Posting plan — Zen Hour Music (first 12 weeks)
Written 2026-09-23. Goal: build a channel that looks and feels hand-made (varied, consistent, cared for) while working toward the Partner Program (1,000 subscribers + 4,000 public watch hours in 12 months). Nothing here is a growth guarantee; treat the numbers as targets to check against YouTube Analytics and adjust.
1. The rules this plan follows
- Vary every upload. Different scene, season, weather or music style each time. Never two near-identical videos in a row. This is the main defence against YouTube's "inauthentic content" (mass-produced / repetitive) policy, which is judged across the whole channel.
- Steady, not flooding. Two long videos a week, plus a few Shorts. Regular looks like a real channel; 10 uploads in a day looks like a content farm.
- Series, not random uploads. Every video belongs to a named series and a playlist, so a viewer who likes one finds the next.
- Timing matches the season. Autumn scenes now, snow from November, spring blossoms from March.
- Human touch on every video: a written description, a pinned comment, replies to comments.
- Only promise scenes the pipeline can make. See §6; new effects (rain, water, leaves) need testing first.
2. Weekly rhythm
| Day | What | Time needed (you) |
|---|---|---|
| Mon | Pick the next two images; start job A with Claude (SPEC.md) | 20 min + sign-offs |
| Tue, ~8 pm (your main audience's evening) | Publish long video A + pinned comment | 20 min |
| Wed | Short from video A | 5 min |
| Thu | Start job B; reply to comments | 20 min + sign-offs |
| Sat, ~8 pm | Publish long video B + pinned comment | 20 min |
| Sun | Short from video B; look at Analytics (§5); community post/poll every other week | 20 min |
Machine time per video is about 30–35 minutes (SPEC §11); your part is choosing the image, three sign-offs, the thumbnail and the upload.
3. The four series (playlists)
| Series / playlist | Feel | Music | Ambience |
|---|---|---|---|
| Winter Tea Room | Snow, warm interiors, steam, fire | Soft piano (proven) | Fire + wind (proven) |
| Rainy Zen | Rain on gardens, windows, temple eaves | Piano or koto | Rain (new, needs a rain synthesizer) |
| Autumn Temple | Maple leaves, lanterns, dusk | Koto + flute, or piano | Wind + light birds (new) |
| Night Garden | Moon, stone lanterns, still ponds, fireflies | Ambient pads + flute | Night insects / water (new) |
Start with Winter Tea Room (fully proven) and Autumn Temple (in season now); add Rainy Zen once rain is tested; Night Garden last.
4. Calendar (weeks from Mon 28 Sep 2026)
Status: ✅ = pipeline proven · 🟡 = needs a new effect or ambience tested first (see §6).
| Wk | Tue (A) | Sat (B) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | ✅ Launch: Snowy Zen Garden · Tea Room (already made) | ✅ Candlelit tea room, snow outside (piano, different key/tempo) |
| 2 | 🟡 Autumn temple courtyard, lantern flicker, a few falling leaves | ✅ Mountain hut at night, fire + steaming kettle, snow |
| 3 | 🟡 Rain on a zen garden through open shoji | 🟡 Autumn maple path at dusk, stone lanterns glowing |
| 4 | ✅ Onsen at night, steam rising, snow (koto variant) | 🟡 Rainy window, teapot steam, city lights blurred |
| 5 | 🟡 Temple eaves in rain, lanterns | ✅ Fireside reading nook, snowfall (piano + low flute) |
| 6 | 🟡 Moonlit pond, stone lantern, mist | 🟡 Autumn forest shrine, leaves drifting |
| 7 | ✅ Snowy village street, lamp-lit windows (first "3 hours" test, if watch time per view supports it) | 🟡 Rain on bamboo garden |
| 8 | 🟡 Night garden, fireflies | ✅ Tea ceremony room, iron kettle steam, snow |
| 9 | 🟡 Misty mountain temple at dawn | 🟡 Rainy evening tea house |
| 10 | ✅ Winter cabin, fire, snow-covered pines | 🟡 Moon over snowy garden (night + snow) |
| 11 | best-performing series so far — new scene | best-performing series — new scene |
| 12 | "Compilation-style" 3-hour winter video from new footage (not re-uploads) | best-performing series — new scene |
Adjust weeks 2–12 using Analytics: double the slot of the series with the best watch time per view; keep at least 3 series active for variety.
5. What to measure (Sunday, 10 minutes)
| Metric (YouTube Studio → Analytics) | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Impressions click-through rate | Is the thumbnail/title working? | Low → new thumbnail (you can change it after publishing) |
| Average view duration | Sleep/study viewers stay long; this drives watch hours | Compare series; favour the ones people stay with |
| Watch hours (last 365 days) | Partner Program target 4,000 | Track weekly in the table below |
| Returning viewers / subscribers gained per video | Is it becoming a habit? | Series that bring subscribers get more slots |
| Traffic source | Search vs. suggested vs. browse | If "suggested" grows, keep titles consistent with the videos they're suggested next to |
Rough arithmetic for the goal: 4,000 watch hours at an average of 15 minutes per view is about 16,000 views over the year — roughly 300 views a week. Treat this as a direction, not a forecast.
| Week | Subscribers | Watch hours (365 d) | Best video | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||||
| 4 | ||||
| 8 | ||||
| 12 |
6. Pipeline work needed before 🟡 videos
In order of payoff (see SPEC §12): 1. Rain ambience synthesizer + rain motion test (unlocks the whole Rainy Zen series). 2. Falling leaves motion test (Autumn Temple). 3. Water / pond ripple and mist motion tests; night insects and birds ambience (Night Garden). 4. Validate the Draw Things CLI (standing rule; SPEC stage 0). 5. Music variety: keep piano as the anchor, but add koto and flute variants so the channel doesn't sound identical every video. Each is one short test with Claude before it's used in a published video.
7. Every upload: checklist
- [ ] New scene; different from the previous two uploads
- [ ] Title follows the pattern
{Scene} ❄/🍁/🌧 {Music} & {Ambience} | 1 Hour {Use}— but vary the wording; don't copy-paste - [ ] Thumbnail: clean frame of the scene, 1280×720, big short text ("1 HOUR", 2–3 words), readable on a phone
- [ ] Description: first two lines describe the scene; what you'll hear; when to play; AI disclosure; 3 hashtags first
- [ ] Studio: Altered or synthetic content = Yes, Not made for kids, Category Music, added to its series playlist
- [ ] Pinned comment asking where people listen from / what scene next
- [ ] End screen → next video in the same series + subscribe
- [ ] Short (Wed/Sun): 9:16 crop of the loop with 20–30 s of the music, title with a hook, linked to the full video ("Related video")
8. Shorts plan
- 2 a week, one per long video, made from the silent 10-second loop (crop 9:16, loop 2–3×, add a music excerpt).
- Titles like "POV: snowy tea room at 2 am ❄" or "Close your eyes for 20 seconds 🍵".
- Always link the full hour as the related video. Shorts views don't count toward the 4,000 watch hours, but they bring subscribers.
9. Community (from week 3)
- Every other Sunday: a poll ("Next scene: rain 🌧 / autumn 🍁 / night 🌙"). Then make the winner and say so in its description — viewers who asked for it come back.
- Answer every comment in the first 48 hours after publishing.
10. Things not to do
- Re-upload the same video with a new title, or loop one video into 10 hours and call it new.
- Copy other channels' titles or thumbnails, or use real place names for imagined scenes.
- Buy views/subscribers or join "sub4sub" groups (can get the channel banned and ruins the Analytics).
- Stuff long ad breaks into sleep videos once monetized.