Make Your Masterpiece on Stream

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 181 - Make Your Masterpiece on Stream

Throughout the lifespan of The Twitch Playbook, I’ve spoken about attempting the craziest stream ideas you can think of, letting your passions show themselves, and finding ways to let your channel enable you to reach your lifelong goals. Along the way, I’ve given examples of how Twitch has enabled me personally to reach unexpected heights and continually pay creative dividends. This time, I’m going to describe how my streaming passion has facilitated my biggest goal yet: thanks to my Twitch channel, I was able to illustrate and publish my own book! This is something I never thought I’d be able to do, and I’m still shocked to think that it’s really come true. We’ll go through my personal journey in accomplishing this task, as well as all the ways Twitch helped along the road. Even though you may have different goals, consider how your streaming skills might be able to enable your largest dreams, and where your channel might take you if you only stick with your streaming passion. 

➢ SETTING THE SCENE

I had a lot of fun creating this image
showing the actual fall of Troy.

As I mentioned in previous entries, I read a lot of books. And in the past few years, I’ve had a growing interest in Greek mythology. It’s such a rich tapestry of stories and characters, and it’s responsible (in one way or another) for inspiring most of the greatest artists across every medium, even to this day. At one point I came across a Greek epic, in the style of the ancient poet Homer, called Posthomerica. This was written in the 4th century AD, around a thousand years after Homer, and aimed to complete the arc of Homer’s stories (hence the name ‘post’ Homerica, or ‘after Homer’). Now, for anyone who knows Homer’s works, there’s a massive gap between the Iliad (the story of the Trojan war) and the Odyssey (the story of Odysseus returning from the Trojan war). The Iliad ends before the war is over, and many of the most famous events, like Achilles’ heel, the wooden horse, and the actual fall of the city, are not included within the Iliad’s pages. Posthomerica however, tells of all those things and much more, like how Troy was helped by Amazon warrior women, an African king, and even Hercules’ grandson, as well as many other amazing legendary events. These things were all part of the canon of Greek lore, but this was the only story which actually compiled them into one coherent narrative. I was shocked to find that Posthomerica, despite being arguably just as epic as Homer’s works, was mostly obscure among readers of the classics. And unlike Iliad and Odyssey, which each have dozens of audiobook editions available in stores, there wasn’t a single Posthomerica audiobook available on sale anywhere I could find. 

I became fascinated with the story, and in addition to wanting to hear an audiobook edition, I started thinking seriously about releasing my own text version. I got the rights to a classic translation of the text, and because I was publishing it myself, I was free to release the content as I saw fit. Of course, being who I am, that meant incorporating my Twitch channel into the process. 

➢ THE SKILLS COME TOGETHER

As it would turn out however, my Twitch channel helped me to create this book years before I ever even began the project. Way back in the entry Attempt Your Worst Idea for a Twitch Stream, I talked about how I developed a show I could easily do while away from home. After trying several different ideas, I landed on the concept of coloring in a coloring book live on camera. It allowed me to revisit my passion for art, which I had been studying all my life before college, and it involved much less tech than trying to stream video games or other complicated ideas. In the years since writing that entry, the coloring book stream continued to evolve. I eventually got an iPad, and began learning to create digital art. I had always been trained in pencils, oils and acrylics, so using an Apple Pencil on a touch screen was a totally new experience for me. I decided that I would stream myself doing various art exercises I found online each time I traveled, to get more and more used to this new digital format. I didn’t do any digital art off-camera, but actually taught myself this new style entirely during the Twitch broadcasts. 

We even formatted and illustrated
the book & audiobook covers
live on stream. 

When I began thinking about publishing my edition of Posthomerica, I began kicking around the idea of illustrating the text edition myself. I grew fascinated by the artwork of classical Greek pottery, and decided I would create each chapter’s imagery in that style. Because I had begun teaching myself to use the iPad for my art, I used the iPad to illustrate the entire book, live on camera. Over the course of roughly 200 art streams, you can actually see my style continually improve, as I tried, failed, experimented, and revised over and over during my broadcasts. Not only were my dedicated stream hours an excuse to put in the immense amount of work required to illustrate a book, but I was teaching myself the craft live on stream as well! I quite literally would not have been able to create the illustrations without my Twitch channel. 

A similar thing happened when making the audiobook edition. After carefully studying the text for character motivations and pronunciations, I livestreamed various stages of my narration practice runs, the chapter narrations themselves, and the post-production editing process. These skills can also be traced back to Twitch streaming. In the entry Let Your Stream Passions Guide You in Life, I talked about how my love for reading the books I’d pick up in video games during my streams led me to creating a podcast where I narrated video game books, and that led me to becoming a full-fledged audiobook narrator on Audible. I also mentioned in previous entries how I used to stream the process of editing YouTube videos. This gave me the confidence and workflow needed to show my audio editing process while making the Posthomerica audiobook live on my channel, without having to figure out the process beforehand. 

➢ THE FINISHED PRODUCT

This book was by far the largest project I’ve ever attempted. There were several points where I couldn’t imagine seeing the finish line, and I was often attacked by bouts of ‘impostor syndrome,’ thinking there was no way I was qualified to create such a major work. Throughout the entire process however, I simply followed the advice I always follow when streaming, and I kept going. No matter what, I pressed on, and derived joy from each little victory, rather than focusing on the final result. Being able to incorporate the process into my livestreams meant I could take some of the pressure off, by sharing the excitement with my community and dedicating stream hours to the project. After more than a year of work, countless off-stream hours, and 267 making-of broadcasts, I was finally finished. Posthomerica: The Fall of Troy was published on Amazon and Audible last month, and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. My Twitch channel allowed me to learn the lessons required, as well as dedicate the raw work hours, to make this dream into a reality. So the next time you’re getting ready to go live, think about what your Twitch channel can do for you. The fun, validation and communities we gain from streaming are all incredible gifts in themselves, but there’s a lot more you can accomplish with a Twitch channel, should you be interested in doing so. If you let your passions show themselves on stream, you never know where they might lead you. It’s possible that your channel could be the missing tool you need to create your next masterpiece. 

Build a Better Streaming Habit

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 180 - Build a Better Streaming Habit

If you’re trying to start a Twitch channel, you may find things are getting a bit rocky. For many of us starting out, we can’t bring ourselves to do the shows consistently for more than a few days in a row. Like trying to start a campfire, you might find you can generate sparks but can’t get a flame going. This inability to stick to the plan may come from an unexpected place. You may be trying to stream the right things at the wrong time. In this entry, we’ll explore how the aspects you might love about streaming down the road can cause your channel to sputter in the beginning.   

➢ MAKE IT EASY ON YOURSELF

When I was in school, I hated reading. On paper, I was an excellent English student- I was placed in advanced classes for reading and writing throughout my educational career. And while the ability to break down stories and answer questions about them came effortlessly to me in school, I never read books for my own enjoyment. I’d be forced to pick up The Great Gatsby or Homer’s Odyssey and I would skim the text, knowing what kind of questions the teacher might ask, and then I’d ace the test and never think about the book again. I wouldn’t even read the whole thing- only what I needed for the assignment. I resented books in general, because I associated them with work. I’d see other kids reading novels just because they liked them, and I’d be baffled. Why would anyone ever choose to read books voluntarily? 

But then when I got out of school, I picked up a book on a whim. I can’t even remember which book it was anymore- something for teens, below what was technically my reading level- but I remember really enjoying the story either way. I thought to myself, “Why didn’t they assign this book in class rather than the boring stuff we were forced to read?” And after reading that one, I picked up another. And after that, another. My speed eventually increased, and I would start going through books much more quickly. I grew curious, and got into the classics. And when I did that, I was shocked to find that The Great Gatsby, Homer’s Odyssey, and all these other dusty old stories I was forced to read in school were actually incredible. Now, reading has become one of my favorite pastimes. I finish a book every few days, and I ravenously explore every genre and author I can. The same act which felt like pulling teeth while I was in school is now something I excitedly pursue every day. 

Playing The Witcher games got me into the
novels and short stories.

When trying to build a Twitch streaming habit, this same principle applies. There are all sorts of things you can try to do on your channel in the beginning, and all of them can be great ideas. But some of them won’t be the best choice for you right now. I formed a reading habit by finding things I enjoyed, whether or not anyone else thought they were the right choice for me, and I focused on reading only what I liked. This created a positive feedback loop. I liked the first book, so I moved onto reading another book. In streaming, you want to create that same positive loop. But because of how nervous many prospective streamers are, it’s easy to over-prepare instead. You may have researched all sorts of ‘best practices’ about growing quickly, how to engage your chat, or making your shows look as good as they can be. You may have even learned those things from this podcast. But if you take too many lessons to heart before actually trying to stream for yourself, you’re only letting a bunch of other people’s recommendations form a cage around your channel. Where’s the room for expression? 

➢ TIMING IS EVERYTHING

When I was in school, teachers assigned me books they genuinely thought were amazing- and those books were amazing- but they weren’t right for me at the time. I hadn’t formed a love for the act of reading itself, so I wasn’t interested in thinking critically about an author’s intentions or analyzing complex prose. Just because I was capable of doing those things didn’t mean I should have been doing them. You may be struggling to form a streaming habit for the same reason I couldn’t form a reading habit. Until I was free of the expectations and limits of my education, I associated reading with what all those other people told me to think. I had a very narrow view of what books could be, and that almost destroyed my chances of ever getting into reading. It was only when I was free to create my own enjoyment that I actually stuck with it. 

When you try to implement too many things on your channel from the outset, whether they’re technical enhancements, different scenes you’re switching between, or even general do’s and don’ts that you learned from some instructional resource, the stream isn’t really your own. Your habit can’t form easily because you’re only doing a bunch of things other people told you to do. Try setting aside all the baggage you’ve picked up while educating yourself about Twitch, and just stream. Do whatever comes naturally to you, without thinking about anything you’ve learned. Find your own enjoyment in the craft. You’ll keep coming back because you’re discovering things for yourself, and at your own pace. It’s your journey. Don’t let it be taken over by someone else’s past experiences. And like me coming back and reading The Great Gatsby later in life, you can try the more complicated stuff after you’ve formed a genuine love for the act of streaming. But that love should always come first. That’s how you build a better streaming habit. 

Archiving Your Twitch Streams

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 179 - Archiving Your Twitch Streams

In the entry Using YouTube as a Twitch Streamer, I spoke about how to get the most out of YouTube as a satellite platform to support your streams. There, I discussed several ideas for Affiliates or Partners, as well as a few extras for those who haven’t signed a contract with Twitch. But as I mentioned in that episode, my personal favorite use for YouTube is as a permanent stream archive. Any Twitch streamer can do this, regardless of Affiliate status, and it can be very useful in several ways. In this entry I’m going to cover the reasons I love archiving my streams, and take you through the various methods I tried when perfecting my workflow. 

➢ SAVING YOUR SHOWS

So first of all, what are stream archives good for? Right off the bat, as you’ll know if you’ve been following The Twitch Playbook, I’m a big fan of watching old episodes to keep track of progress. And while it’s possible for a Twitch channel to save past broadcasts, they don’t get saved forever. They’ll stick around for a maximum of two months, possibly shorter depending on your channel, and after that they’re gone. I like to have my oldest streams around, just in case I want to watch them again later for some reason. I’ve found a lot of use from periodically revisiting episodes from a long time ago. Sometimes I can simply reassure myself how much better I’ve gotten, but other times I use those old shows to remind myself of a great feature I used to have, and possibly inspire something to implement on my current channel. 

For my kind of content, it's nice to have a
library of videos that viewers can browse.

Second, viewers can watch your archived streams. Based on the kind of content you make, the usefulness of this will vary. On my shows, since I play through singleplayer games and focus on the plot, viewers often like to catch up with the story’s progress by watching old episodes between streams. If I start on a sequel for example, the previous game may have appeared on my channel six months ago, and the stream wouldn’t stay on Twitch as a past broadcast for that long. Having an archive can be really useful for that. If you mostly do competitive games, entire stream archives won’t be as useful for viewers to watch in order to catch up with your streams, but they can be great to have in case you ever want to make compilation videos or track the improvement of your skills. Artists and musicians can find a similar use for this feature, being able to make timelapses or other clips from old paintings or performances without worrying about whether they’ll expire. 

And why put them on YouTube rather than Twitch? There are good arguments to be made for keeping your content stored on either platform. For me, YouTube is cleaner. There are better tools for sorting your content, editing after the fact, and adding descriptions, links and other information. Even though it’s nice to have everything all in one place on a Twitch channel, I personally think it’s better not to have my Twitch page cluttered with highlights alongside each stream. Plus, the way I archive to YouTube, the whole process is much more automated. 

➢ AUTOMATING THE ARCHIVES

Sometimes you need to let the machines
do the heavy lifting so you can focus
on more important things.

If you think about the amount of content I produce (now over 6,000 videos since starting my channel!), you could imagine it getting prohibitively time-consuming pretty quickly if I wanted to archive all my shows manually. For that reason, I worked hard to get all my episodes to YouTube in a way that requires the least input on my side, while still allowing the shows to be nicely formatted, well-organized, and uploaded in a timely manner. In order to reach that goal, I explored several different options: 

1. Saving Locally - In streaming software like OBS, it’s possible to actually save a video of your stream to your computer while it’s broadcasting. This is technically the safest option for archiving, because if you have network issues during the show, all the content is still there in the local video file. However, this was overkill for my purposes, and the added time of uploading each file later would have taken too long.
   
   

2. Highlighting on Twitch - As I mentioned before, you can actually make a Twitch highlight of a full stream, which will save it forever on your channel. But Twitch doesn’t have a great way to display large amounts of playlists, and there aren’t many good organization features for viewers looking through hundreds or thousands of old episodes.
   
   

3. Download and Save - If you don’t want to save files locally while streaming, you could always download the stream from Twitch after it’s over, then post it on YouTube. This takes a lot of time however, and unlike the local saves, it will still show any network issues in the video you get from it.
   
   

4. Video Export - As I mentioned in previous entries, you can actually click the ‘Export’ button on any stream in the Creator Dashboard, and Twitch will send it to your linked YouTube channel. This works well, but it takes time to encode and send to YouTube, and I personally don’t like having to remember to click that button after each stream.
   
   

5. Multistreaming in Software - Within streaming software like Streamlabs OBS, you can actually go live to two platforms at once, right from the app. This only requires linking the two accounts (in my case, Twitch and YouTube) and hitting the Go Live button. It’s even possible to set the YouTube broadcast to private if you’re Affiliate, so it doesn’t break the 24-hour exclusivity clause in the Twitch contract. However, this doesn’t account for when you’re streaming outside of the software. And that’s what led me to my current method.
   
   

6. Multistreaming with an Intermediate API - The solution I finally arrived at was to use the free intermediate service Restream, which would send my broadcast to Twitch and YouTube from its side. Now, you might think this sounds like it serves the same function as multistreaming from Streamlabs OBS, but it has one big bonus: my show gets archived, no matter what device I stream from. So whether I go live from my games PC, do a quick show from my phone, make art while capturing my iPad screen, or broadcast from an IRL streaming backpack, they all simply send the signal to Restream, and Restream does the work of sending the show to Twitch and YouTube. No need to set up all the specific settings on each device before I go live.

Depending on the setup of your channel, you may not need to use the same workflow I use. Even the options that were imperfect for my own streams might be what works for yours. If you want to archive your shows, make sure to consider what you actually need, and tailor your choices to those criteria. Just like I did when coming up with my solution. But no matter what kind of content you make, I think you’ll find some use from having your old streams around. Whether you curate them for others to watch, or you just keep them private to watch on your own and make videos from, consider archiving the streams you make on Twitch. 

Break Free from Streaming Expectations

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 178 - Break Free from Streaming Expectations

 

When you stream on your channel, do you ever feel like your content is missing something? Maybe your shows aren’t getting enough laughs, your graphics aren’t catching the eyes of viewers, or your gameplay isn’t as interesting as you want it to be. I’ve certainly had this feeling at various points in my stream career, and I think it’s common for others to feel the same. In this entry, we’re going to look at three great creators from the worlds of film and video games, and I’ll share how I’ve taken inspiration from each to get myself out of various creative ruts. 

➢ BUCKING THE TREND

It really was a great opening level.

In 2001, Metal Gear fans were excited beyond belief to get their hands on director Hideo Kojima’s upcoming entry in the series. Using the brand new PlayStation 2’s impressive graphics technology, Metal Gear Solid 2 was going to bring a whole new level of visual fidelity for the always-innovative franchise. Fans obsessively played through the game’s demo in the months leading up to the release, in which iconic series star Solid Snake infiltrated a tanker ship sailing up the Hudson River. Imagine the shock then, when players got their hands on the final product, and immediately after the events of the demo Snake meets with disaster and control is switched to a completely new character for the rest of the game! Kojima is a master at this kind of trickery, even having replaced the new character in trailers and promo material with Snake in order to keep the secret until release. This highly calculated bait-and-switch allowed the series to expand its horizons, and even explore the larger story concept of living up to the impossible expectations of a predecessor- a pressure I’m sure director Hideo Kojima was feeling when making the followup to such a smash hit as the first Metal Gear Solid. While the initial shock divided some fans at release, MGS2 is now typically considered among the best of the franchise, as well as one of the greatest games of all time. 

Throughout my streaming career, I’ve often had fun keeping secrets from my audience and springing surprises on my viewers. Whether it’s an upcoming international trip, a new game we’ll be playing, or a feature being added to the channel, I think this kind of showmanship can really enhance someone’s experience as a part of a community. This is another reason to hold off on telling others about your plans like I described in the entry Build Your Twitch Channel Like You’re a Secret Agent. Aside from the motivational boost such a mindset can give, it can allow you to time announcements in much more interesting ways. 

➢ DOING YOUR OWN THING

There’s another creator who’s always loved to turn the tables on us, though he did it for a different reason than Hideo Kojima. Love him or hate him, George Lucas has undeniably made an incredible contribution to popular fiction with his Star Wars franchise. Even from his least-revered entries in the canon, there have sprung unforgettable moments, characters and locations. Lucas began his science fiction megabrand with a humble concept: a new take on the swashbuckling Flash Gordon shorts he loved as a kid. Like with those serialized mini-films, each story of his Star Wars saga would be so different from the next that even when watching them in order, you’d feel you may have missed a few episodes between. 

Not really related, but can we get a
 sequel to this please?

And however we may knock some of his choices, we can’t say that George Lucas didn’t stay true to his original vision throughout his time in control. Upon selling the keys to his kingdom, the series was taken over by creators who no longer had as much interest in pulling from Flash Gordon. Instead they preferred to draw from the well of what Star Wars had already done. And while there have certainly been some excellent films and series created during this new chapter for the brand, it’s generally agreed that nothing can match the pure wonder and creativity of Lucas’ time as caretaker. I think his completely unselfconscious ‘take it or leave it’ attitude about creating is a very admirable trait. In my own streams, I try to take inspiration from George Lucas’ unbridled passion and creativity wherever I can. Sometimes it’s necessary to simply do things because they excite you, without worrying whether others will agree. It’s impossible to make everyone happy anyway. If we’re going to upset a few people no matter what we do, we may as well do what we love. 

➢ STAY UNINFORMED

In the entry Know What Not to Know About Streaming, I told the story of how director Orson Welles managed to create what is generally considered to be the greatest film of all time. He did this not by learning everything there was to know about filmmaking, and not by mastering every aspect of the craft, but instead by cultivating his ignorance of what could and couldn’t be done. By not knowing the limits, he was able to fearlessly attempt the impossible. And time and again, through this method, he achieved several remarkable things. Whenever I feel I’m playing it too safe on my channel, I try to take a page from Orson Welles’ book and simply stop learning. I watch fewer other streamers, I read less educational material about the craft, and I do my best to forget everything I’ve already learned. This strategy has led me to some of my most exciting and creative ideas, because I’m given freedom to go in any direction with my content. 

What about your stream is currently holding you back? Even if you can’t identify the exact problem, it could be that you’re simply playing it too safe. And whether you intentionally try to buck trends like Hideo Kojima, you look to yourself for guidance like George Lucas, or you forget the rules like Orson Welles, there are many ways to expand your creative boundaries. By breaking free from your streaming expectations, there’s no telling where your shows can go. 

Important Growth Concepts for Any Streamer

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 177 - Important Growth Concepts for Any Streamer

On a Twitch channel, it can be difficult to manage all the moving pieces. As I’ve mentioned in entries before, adding features can sometimes hurt your content as much as help, if you’re not being smart about how you do it. This time, I wanted to mention a few topics that I’ve found useful when building my own Twitch channel. I believe these concepts can be valuable to a broadcaster of any size, and help them either grow their channel, or grow as a streamer. 

➢ ADD AND SUBTRACT

When streaming on Twitch, the most important thing is to continue gaining experience. This means that, no matter what I advise in this resource, as long as you’re actually going live regularly on your channel, you’re on the right track. Never let concerns about how best to stream get in the way of actually doing your streams. But if you’re doing well at maintaining your habit, it’s worth implementing a few optimization tips along the way. My suggestion on this front is to focus only on one type of improvement at a time. If you add ten features to your channel all at once between episodes, it will not only be hard to manage the overall quality of your broadcasts, but you’ll also be unable to isolate the effect each individual feature is giving to your streams. By taking things more slowly and focusing on one new aspect at a time, you can keep track of the response each feature gives, and hone your skills at using them during your streams. There will be plenty more broadcasts in the future. There’s no need to rush to implement everything at once. 

When playing FromSoftware games, I
keep a written to-do list. There's always
so much to do!

In addition to having a ‘to-do list’ for adding in new features on your stream, it’s just as important (if not more so) to maintain a ‘stop doing list.’ I spoke about this a bit in the growth check-in entry called Simplify Your Streams. Channels can often become bloated through the months and years of adding features, and sometimes those features become obsolete. Whether viewers no longer use them in chat, you don’t like doing them anymore on the shows, or they simply no longer have any use, I’m sure there are a few vestigial components on your channel right now, if you’ve been streaming more than a few months. In that earlier entry I mentioned, I helped you to take stock of every aspect of your channel, and make real decisions about how to separate the wheat from the chaff. I know it’s difficult. There are probably great memories associated with some of those aspects of your streams. But if the feature isn’t working right now, those memories shouldn’t play into your decision. You either get the feature to work, or remove it. By making your channel leaner in this way, it removes a burden from you as the streamer, helps viewers understand your shows more easily, and (depending on what you removed) can even help your stream’s performance. 

➢ MAKE MISTAKES

As I’ve spoken about before, you shouldn’t worry about being right all the time. You’re going to make mistakes on Twitch, and instead of sulking about them when they happen, or allowing the fear of failure to paralyze your decision-making, you should embrace those blunders! Every time you do something on your channel that isn’t as good as it should be, and you’re able to recognize that it isn’t up to par, you’re gathering valuable data. You’re improving your skill to identify what doesn’t work, and increasing your likelihood of finding the right answer down the road. Think of it like playing Minesweeper. In that game, you’re trying to identify a set number of mines on a large grid. Each tile is blank at the beginning, and could either be a mine or a safe space. But after clicking the first tile (assuming you don’t immediately hit a mine), a large space opens up, telling you about the number of mines adjacent to your newly opened area. In order to win the game, the knowledge of what not to do, and which spaces not to click, is just as important as knowing which spaces you should click. Figuring out both kinds of information, both the positive and the negative, are necessary in order to reach the end without exploding. I like to look at Twitch streaming in the same way. Each time you make a decision or add a feature, it’s like you start another game of Minesweeper. You’re not going to get it exactly right from the beginning, but you’re gaining valuable information about what move to make next. And even if your idea hits the equivalent of a mine and blows up in your face, you can always try again with a whole new approach. 

Connor has made some mistakes, and
he does his best to atone for them. 

Finally, in order to really succeed on Twitch, no matter what you’re aiming for, you’ll need to take responsibility for your actions and their consequences. Avoid excuses. It can be comforting to make them, but they only hurt you in the end. Whether you missed a day, want to change the games you play, need to remove a feature, or anything else, just own up to it and keep going. There’s no need to tell everyone about your mistake or make a public apology, just do it right the next time. As I mentioned in the entry How to Find the Time to Stream on Twitch, you are 100% responsible for your time. But that’s really true of everything else too. When you’re the owner of a Twitch channel, the buck stops with you. Yes, something out of your control may have happened and prevented you from going live, but that still means the viewer missed out on your show when they expected to see it. Your problem has nothing to do with them. No matter what you say, you can’t change the disappointment they felt in that moment. In my opinion, it doesn’t matter how good an excuse is, because no excuse will change what’s already happened. It’s more productive to focus on what you can actually accomplish in the future. 

So consider these concepts the next time you go live. Whether you’re slowly adding features to your streams, removing old ideas, making mistakes or kicking the excuses habit, any one of these things can help your Twitch channel a great deal. Keep streaming, keep learning, and keep getting better. No matter the size of your operation, the concepts laid out here can help you to stream that much more effectively. 

Successfully Streaming Without Self-Promotion

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 176 - Successfully Streaming Without Self-Promotion

When you watch a Twitch broadcast, it’s par for the course to hear the streamer ask you to do things. Whether that involves following, subscribing, buying merch, or just becoming more active in the chat, you’ll quickly find that the occasional commercials aren’t the only things advertising to you during a stream. Nobody really likes watching a streamer constantly remind them of the fact that they can subscribe, and no streamer really likes having to do it either, but promotion is typically considered to be a necessary evil. But is it really? Are there ways to be successful as a streamer without doing any (or, at least, as much) self-promotion during your streams? 

➢ REMOVING CONTROL

If you played David O’Reilly’s incredible surrealist video game Everything, you’re probably familiar with speaker and self-styled ‘philosophical entertainer’ Alan Watts- he’s the guy whose audio tidbits play throughout the game. When Watts did speaking engagements, he had an interesting way of giving his presentations. He would explore deep themes and offer really profound advice, but he never considered himself a ‘self-help guru.’ 

In the game Everything, you can play as,
literally, everything.

When someone is selling the promise of personal improvement, they usually want something from you as well. To unlock the full secrets, you’ll have to buy their books, attend their seminars, and join their followings of like-minded devotees. But Watts thought of his content in another way. He described his business model as that of a physician, who he said, “is always trying to get rid of his patients.” For him, it was simply about putting his thoughts out there. When someone found value in those thoughts, that was enough. They didn’t have to come back for more talks or buy all his merchandise- if they found something to help their lives then he had done his job. 

Here’s a quote of his that I love: “I am not trying to help you or improve you; I accept you as you are. I am not out, therefore, to save the world. Of course, when a stream or a bubbling spring flows out from the mountains, it is doing its thing. And if a thirsty traveler helps himself, well that’s fine. When a bird sings, it doesn’t sing for the advancement of music, but if somebody stops to listen and is delighted, that’s fine.” This kind of content creation- modeled after a bird that sings purely for its own sake- has gone on to inspire my philosophy on making Twitch streams. I’ve spoken in other places about how this applies to the enjoyment of streaming, but here, we’ll talk about how it relates to selling your streams. 

➢ CREATE VALUE 

From the smallest electron to a massive solar 
system, all of creation is encompassed 
in this game.

How are you leaving people after they watch your broadcasts? Are you asking more from them than they are from you? Many streamers get carried away with the business side of their channels, constantly pushing others to subscribe, donate, buy merch, or support in some other way. But not everyone is going to want to do these things. And even if they did, the constant reminders could hurt more than they help. Put yourself in the viewer’s shoes. Would you rather subscribe to a channel you love after being prompted to do it by the streamer, or out of genuine appreciation for their content? In my opinion, it’s best for a streamer to first think about the value they’re putting into the world, and let the benefits come naturally. If viewers really like what you’re making, they’ll show their support. To return to the example of Alan Watts, many people did end up buying more than one book, or returning to hear him speak again. Heck, there was a whole video game created after his death, which was narrated entirely by audio clips from his public appearances. Clearly, he became well-loved for his ideas, but he didn’t need to pressure others into doing it, in order to make it happen. 

In various entries, I’ve spoken about the importance of always offering more value than you ask of others. This principle doesn’t apply only to increasing your view count or making money, it can be put into effect anywhere. This kind of ‘no expectations’ philosophy can be a major help when trying to network on Twitch, for example. Many new streamers think only of themselves when meeting other channels. They wait in the other streamer’s chat like a coiled viper, saying one or two token comments before jumping on the opportunity to mention their own channel. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen users who either directly ask for followers, or casually drop comments like “I’m about to do my stream now” to let others know they’re going live. This is not only tacky and completely transparent to the reader, but it’s also very rude. It’s an attempt to siphon viewers and attention from the other streamer’s channel into their own. You wouldn’t go to someone’s small mom and pop store and post a sign that customers could visit your own similar store instead (unless you’re Larry David, I suppose), so why do it on someone's Twitch channel? In the entry 3 Easy Tips to Network on Twitch, I went into detail about how you can create true connections with other Twitch streamers by simply enjoying their content without asking for anything in return. In the style of Alan Watts, benefits can come if they come. And if not, you made a friend along the way. But of course, friends are more likely to help each other out in the end. 

So no matter what you’re doing on Twitch, consider simply being. Create your streams, make real connections, and don’t think too hard about your bottom line. Sometimes that lack of pressure can be exactly what the viewer comes to appreciate about your content. You might just find that removing some of the promotion from your streams brings you better results than you had before. 

One Must Imagine the Streamer Happy

The Twitch Playbook: Tips for Twitch Streamers · 175 - One Must Imagine the Streamer Happy

You’ve probably felt self-conscious about your channel at some point in your Twitch career. There’s no shame in it- it happens to all of us. Streaming and self-consciousness just sort of go hand in hand. Because no matter how big you are, there’s always going to be somebody with more followers, better content, a livelier chat, or a more interesting personality. Yet as creators, we’re always putting ourselves in motion, working toward the next goal or the next exciting project. Some of us do so because we want to, and a much larger percentage of others expand because they feel they have to. In this entry, we’ll look at the bigger picture of streaming. We’ll consider how to find more enjoyment in the content we create right now, rather than feeling we need to grow before allowing ourselves the luxury. 

➢ THE ILLUSION OF CHANGE

There's always another mountain
to climb.

I’ve spoken before in this resource about how elusive streaming ‘success’ can be if you define success by your channel’s metrics. No matter what target you aim for, the goal will always move further back by the time you reach its original position. For example, let’s say you just started streaming and worked hard to reach 10 followers. But then during that time, you saw other channels with many more active chatters, and all those channels had 50 followers. You might then assume that these two figures show a direct correlation- if only you could reach 50 followers, you’ll also have that amount of people talking in your chat! But once you get there, your amount of active chatters is still nowhere near the other streamer’s. Then you see another stream with 100 followers, which has all these fancy graphics. Maybe if you had fancy graphics, you’d get to 100 followers that much easier? So you have graphics drawn up and add them to your stream, but you don’t notice the needle moving much. Eventually, through the usual slow methods, you reach 100 followers. But you see someone at 200 followers with all sorts of giveaways and donation goals, and they’re making a lot of money! So you set up those same kinds of promotions on your own channel, but you end up losing more than you gain. Why does it feel like your channel is consistently failing where others of a similar size are succeeding?

It’s because in this scenario, you (as many new streamers do) are assigning a lot more significance to the follower count than it really merits. Because the amount of followers is displayed as a nice, big number on the front of every Twitch channel, it’s easy to measure all other things by it. That’s the ‘success’ that streamers aim for, but it doesn’t really correlate to much. The 50-follower streamer in the example has an active chat because they’re personable. The 100-follower streamer has fancy graphics because they like to design logos in their spare time. The 200-follower streamer is great at promotion. They don’t get those results because of the sizes of their channels, they get them by working hard on the aspects of their streams that most interest them. Every streamer likes certain parts of the craft better than others. It’s only by finding those things and focusing on them that we can truly become content with our broadcasts. Don’t look to the size of your channel to give you meaning. If you find meaning right now, you won’t care how big the channel is, and it’ll grow anyway. 

➢ ENDLESS UPHILL CLIMB

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was an overly ambitious man who cheated the gods. As punishment, Hades stranded him in the underworld, where he was doomed to push a heavy boulder up a mountain, only for it to roll back down again when he neared the top. He would toil endlessly, without ever seeing his task completed- the ultimate frustration for someone of ambition like him. In modernity, this legend is applied to many things throughout daily life. A ‘Sisyphean task’ can be any endless grind, with no end in sight- going to work every day, being short on money, mowing the lawn, or buying groceries, for example. As soon as these things seem like they’re finished, it’s only a matter of time until they need to be done again. 

Sisyphus would have been a fun
inclusion in the God of War series.

Twitch streaming is another Sisyphean task. There’s really no finish line, only a constant stream of effort. But like any Sisyphean ordeal, your quality of life comes not necessarily from finishing the task, but how you perceive the task. If you rush as fast as you can, with the sole objective of reaching higher and higher points on the mountain of Twitch followers, dejection is likely to set in eventually. There will always be more distance to cover, and even when it looks like you’re near the top, you’ll see that you’re really only at the beginning of another climb. But if you can find a way to enjoy what you’re doing right now, at whatever pace you choose, it doesn’t matter that the task is endless. That’s how you beat the system, whether you’re streaming or doing anything else. As French philosopher Albert Camus famously posited, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” That’s the only way the Greek hero could have escaped the punishment the gods intended- not by finally getting his boulder to the top, but by learning to love the act of pushing it forward. 

Don’t put off your love of streaming in order to grow faster. Look inwards and find what you love about it right now. The task has no end. As long as you stay on Twitch, you will always be pushing the boulder uphill. But if you keep your passions at the center of the streams you create, you’ll look forward to that climb every day.