Gamer Superstar

Chapter 90 90 - Plans

When I saw that this singer already had a verified icon next to the name of her channel that she commented on in my video, I already imagined that she was a bigger singer than me.

When I opened her channel, I saw that she already had 190k subscribers, which was just over twice what I had, but the surprising thing was that she wasn't an American singer like me, her channel was in Japanese!

Although her growth wasn't as explosive as mine, her channel had obviously grown quickly, since the first video she posted was only 10 months old.

But I could understand why she was growing so fast.

Instead of a channel like mine, which grew very fast by singing only original songs, her channel focused on singing famous international songs, but in a Japanese version.

This was a good move because she was able to win over the Japanese audience who liked to listen to music in their native language, and also win over a global audience of otaku who liked to listen to a girl singing in Japanese.

Remembering the question she asked in the comments of my video, I searched for her channel and found that she didn't have any live shows.

Thinking it might be due to her shyness, I thought I could help a little and replied to the comment with some tips on things I observe to understand the audience and how I can improve.

Even though these tips weren't that relevant, as someone with [Stage Presence Lv 6], they would be useful to someone like her who was just starting to think about performing live.

What I didn't know was that my explanation through the comments also activated my [Teach Lv 27] skill, so not only was it much easier for her to understand, but other singers and aspiring singers could also learn a lot from my simple comment.

Of course, they didn't learn other things that I didn't say, but everything I said and explained was much clearer to them than if they had tried to learn it on their own.

Satisfied with answering several comments, I looked at the All Of Me song and set it to premiere so that the video would appear with a timer so that people could set a reminder to watch it later when I posted the video.

A few minutes after I set the song to premiere, there were hundreds of people with the song open waiting for the premiere to happen, even though it was scheduled to happen tomorrow.

With everything set up, I enjoyed the evening and went to bed, as I had a gig tomorrow and wanted to get as much rest as possible before I left.

When I woke up the next day, there were several messages from Selena on my phone.

[Noah, you have no idea how many people are contacting me asking about your availability to sing at weddings!]

[Just last night I got over 7 emails and this morning I woke up to another 10 emails asking about you and if we could perform at their wedding].

When I saw their messages, I was surprised. I thought that the release of All Of Me would make me really valuable to perform at weddings, but I thought that people would wait for the official song to be released before trying to sign me.

I replied with a smile: [That's good hehe, I think when All Of Me is released that number will increase even more, we have to prepare for that].

[Yeah, unfortunately most of the people interested are from the other side of the country, the cost of travel and accommodation for these gigs wouldn't be worth what they're willing to pay, so I've only accepted one so far for next week]. She explained.

[How much did you charge?] I asked.

[I got it for $3,000! Considering an $800 cost for the band that will accompany you, about $200 for travel expenses such as food and gas, my 20% on top of the remaining $2,000, and the $300 you pay Jason, that would still leave you with $1,300 in the end]. She explained all the expenses and how much I would receive.

When I saw that I would still get $1,300 after all the expenses, I was pretty happy.

I was lucky that the 20% Selena received was calculated on my net profit as a performer, not on the gross income from the show. After all, if in the future I was paid $500,000 to do a show, but she kept 20% of that and we spent $300,000 on equipment, wouldn't I only get $100,000 and she another $100,000, making our contract 50/50?

But to see that people were willing to pay that much for me to sing at their wedding, such an important date, really touched me.

The views of the videos went up a lot this week, and what struck me the most were the views of the vlogs.

[Backstage at my shows! - Vlog #1 -241,867 views] +105,614 views

[I made a song to sing at a wedding! - Vlog #2 - 99,368 views] +51,577 views

My Vlog #1 has started to get less views over the last few days, something I was expecting. Unlike songs, which grew almost infinitely, vlogs tended to peak in views and then decline over time until the video was only getting a few thousand views a month.

But it had already made me a lot of money.

241k views with the 6.5 RPM was already $1.5k for me, vlog #2 had almost 100k views, so that was another $650 for me in the next month from that video, not counting the views the songs got.

From what I analyzed from the graphs, Vlog #2 was reaching a more niche audience, but the retention of this video was higher than Vlog #1 and the audience engagement was much higher in this second video.

So much so that the 100k views of Vlog #2 had brought me almost 5k subscribers, while Vlog #1 had 250k views and had only brought me 7k subscribers to the channel.

The comments and likes on the two videos were also quite different.

And I could see why.

The audience for Vlog #2 was mostly female, so maybe that meant that all the attributes I had developed for it were coming into play.

My good looks, my charisma when talking to the camera, my didactic way of explaining complex things about the art world in a simple way to a lay audience, my concern for the wedding guests, and my sensitivity when writing a song like All Of Me may have multiplied as the predominant factors that made the audience for this second video much more engaged than for the first.

That wasn't a bad thing, I wouldn't have a problem with a mostly female audience, I just didn't want to limit my male audience either.

I didn't want to be like Justin Bieber in my previous world, who was loved by the girls and hated by the boys at school because they were jealous.

My goal was that even if more girls liked me than boys, the boys would still enjoy my music and not be prejudiced against me.

That's why I didn't focus so much on Thirst Trap in my career.

As I went about my daily routine, I also noticed that the changes in my body were becoming less and less noticeable.

At my current weight, the amount of fat on my body had already decreased a lot, to the point that my stomach was already showing my abdominal muscles and my arms were already showing some veins, even when I wasn't pushing myself.

Looking at these veins on my arm and knowing that I could take advantage of them, I took a random book that old Noah had already read off the bookshelf in the bedroom and took a picture of myself holding the book as if I was reading it.

I tried very hard to make it look unintentional, but I let the veins in my arm show in the photo with my hand in a very natural way while posting a story.

Within minutes, I had dozens of responses to that story from girls commenting on it, trying to talk to me, asking about the book, trying to guess what book it was, even saying that I could talk to them if I needed someone to talk to about the book.

If old Noah went through that, he'd probably pass out...

The rest of my week wasn't spent just editing the video either, my game was at a point where I could officially post it on the internet and test the waters to see how people would react to it.

The only thing I had to talk to Selena about before that was the game and the music rights, since it involved AJP's rights to the songs I'd signed with them.

Since they were entitled to 20% of the revenue I made as an artist outside of my social networks, this included the use of my songs in products such as games.

The profit from making the game was mine, Noah Black's, but in this case, Noah was supposed to pay BlackVelvet for the copyright of the song, of which AJP would get 20%.

This was very confusing, so I called Selena over to my house this morning so the two of us could talk about it and I could show her the game.

My idea was to see if I had to pay anything or if I could include it as a marketing fee for BlackVelvet.