Monetizing my YouTube channel

The race is on. I plan to get to 500 (engaged) subscribers on YouTube by the end of the year.

500 is the minimum requirement in order to monetize YouTube. That plus 4000 hours watch time. I think the second requirement will be much easier if I can find 500 people and half of them actually watch al my videos. That will help signal to YouTube that the channel is worth watching and it will be sent to more people.

Still 212 down, 288 to go. Almost halfway there!

I took a break for the past year because it wasn’t going anywhere, but I kept improving my video editing while working on music videos, learned a few shortcuts to make things easier and AI has also made some things easier.

So I decided to take another stab at YouTube shorts.

My goal isn’t to go viral, it’s just to create a ramp for my other work and for onboarding to Hive and generate some funds because the cost of living keeps going up.

I don’t like cashing out hive so this can help me so I don’t have to unless we are overbought and it might give me a chance to buy some Hive and Leo in the future. If I things keep going as they are right now I will be able to use 50% to 100% of my earnings to buy hive and Leo 🔥🔥🔥

I got 8 new subscribers this weekend from 3 new shorts! Let me know what you think:

I won’t be making any new long form until the end of the year, the goal for now is just to promote the old videos through shorts, since I think it’s a vibe that most people at YouTube aren’t really looking for, but one that I think they’ll like once they get used to it. I think these shorts should make people curious after repeat exposure.

YouTube gives a big boost to videos that have high watch time and high click through rate, especially new channels…

So if you want to support me, or anyone else for that matter, the best thing you can do is watch the entire video and give it a like at the end (not the beginning) and share it with other people who you think will enjoy it. You could even play it two or three times when you aren’t watching 🤐

I think my new shorts are much more shareable so they become like a funnel for the channel.

I tried this before but I didn’t have the ability or time to make shorts that I thought would really catch people and still related to the longer videos.

I don’t like or want to support completey AI generated art or content but I really appreciate AI that can help with the supplementary stuff (images for writing, editing, remixing, things like that).

I’m basically just using it for the subtitles and in a few podcast episodes to fix the inconsistent audio levels.

500 felt very far away to me before but now it feels quite doable.

Please feel no pressure to subscribe but if you are interested in the content, I’d really appreciate it!

Once 3speak is working as usual I’ll start posting these at Leo shorts!

You can also find me on Instagram @ untangled_knots

Will be updating about my progress at threads, and plan to make a few posts about what worked and didn’t work for me in my subscriber only section if there is an audience for that. (About to post a sub only post about how to start off at Substack and a personal diary about how I ended up playing music and traveling around in Asia for 5 years)

I think what will set me apart from other “creators” is that I make fewer compromises on the content and do things my own way, and I’m figuring out how to build an audience that is just as much a community of friends and collaborators as it is an income source.

The only real goal I have is 1000 hardcore supporters, not a million casual ones.

This is all fun for me because it’s all a learning experience where I’m able to level up a bunch of skills and if I actually find a bigger audience I can help promote the things I love.

I’ve gone from 20% of people viewing my shorts to 50% in one week so I think I’m on the right path.

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