve used or drawn inspiration from that you can see in the video:

• Flash Paper Coin Production

• Various Coin Flourishes

• One Coin Routine

• Muscle Pass

• The Spring Thing

• Imagination Vanish & Production (Eric Jones)

• Coin From Thumb (Danny Goldsmith)

• Retention Vanish

• Ash & Ember (Zach Heath)

• Odyssey (Calen Morrelli)

• Pantheon (Peter McKinnon)

• Divorce (Justin Miller)

• On Off (Nicholas Lawrence)

• Coin in Ring

• Himber Vanish

• Three Fly 

• Trifecta (Homer Liwag)

• Cylinder & Coins

That’s a lot of magic. 

Part of the problem with magicians getting into content creation is the pure output of magic you have to be willing to commit to. If you only know 10 tricks (which might be fine to have mastered for close-up gigs), that’s only really 10 videos.

Because of this, magicians getting into the world of content creation need to have a lot of potential routines in their repertoire. It’s for this reason alone that I prioritise learning moves and sleights over specific ‘one-trick-pony’ magic tricks. With a shop-bought standalone trick, you get a single effect out of it, but with a range of sleights and moves, you can create an untold amount of tricks. You just have to be willing to put the work into scripting and routining.

Anyways, time will tell if this style of video is worth the effort.

October 5th

Speaking of effort vs reward, one of the big risks I took last month was spending an entire month on one video (‘The David Blaine Paradox’) in the hope that better quality would drive better results. It's a risky strategy, to be sure. These algorithms like consistency and throwing consistency out of the window in favour of ‘one big hit’ is no guarantee of success. 

I’m happy to report it seems to have worked, though. After two weeks, this video is starting to be picked up by the YouTube algorithm and has just crossed the 100k view mark! The comments are flooding in, subscribers are up, and the hard work is paying off. 

I say ‘hard work’ like I’m a bricklayer working through the cold winter months. I’m currently typing this on my fancy laptop in my warm studio, sitting on a padded chair ergonomically designed for maximum comfort.

This video, though…

100,000 views in two weeks on a 16-minute documentary about a magician… I’d be very surprised if anything else I make this month gets even close to that.

October 8th

I spoke too soon.

Before I explain what’s caused this, let me just show you the numbers. This is crazy. Over 20 million views in the last two weeks; I believe this is what the kids call ‘blowing up’.

You’ll notice most of these videos are ‘shorts’ (portrait format and under 60 seconds) and have some sort of ‘slow-motion’ related title. Let me explain what’s going on.

Last month I released a video called ‘Magician Vs Slow-Mo Camera (Skill Challenge)’ which performed… well, below average would be kind.

It didn’t do well at all.

It’s a decent video, though. Basically, I was slowing down sleight-of-hand magic tricks and seeing if I could fool the unblinking eye of the camera whilst being filmed in super slow motion. I would then watch each clip back with my mate Jamie (@charnleyjamie) - who happens to have the perfect blend of magic appreciation and genuine laypeople reactions. He’s great. Everybody should have a Jamie in their lives.

Anyways, I made a series of shorts out of this video and posted them on Instagram as promos for the original long-form video on YouTube. These did really well (millions of views) and helped contribute to the insane growth I saw on Instagram last month. They also resulted in Jeff McBride commenting to say I am ‘everything that’s wrong in the art of magic’ - a sentence that still makes me smile.

So I’ve been holding off releasing these shorts on YouTube for one specific reason - and boy has it paid off.

Long story short, YouTube has introduced a feature where you can directly link a long-form video to a short-form video using a new ‘related content’ feature.

This announcement came via a statement on YouTube’s blog:

• “We know that clickable links help creators direct their Shorts audiences to other types of content, like their long-form videos. By the end of September, we’ll start introducing a safer way for creators to direct viewers from Shorts to their other YouTube content – stay tuned!”

This is a game-changer, folks.

Shorts are well known to be a great way of quickly building up a following, but it’s always been difficult converting this short-form audience into long-from viewership. That was until now.

See, I had 6 short-form slow-mo videos that I had cut from the long-form, just waiting to be uploaded once this new feature got rolled out. As soon as this link feature became available, I posted the shorts back to back every day for a week - each time linking them to the original long-form video.

Not only did the shorts outperform anything I’d done on the channel previously (the best one got 17 million views), but they were also directing viewers to the original long-form video. What was once a dead-in-the-water video is now a blossoming flower being blessed by the YouTube algorithm. 

These are views gained per day on that one long-form video:

The channel has had a sudden explosion in viewership all from these shorts. 

A lot of my older videos are starting to perform better, too, and independently, the David Blaine video is starting to gain traction. Two separate injections of viewership (the slow-mo shorts and the David Blaine video) seem to have been the catalyst for this crazy growth - within two weeks, I’ve gained 50,000 subscribers.

It seems the years of slowly building up a library of decent content on my weekends and evenings have paid off. New viewers are coming in, enjoying the content, checking the channel out and then realising there’s about 3 years worth of content to enjoy. It’s all coming together! 

I wish I could go back in time and tell my younger self that it’s all going to be worth it. He’d have appreciated that. He spent a lot of time making videos that barely got any views, and on a number of occasions, he wondered if all the effort was going to be worth it.

October 10th

One thing about explosive growth in the social media world is that it doesn’t half put the pressure on to continue uploading. The grind never stops. 

I’ve quickly realised it’d be in my best interests to establish some sort of repeatable series to keep consistency up. It’s incredibly difficult keeping up a regular upload schedule when each video is a brand new novel idea - I need some sort of consistent series to keep regular viewers onboard for the long haul!

So, let the experiments begin. 

I’m going to be trying out two formats that could be repeated - the first one is the ‘magician vs slow-mo camera’ series that we’ve already looked at, and the second is some form of reaction-based video.

Only issue is I’m not exactly a big fan of reaction videos. So, I need to find a way of framing it that’s fresh and excites me. This format, though, would allow me to easily make clips that I can turn into shorts. 

Based on the recent short-form success, it seems a sensible strategy to try and make a few shorts out of every long-form video I do so I can drive further traffic to the original video with this new ‘related content’ feature.

After a bit of packaging brainstorming, I’ve decided the best way to refresh the ‘Magician Reacts’ format is to employ the use of my muggle mate Jamie again and take a look back at the best magicians in history. That way, we get genuine layman reactions from Jamie, I can dissect/review the magic, and we can broadcast to the younger generation all of the magic ‘greats’ throughout history that they may not be aware of. Lovely stuff.

You could consider this format ‘low-hanging fruit’ - easy to make and easy to make repeatedly. Time will tell if I enjoy making this style, though; remember, we’re still experimenting, folks!

We could be onto something with this format.

October 15th

This made me laugh. 

1.2 million views on a short and YouTube felt the need to add the comment ‘1.2 million more than usual’.

October 25th

Let’s talk about revenue for a second. This is the first month I’ve actually been making a decent amount of money from ad revenue on YouTube (in fact, it’s more than I was earning in the day job). 

There are two reasons for this.

Firstly, the David Blaine video is continuing to grow (it’s now just short of 500k views), and with the video at 16 minutes long, it’s generating a nice bit of revenue thanks to all the adverts it’s plugging. 

Secondly, in a move to try and draw short-form creators away from TikTok and onto YouTube, YouTube has massively increased its short-form content monetisation programme. Where once a viral short would pay you peanuts, it now pays you a pretty decent whack. 

To give you an idea, this is what 17 million views on a 49-second video pays:

October 31st

This has been a silly month. I started on 12.5k subscribers and I’m now sitting on 75k subscribers. I mean, look at these stats for the month:

At this point I’m going to stop talking about the money side of things, initially my worry was I wasn’t going to be able to earn £1600 a month from ad revenue. Let’s just say that concern has been put to bed. I’m not showing these numbers as a brag but to shed a bit of light on an area that is rarely talked about.

November 8th

Okay, so we’re starting to see clear patterns in the experiments now. The ‘performance videos’ where I’m purely performing magic tricks to the camera as one big routine seem to be getting about 10k views each:

The ‘reaction videos’ are getting maybe 30k views each:

And the ‘slow-mo videos’ are getting at least 50k views each:

It’s time to take a data-driven approach and slow down on the production of the ‘performance videos’. The amount of work that goes into the packaging, scripting and editing isn’t worth the forty quid 10,000 views gets you:

I mean, look at the number of thumbnail options I made for the Rubik’s Cube performance video:

That’s a day’s work just there.

November 9th

Well this is annoying, the David Blaine video that was just starting to gain traction (and make some money!) has just been demonetised for ‘graphic content’.

I appealed the decision after their automatic bot decided my video was too graphic for ads to be played on it. After requesting a review, they had a real person look at it and then stuck with the decision. The video can no longer be monetised as the content seemingly ‘promotes self-injury’*.

So basically, don’t say how great someone is for sticking a needle through their arm and eating glass. 

Lesson learned.

The video is still available to watch - I can just no longer earn any money from it. 

*This is Future Jack, just confirming that had the video not been demonetised, in the following two months, it would have made another £2000. Ouch.

November 15th

Today’s a big day. Today’s a day I’ve dreamed of for a long time. Today’s the day I hit 100,000 subscribers.

Can I be honest with you, though?

It doesn’t feel like I thought it would. I don’t know why, maybe because it all happened so quickly. Maybe because I’ve tried detaching myself from the numbers so much, I now feel nothing. 

Maybe I’m dead inside.

Either way, I have to say I’m a little annoyed at myself for not enjoying this. Perhaps I’m too deep into the grind mode. Too busy running on the forever spinning hamster wheel, feeding the hungry algorithm with as much s*** as possible, that I’ve forgotten why I do this in the first place. 

Wait, why do I do this?

I’m aware of how this sounds, by the way. ‘Oh look at Jack, he’s getting successful and suddenly he feels empty - cry me a river!’. It’s a fair assessment, just give me a few days to get my head round this.

November 17th

Alright, it’s been a couple of days. In fact, 2 days have passed since hitting 100,000 subscribers, and I’ve just got this email from YouTube... I'm the next "Creator on The Rise"!

Okay, this feels real. For some reason I’m more buzzing about this than hitting 100k subscribers. This is no longer just a number on a screen; this is recognition from YouTube itself! 

If you’ve never seen this before, every week, YouTube picks an ‘up and coming creator’ and puts 5 of their videos on the front of the ‘trending’ page for 24 hours. 

Did you read that? YouTube literally puts your videos in front of the eyes of millions of new people. Unreal!

I used to see creators get picked for this when I was first starting out, and it always seemed so unattainable. There’s no application process, no way to try and get YouTube’s attention. You just get picked at some point… or you don’t.

There’s also barely any notice, I had no idea I was getting picked, and suddenly, I’m going to be on the front of the trending page tomorrow. I’ve been reading into the effects of being awarded the ‘creator on the rise’, and most channels that have had this have reported a massive injection in views, subscribers and sponsorship offers. 

S*** just got real.

November 18th

Mum, I made it. I’m on the trending tab – look at me.

YouTube even left a comment on one of my videos.

They could’ve spelt it right, at least…

Oh, and as for the injection of views, subscribers and money…? Didn’t see any of that. If anything, views went down for the day… (no word of a lie). 

Damn, this is a rollercoaster.

November 20th

Okay, so for the past week or two, I’ve been speaking with a Creator Partner Manager from Meta.

Apparently, that’s a thing now. 

Meta employs people to approach creators and coach them on all things Facebook, Instagram and Threads - they figure if they can support creators to get the best out of the platforms, then this will help keep users on the platform, too. 

So, I’ve now got a free coach from Meta to help me with all the different tips and tricks to grow and make money on their platforms. Unreal.

This feels very similar to the ‘Creator on the Rise’ award in that there’s no application process, no way to get put on a waiting list… you just get a random email out of nowhere, and all of a sudden, you’re getting invited to the London office of one of the biggest companies in the world. 

Yep, Jacky Boy’s off to Meta HQ in a couple of weeks!

November 30th

I was hoping, through this series of articles, to demonstrate that success in the digital space is down to skill. Not luck.

It’s hard to say that when the two biggest things recently (‘Creator on the Rise’ and ‘Meta Partner Manager’) have both been down to me getting very lucky. 

I’m currently sitting in one of the many Meta buildings in London for a ‘Comedy & Entertainment Workshop for Creators’, and this is all rather surreal.

There are about 50 creators here, most of whom I recognise from various different viral videos. I won’t name anyone, but let’s just say the amount of monthly viewership the talent in this room generates is probably in the billions…

December 1st

I'm travelling on the train back home today from the workshop, and I’m still digesting everything that was taught. Let me give you the headlines. 

(Remember, these are lessons learned directly from Instagram themselves - aren’t you ‘One Aheaders’ a lucky bunch)

Here we go:

'The Algorithm Doesn’t Care About Creators’

This may be a tough pill to swallow for creators. Essentially, the algorithm cares most about the user experience. Not the creator experience.

When a user opens the Instagram app, the only thing the algorithm cares about is showing content that the user will engage with. The algorithm is only going to serve your content to users if it thinks it is the most likely piece of content to drive engagement from said user.

Have you ever noticed that when you don’t post in a while, the algorithm seemingly shows your stuff to fewer people? Well, when you think about the algorithm caring more about the user experience, it makes sense. 

Let’s say you haven’t posted in a month. The user hasn’t engaged with your content in a little while but is engaging a lot with a creator who has posted more frequently. The platform, therefore, is probably going to show the more recent creator’s content when the user opens the app.

Once your content is proven to drive engagement with users, you're then more likely to be distributed out by the algorithm. 

Long story short, consistency is important, at least on Instagram.

'There Isn’t Just One Algorithm’

It turns out there are a lot of different algorithms at play throughout the suite of Meta apps. There are different algorithms for all the different features (like reels, stories, picture posts, live streams, etc.), but they all prioritise the same thing… engagement.

That could be likes, comments, shares, share to stories, sharing across DM’s - all these different features work across the platform, and the honest answer is no-one quite knows how they all tie in together.

That’s right, Meta themselves can’t really tell you why a piece of content goes viral. A video that you post today that underperforms might’ve gone viral a month ago. This brings me to the final headline…

'Nobody Knows What They’re Doing'

Alright, I may be paraphrasing here, but basically, the whole content game is constant experimentation. 

Both the platform and the creators are forever trying new things, testing new features, seeing what works, and seeing what doesn’t work. It’s a constantly evolving beast, and what worked a month ago might not work anymore. You’re forever learning.

This is important. It basically means if you keep experimenting, keep learning, keep trying new things… eventually you’ll break through. 

Perhaps thinking that success online is purely down to skill was a little short-sighted. Yeah, a bit of luck helps, but the biggest factor to consider is just putting the work in.

One thing is sure, though: across all the different platforms, short-form video content is king. If you want to grow an audience quickly, make short-form videos.

7th December

My 100k YouTube Award arrived today. Remember how I said I wasn’t that bothered seeing the number on the screen? Well, I’m bothered now. 

Holding the plaque in my hands has probably made it more real, and now I’m buzzing. So buzzing I’ve decided to renovate my studio to accommodate the new shiny award.

9th December

I’m still buzzing, so I decided to make a little skit with the award. Got to make the most out of these things, haven’t ya?

December 24th

Another ‘slow-mo’ vid in the series and another short has popped off (12 million views in just over a week):

Also, it’s Christmas Eve, and I’ve just hit 150k subscribers on YouTube. What is this madness?

December 31st

2023 is coming to a close, and it’s fair to say that this has been a monumental year for me. A year of change.

The year I took the plunge and quit my job to pursue content creation. Well, I say ‘quit my job’… I’m still technically on a ‘career break’. We’ll cross that bridge in the final article in March 2024 (these last 3 months are going to fly in). 

Financially, this thing is working now (working better than I ever imagined it would) - I just need to decide if this is what I want my future to be! 

There’s been a lot of growth - and I’ve really enjoyed it - but it’s not been easy. So far, it’s been a rollercoaster of constant second-guessing, experimenting and feeling like it could all fall apart at any moment. The problem is there’s no real right answer to any of this content stuff. 

What works for me might not work for you. 

What works now might not work in a month’s time.

It’s a never-ending battle of quality versus quantity.

Perhaps, though, this annual summary may shed some clarity on that....

See you in the next update, folks.

October - December Followers Summary