DRAFT Advice for New Streamers

_NOTE: This is a work in progress. It started when someone on a discord asked me if I had any tips for streaming. Right now, it's mostly snippets and mini-drafts that include a lot of repetition. This is how I write._

_While working to put this together I realized the most critical thing is to figure out the question of 'why' stream. I ended up writing a piece to answer to that question. You can read it here._

I've got 100 or so streams under my belt. A little experience, but I still remember the start clearly. From that perspective, here's my take on getting started:

### The Number One Thing

- Stream.

That's what it's all about.

Do as little as possible to get to

### Quick Start (In 5 easy steps)

1. Get OBS 2. Sign up for a Twitch account 3. Make a Stream Key 4. Put the Stream Key in OBS 5. click "Start Streaming"

This isn't a real stream. It's just getting the wires hooked up. But you want that out of the way.

### Notes

- As long as you have a camera and mic, you're good to go. The ones in laptops are perfect starters.

- Don't tell anyone you're streaming. The first ones are just for you to test with.

- Don't look at the viewer counter. The only things you want to watch are your follower alerts and chat. You can pop those out from the management console

### Get the tech stuff out of the way

Don't think of this as streaming. This is the work before the work. Just stuff to bounce through.

- Download and install . It's free.

- for a Twitch account.

- Make a stream key and put it in OBS.

- Fire it up and see if works. Don't worry about setting up your camera. Just broadcast the screen.

### Testing

- Do this as soon as you put in your stream key. Consider it the last step of your setup.

- Don't tell anyone your doing this. This is just making sure the wires are connected.

- Don't turn on the camera. Just broadcast the screen with the mic on.

- Don't worry about what to say, just do something like musicians do during sound check and say: "Check Test. One, two. One, two". Describe the room, or whatever else, just talk a little to see the meters move on OBS

talk into the mic a little. Do the thing musicians do during sound check. Just say, "Check Test, one, two. One, two.".

- You're going to do five streams. These aren't real streams. They're tests.

- You're going to do them all in a row. Stream for 2 minutes. Watch it. Do the next.

- Two goals here:

1. Get used to the process of starting and stopping

2. Adjust your setup a little

- I believe in the Shitty First Draft. Just do one. But don't tell anybody. It's for you to get your feet wet.

- Test a couple times first. Like, do some streams for 45 seconds.

- Your first ones are

Get the first one out of the way so you can get on to the second one

First thing to do is a test.

Shitty first draft.

- Make a checklist - Do test streams - Don't look at viewers - Only look at followers and chat - Figure it out as you go - Don't worry about a schedule. Don't worry about anything other than getting a video to show up. - Don't worry about a face cam. - It's easy to get caught up in ideas and the quest for a better setup and not actually do any streaming.