There's something rather amusing about being an independent creator in the age of algorithms.

You spend hours developing an idea, creating the visuals, editing the video, adding music, polishing the details, and finally uploading something you genuinely believe is worth watching.

You sit back, admire your handiwork, and wait for the world to discover your masterpiece.

Then you check the analytics.

Five views.

Well, that was exciting.

Sometimes I imagine YouTube's recommendation algorithm sitting behind a giant desk, looking over our latest creation, and declaring, "Nope. Not today, Wayne Bodie Books!" before tossing it into a filing cabinet somewhere.

Now, I'm not suggesting that's actually what happens. Algorithms are complicated, audiences are unpredictable, and there's no guarantee that something we think is wonderful will appeal to everyone else.

But after years of producing original content, I've become increasingly frustrated with how dependent creators can become on systems they neither own nor control.

And that frustration eventually led to an interesting question.

What if we simply built our own place to watch our videos?

From Frustration to Independence

At Wayne Bodie Books, we've produced everything from original music videos and nature footage to short-form comedy and creative experiments.

Some of our videos take considerably longer to produce than their running times might suggest. A ten-second video can involve an extraordinary amount of work, particularly when you're determined to make those ten seconds entertaining.

And yet, once uploaded to a major platform, the question of whether that work reaches anyone is largely outside our hands.

Sometimes a video finds an audience. Sometimes it disappears almost immediately.

We've had enough experience with both outcomes to recognize that relying entirely on someone else's distribution system isn't necessarily the best long-term strategy for our creative studio.

That doesn't mean YouTube has no value. It remains an extraordinary platform for discovery, entertainment, and sharing information.

But we began to wonder whether it should remain the primary home for everything we create.

After all, we already had our own independent website, WBB Radio, our Journal, our podcast, and The Back Porch, our personal social feed.

Why should our original short videos be the one part of our creative work that depended almost entirely on another platform?

And so, naturally, we decided to create another project.

Because apparently we don't have enough of those around here already.

Introducing WBB Tube

I'm pleased to announce that WBB Tube is officially live!

It's our own short-form video platform, created specifically for the original entertainment and media we produce at Wayne Bodie Books.

We launched with 16 videos and plan to keep expanding the collection as new material becomes available.

The concept is intentionally simple: a dedicated place where visitors can discover and watch our original videos without the popularity contests and engagement-driven distractions we've grown accustomed to elsewhere.

No chasing likes. No worrying about whether a particular video has pleased a recommendation algorithm. Just our original creative work, available for people who want to watch it.

Of course, operating our own video platform doesn't magically solve the problem of discovery. People still need to find us, and that's something we'll continue working on. We aren't abandoning YouTube overnight, either.

The long-term goal is simply to give our original videos a permanent home that we control, while gradually reducing our dependence on third-party platforms.

And frankly, there's something satisfying about that.

Taking Our Own Road

When I look at what Wayne Bodie Books has become, I sometimes have to laugh.

What began as an independent publishing endeavor has gradually grown into a collection of original books, music, radio programming, editorial articles, podcasts, personal reflections, and now our own video platform.

None of these projects guarantees an audience or commercial success. We're a small independent studio, not a media conglomerate.

But we do have something increasingly valuable to us: the freedom to decide what we create, how we present it, and where our work lives.

And perhaps that's the bigger lesson in all of this.

Sometimes the answer to a frustrating situation isn't to spend another year arguing with the system or trying to convince it that your work deserves attention.

Sometimes it's better to take the skills you've developed, put them to work, and create an alternative.

That's what we're trying to accomplish with WBB Tube.

Will it become something big? I have absolutely no idea.

Will we enjoy having our own little video library, where we can publish what we want without worrying about the next algorithm change?

I suspect we already know the answer to that one.

If you'd like to see what we've been working on, you're welcome to visit WBB Tube and explore our collection of original short videos.

We'll continue creating, experimenting, and adding new material as we go.

And if YouTube's algorithm happens to notice us along the way, that's perfectly fine, too.

But this time, we're not waiting for permission to take the next step.

We're building our own road.