Teymour Shahabi on YouTube for Writers

Then something else started happening. This time, it was completely new. People I didn't know began to reach out. They started following me online, messaging me, liking me (again, one hopes, both meanings). Their numbers are small, but I've learnt new names; new names of people and even cities where they live. That's when I understood what YouTube can do for writers. It's not easy to describe or put a price on (which is great, because it's free). But it might be what I'd been searching for all along, even before the age of self-publishing, even in manuscripts 1 through 4. It's changed the way I think about writing, when I used to think that perseverance and irrational confidence were everything I needed. It's a sense of responsibility that comes out of trust. It shows a safety net beneath the blank page, a friendly face in the panel of judges, the face that all the perfect somersaults are really for. What YouTube gives a writer is someone to write for.