LisaNova is the 24th most subscribed channel of all time on YouTube. She became a MADtv cast member as a result of her videos on YouTube. She has been featured in the New York Times, AdWeek, and Wired magazine.

Here Alan Lastufka, author of YouTube: An Insider's Guide to Climbing the Charts, talks to this LisaNova and learns more about what made her YouTube adventure a success.

Alan Lastufka: When and why did you start making videos for YouTube?

Lisa Donovan: I first started making videos on my LisaNova channel in June 2006. I had already been in Los Angeles for a couple of years and had ended up working in production on the MTV show The Osbournes along with other random production jobs. I eventually teamed up with director/producer Danny Zappin, and we formed a small production company called Zappin Productions at the end of 2005.

Our long-term goals of producing and directing independent feature films were temporarily put on hold as we found our time more and more consumed with doing corporate videos and working on other people's creative projects. Danny discovered YouTube a few months before I created the LisaNova channel. He encouraged me to start posting my own videos during our spare time between production projects. I really didn't know what kind of videos I wanted to make at the time and actually had a problem with just talking to the camera like the vloggers were doing. So, I just decided to make my first introduction video, Introducing LisaNova, a silent film with subtitles, French music, and an old film look.

Alan: How did you come to have your YouTube celebrity?

Lisa: My introduction video did pretty well. A fan base started to grow, and I was eventually featured on the home page twice in my first few months on the site. My P. Diddy video was featured on the YouTube home page the day that Google bought YouTube, and I got a lot of extra exposure from that. My Teenie Weenie video was also featured, and the casting director from MADtv saw it and called me in to audition for the show. I eventually was cast for four episodes at the end of that season and received a lot of press because I was the first YouTube person to land a real TV role. Besides the press, I've had quite a few videos that people really seemed to like, and my subscription base just kept consistently growing. I'm not universally known for any one hugely successful "viral" video. Instead, I'm probably known by many different people from a variety of different videos I've done. LisaNova does YouTube was a big boost mainly because of all the ridiculous drama it caused. Hundreds, if not thousands, of videos were made regarding the controversy surrounding all the comments we left on people's profiles leading up to the release of the video. It was quite an interesting social experiment, and it was a lot of fun to see all the interaction that took place because of it.

Alan: If you had one sentence to describe your YouTube channel, what would it be?

Lisa: I would say the LisaNova channel is a random collection of satirical videos about a wide variety of pop culture topics including celebrity spoofs, YouTube spoofs, and political satire as well as music videos and other stuff.

Alan: How has your success on YouTube helped your career outside of YouTube?

Lisa: I guess it has completely changed my career path. My YouTube success has definitely changed the focus of our production company and has led to many mainstream-media acting jobs and opportunities in TV and film. I still don't feel that Hollywood completely respects YouTube, but I think that will change in time. It's extremely exciting that people now have a way to build a fan base, make a living, or at least make a supplementary income by putting their videos on YouTube. It's cool to be able to build a fan base without having to deal with the normal Hollywood barriers.

Alan: Who is your target audience? And who is your actual audience?

Lisa: I think our target audience is college age and older, although I know a big percentage of our demographic is still younger than 18. The LisaNova channel probably has a much older demo than most of the top-subscribed channels, which appeal mainly to a younger demo.

Alan: In what ways do you interact with your audience?

Lisa: All the normal ways like comments and personal messages, and so on, as well as doing live vlogs/chats. I like to watch video responses when I have time and leave comments. I've met a few people in real life from that. It's always fun to meet people in real life who you know only as a username on YouTube.

Alan: Have your YouTube friends become your real life friends?

Lisa: A little bit, although most people I know from YouTube live in all different parts of the world, so that makes it a bit difficult to cultivate those relationships in real life.

Alan: Has interacting with people on YouTube made you more confident while interacting with people face-to-face on a daily basis?

Lisa: YouTube does help you build a thick skin. You have to be ready for massive rejection/criticism every time you put out a video. So, now I feel very immune to anyone's opinion of me. But I am a people person, and I have mostly felt confident in that regard. I love to meet new people and learn about their lives and their culture.

Alan: How much of your day is spent on YouTube?

Lisa: That really varies. There were long stretches where I would be on there 10 to 12 hours a day. Then there are times when I get burned out or really busy with other things and I barely go on at all. Typically, I'll spend at least an hour or so on YouTube on a normal day.

Alan: What advice do you have for up-and-coming YouTubers?

Lisa: It's very important to interact with the community, especially when you're first starting on the site. Subscribe and comment on other people's videos on the site, and make videos that occasionally have to do with other YouTube users or other YouTube videos (that is, video responses).

Quality and consistency are the other keys for building an audience. I would advise someone who's starting a YouTube channel to make several videos they feel good about before they start posting them. Make sure your videos have good sound and proper exposure and that they're something you like. Having a stockpile of solid videos can help you gain some momentum right out of the gate without taking a long break to shoot your next video. Comedy videos seem to play much better than others, and it's important to keep the videos short if possible because people have extremely small attention spans these days.

Alan: Could you repeat your success on YouTube if you started over today?

Lisa: It would probably be much harder for me to repeat the same level of success today if I were just now starting on YouTube. There's far more competition, and it's much harder to get seen these days. However, it's possible to blow up much faster now because there are so many more people here. I just think it's much harder to get to that point where you get mainstream exposure on the lists. For instance, it used to take 50 comments to be on the top 20 Most Discussed page. Now it takes about 1,000 comments, so it's much harder for a newcomer to get the exposure they used to get.