So Youtube is a self-promoter's medium. It's also a long game. In order to get any sort of recognition/market penetration (choose the phrase that ooks you out the least) you have to generate a lot of content for a long time that is (A) interesting (B) of passable quality (C) relatable. It also helps a lot if you can trade shares with other people, cross-promote on other channels, etc.

You also have to consider what you're getting out of the videos. Catharsis? Motivating others? Money? If catharsis, you'd better be deeply extroverted because Youtube is the domain of people willing to be laughed at by the meanest, most bored shut-ins on the planet. If it's motivating others, you'd best make sure that the people who are going to catch your message are going to be looking for you on Youtube. If it's money...

So okay. Here's the economics of Youtube. Once you hit a million views on any given video you can expect to make something like $5k. Every million views beyond that is worth a little less - 2m views is somewhere between 8 and 9k, for example (maybe). But videos with under 1m views make substantially less than $5k and having 5 videos with 200k views doesn't count as 1 video with 1m views. Youtube keeps their numbers locked up tight as a drum and everyone's numbers are different, but the bottom line is you have to be churning the shit out to lots of people before it starts paying the bills.

The other thing about Youtube is it's dominated by shortform fluff. You are going to get a lot more views wiping out on a skateboard with a feeding tube than you are talking about life with a feeding tube. There's no good way to convert stories of siblings passing into views. Things that are important to you are not the things that disinterested teenagers wish to barely pay attention to while snapchatting their friends. I was a part of a couple high-quality, serialized programs on Youtube that didn't get renewed by their sponsors because they made substantially fewer views than, say, an idiot doing the Cinnamon Challenge.

Here's the Certified Social Media Strategist take: you will always do better off playing to your strengths than adapting to the market. If essays are your jam, start a blog. If you love memes, hie thee to Tumblr. Painting? Deviantart. Music? Soundcloud. The only reason to start a Youtube channel is if you are naturally drawn and reasonably skilled in the art of video.

The questions you're asking demonstrate that you are not skilled in the art of video. Not to discourage you - my recommendation is to find five Youtube channels that are doing something similar to what you'd like to do. Deconstruct their approach and determine what it would take to repeat their success.

Then decide if it's worth it to you.

Everyone has a unique story to tell. The skill is in the telling. Robert McKee points out in Story that a bad storyteller can bore you with the tale of the death of their children while a good storyteller can keep you riveted with the saga of their morning commute. The question is not "do you have a story" the question is "do you have an interesting way to tell it" and if you aren't compelled to tell someone else's story via video, chances are good you won't benefit much from telling yours.

Hope that helps.