Skallagrim (I don't need to tell you who he is do I?) recently did a review of pugilism.org and the different books and courses I have on the site. This is my reply to him. Thanks Skall!
Thanks for the reply, Oz. I totally understand the benefits of offering the material via subscription service. It's really mainly a case of the few black sheep spoiling it for everyone, as usual, because subscription offerings have been abused so many times by scammers and other dubious people. Which of course has nothing to do with what you're doing but such things have made people quite cautious and skeptical. Or maybe it's just me, which is quite possible since I can be somewhat paranoid. :) In your case I had no problem at all recommending your material, you seem like a sincere, reliable guy. I don't know how many of my viewers are interested in the material but we'll see. The updated presentation of your website is much better, I think it has a much more legitimate feel to it now. Looks like you can trust your intuition. I wish you the best of luck with the business!
I think 99.9% of us started out with crappy equipment. Very few people can go back to their first videos without cringing at something like the audio :)
Thanks for all the hard work you're putting into pugilism. I've had some of the books that you have recommended. At the end of the day you should always charge for your professionalism and your service. You put in a lot of work and it shows and I think all of us appreciate quality. Bye giving you likes and also participating in your patreon I gathered you will be making a lot more high quality videos. I can definitely see you doing some Menards in the future. And I would definitely love to go to one of those. The pages of a book or even a video doesn't compare to the one on one training that someone. Thanks again can't wait to see more of your videos.
I just wanted to comment real quick on your charging a subscription: I agree with you... I'd love to be able to give my time to whomever for free whenever. I kind of tried that for about two years. It didn't work out real well for me. I had a bunch of people who would come between baseball season and football season or whatever, just to waste time, basically. As I'm sure you can agree, it's those first two months that are hardest. The students that are only a month or two in need the most attention. So I started losing good, solid, established, progressing students because there were always new students pulling me away from them. So then I started focusing on the established students, and that made it impossible to get out of the beginner stage. I wanted to break them up, have two classes, one for beginners and one for established, progressing students, but offering classes free of charge means I'm doing this in addition to working and raising a family. (My youngest just turned three last weekend.) I can't run classes every night because (a) I don't have the money and (b) I want to spend time with my wife and kids doing what they want to do also. (It's great when they come do Kung Fu with me, but it's also fun to see my son's eyes light up shepherding and my daughter when she's building and doing electronics stuff.) Right now I'm charging for a uniform, requiring the uniform to take classes, but classes are free. That way of they are just there for a week or two, I'm able to put a little more into the classes for the students that are staying, and the people who aren't going to take it seriously are less likely to use it as a way to waste time. I've often been told that if I don't value what I have to offer, no one else will either. Experience has bore this out. What you offer has value. Don't be ashamed to charge a subscription fee.
Shaun Kennedy, Well said. I believe the only way a martial art could possibly be practised in a group for free is if it's a peer club. A VERY small group of lower level DEDICATED apretises isn't a bad thing to have going because I believe that everything is built on basics and teaching is a great way to reinforce and possibly even evaluate your own basics. I see you are a Kung Fu practitioner so I'm sure you are familiar with the "Lotus Flower" principle regarding having students, I believe it applies today for the reasons we've all put forward.
Hey Oz about the HTC One purple tint issue - I sent mine off to HTC and they fixed it for free under warranty. Apparently they're aware of the issue and they replace the entire module with a higher spec one.
I called out fake Gary Daniels as well as asked skallagrim if he wanted to spar.. I don't believe he and others know the first thing about martial arts on any continent.. jil
EnglishMartialArts I suppose he's asking how much you earn from TH-cam. I've been watching since Easton gave you a shout-out. Your videos have improved massively. I'm really looking forward to what you do in the future. Interesting content, good discussion, concise and clear instructions. I really like this channel, Martin.
Same here. Matt (one of these days, someone will make Matt and Martin a duet) directed me to you. Personally, it's like seeing, I hope this is a good simile, a child grow. There are great potential for this TH-cam channel, and I would like to recommend some ideas: 1) You can make videos on textual analysis of George Silver. Not many people have the luxury to read George Silver and his criticisms on Italian Rapier, so making videos about him might build you an audience. I don't quite see George Silver being talk a lot, so here's a chance to grab it! While you are at it, you can also use English Martial Arts to beat up Italian Rapier. George Silver would kiss you from the grave (that is in no reference to "Kiss From a Rose"). It's also really different from what people see in the HEMA community. 2) reddit/r/wma is a PERFECT place for networking and connecting. Maybe. I just asked one question on how to beat a sword and I got several comments. Either way, you can give yourself a name in the Internet by going to where the packs are. 3) Posting videos at certain days. I think this part is tricky because you will be posting free content that is from your purchasable product. That's why I recommend suggestion 1: you won't be giving freebies from your subscription AND you can make an audience. These are suggestions from a fan, of course. You don't need to follow my advise, but it's worth thinking about.
Brennan Faucher Again, thanks for the kind words. As to what I get from TH-cam, over the last 28 days my estimated earnings are $3.66 so not really enough to feed my kids on. I know when you get videos that are regularly getting thousands of views instead of the hundreds mine are it goes up, but I also know Matt from ScholaGladiatoria isn't making enough to give up his job by a long shot, and he's got 50x as many subscribers as me.
Neo Henry Some really nice ideas there. I don't have too much of a problem with giving away bits of things for free. Letting people see the sort of thing they would get if they were to sign up. I really should do more of it. The problem is there's always too much to do and not enough time!I do like the diea of textual analysis, especially as I'm playing with the possibilities offered by Blue-screen in the current set-up.I used to post on Reddit/r/wma/ but they really don't like you posting links to your own stuff, and I guess I never really got into Reddit as a social network. I should try again I suppose.
Thanks for the reply, Oz. I totally understand the benefits of offering the material via subscription service. It's really mainly a case of the few black sheep spoiling it for everyone, as usual, because subscription offerings have been abused so many times by scammers and other dubious people. Which of course has nothing to do with what you're doing but such things have made people quite cautious and skeptical. Or maybe it's just me, which is quite possible since I can be somewhat paranoid. :)
In your case I had no problem at all recommending your material, you seem like a sincere, reliable guy. I don't know how many of my viewers are interested in the material but we'll see.
The updated presentation of your website is much better, I think it has a much more legitimate feel to it now. Looks like you can trust your intuition. I wish you the best of luck with the business!
I think 99.9% of us started out with crappy equipment. Very few people can go back to their first videos without cringing at something like the audio :)
It's sad that this kind of level-headed maturity is so rare on social media, but I, for one, salute you for it.
Thanks for all the hard work you're putting into pugilism. I've had some of the books that you have recommended. At the end of the day you should always charge for your professionalism and your service. You put in a lot of work and it shows and I think all of us appreciate quality. Bye giving you likes and also participating in your patreon I gathered you will be making a lot more high quality videos. I can definitely see you doing some Menards in the future. And I would definitely love to go to one of those. The pages of a book or even a video doesn't compare to the one on one training that someone. Thanks again can't wait to see more of your videos.
I just wanted to comment real quick on your charging a subscription: I agree with you... I'd love to be able to give my time to whomever for free whenever. I kind of tried that for about two years. It didn't work out real well for me. I had a bunch of people who would come between baseball season and football season or whatever, just to waste time, basically. As I'm sure you can agree, it's those first two months that are hardest. The students that are only a month or two in need the most attention. So I started losing good, solid, established, progressing students because there were always new students pulling me away from them. So then I started focusing on the established students, and that made it impossible to get out of the beginner stage. I wanted to break them up, have two classes, one for beginners and one for established, progressing students, but offering classes free of charge means I'm doing this in addition to working and raising a family. (My youngest just turned three last weekend.) I can't run classes every night because (a) I don't have the money and (b) I want to spend time with my wife and kids doing what they want to do also. (It's great when they come do Kung Fu with me, but it's also fun to see my son's eyes light up shepherding and my daughter when she's building and doing electronics stuff.) Right now I'm charging for a uniform, requiring the uniform to take classes, but classes are free. That way of they are just there for a week or two, I'm able to put a little more into the classes for the students that are staying, and the people who aren't going to take it seriously are less likely to use it as a way to waste time.
I've often been told that if I don't value what I have to offer, no one else will either. Experience has bore this out. What you offer has value. Don't be ashamed to charge a subscription fee.
Shaun Kennedy, Well said. I believe the only way a martial art could possibly be practised in a group for free is if it's a peer club. A VERY small group of lower level DEDICATED apretises isn't a bad thing to have going because I believe that everything is built on basics and teaching is a great way to reinforce and possibly even evaluate your own basics. I see you are a Kung Fu practitioner so I'm sure you are familiar with the "Lotus Flower" principle regarding having students, I believe it applies today for the reasons we've all put forward.
Love the site and the material. There are not many sites that do what you do.
Hey Oz about the HTC One purple tint issue - I sent mine off to HTC and they fixed it for free under warranty. Apparently they're aware of the issue and they replace the entire module with a higher spec one.
Wow, that's worth looking into, thanks!
There's gold, and fools gold. If you have trained you can tell the difference.
yeeees
I called out fake Gary Daniels as well as asked skallagrim if he wanted to spar.. I don't believe he and others know the first thing about martial arts on any continent.. jil
So what does TH-cam get ?
I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand? What does TH-cam get for what?
EnglishMartialArts I suppose he's asking how much you earn from TH-cam.
I've been watching since Easton gave you a shout-out. Your videos have improved massively. I'm really looking forward to what you do in the future. Interesting content, good discussion, concise and clear instructions. I really like this channel, Martin.
Same here. Matt (one of these days, someone will make Matt and Martin a duet) directed me to you. Personally, it's like seeing, I hope this is a good simile, a child grow. There are great potential for this TH-cam channel, and I would like to recommend some ideas:
1) You can make videos on textual analysis of George Silver. Not many people have the luxury to read George Silver and his criticisms on Italian Rapier, so making videos about him might build you an audience. I don't quite see George Silver being talk a lot, so here's a chance to grab it!
While you are at it, you can also use English Martial Arts to beat up Italian Rapier. George Silver would kiss you from the grave (that is in no reference to "Kiss From a Rose"). It's also really different from what people see in the HEMA community.
2) reddit/r/wma is a PERFECT place for networking and connecting. Maybe. I just asked one question on how to beat a sword and I got several comments. Either way, you can give yourself a name in the Internet by going to where the packs are.
3) Posting videos at certain days. I think this part is tricky because you will be posting free content that is from your purchasable product. That's why I recommend suggestion 1: you won't be giving freebies from your subscription AND you can make an audience.
These are suggestions from a fan, of course. You don't need to follow my advise, but it's worth thinking about.
Brennan Faucher Again, thanks for the kind words. As to what I get from TH-cam, over the last 28 days my estimated earnings are $3.66 so not really enough to feed my kids on. I know when you get videos that are regularly getting thousands of views instead of the hundreds mine are it goes up, but I also know Matt from ScholaGladiatoria isn't making enough to give up his job by a long shot, and he's got 50x as many subscribers as me.
Neo Henry Some really nice ideas there. I don't have too much of a problem with giving away bits of things for free. Letting people see the sort of thing they would get if they were to sign up. I really should do more of it. The problem is there's always too much to do and not enough time!I do like the diea of textual analysis, especially as I'm playing with the possibilities offered by Blue-screen in the current set-up.I used to post on Reddit/r/wma/ but they really don't like you posting links to your own stuff, and I guess I never really got into Reddit as a social network. I should try again I suppose.