Ive thought about this, but who wants to watch me spend 4 hours cursing at rusty shock bolts?
Ive thought about this, but who wants to watch me spend 4 hours cursing at rusty shock bolts?
Gearheadotaku (Forum Supporter) said:Ive thought about this, but who wants to watch me spend 4 hours cursing at rusty shock bolts?
It depends, how creative are your curses?
Not creative enough. If I had really good ones, the bolts would come off faster!
Wow, I just popped into this sub-forum to look for a good thread to drop a picture of a Minion shaped fire pit and saw this. Scrolled through some comments but haven't read everything. I did see Keith's progression from zero monetization to $700 on th FM channel.
I wanted to make YouTube at least a part time job, or a way to fuel my car hobby. I think I joined YouTube around 2008 if that's possible. Was a little more consistent in posting earlier on. I got monetized when the requirements were lower. Never made enough to cash out the $100 threshold. I survived one of the tightening of requirements and and was actually starting to try to get videos out on a schedule. Even tried making a "5 things I hate about my bus" type video as they were popular at the time. I was kinda happy I'd pull between 25 to 30 cents a month, yeah pennies but it was actually motivating me. Then just as I was finishing editing a video I get an email from YouTube with the latest monetization requirements. That just berkeleying destroyed my motivation. I haven't put up many videos since. And that was like 2017 or 2018 ???
I think a lot about trying to jump back in but the big jump I need to make is hard to imagine happening. Being an early channel I did get spared some things, like a year or so ago when they decided everyone could have a short link with either they're channel name (if not taken) or something of there choosing. I already had that because I been in so long... BTW https://www.youtube.com/42green
Another thing that killed my motivation was desperate Facebook pleas to "friends" like hey it would be super if you all subscribed, maybe watched a video occasionally, etc. Nothing. I even had tried making a playlist with what I thought was my best "content"
72 Subscribers.
I don't think I'd want to do the work/editing required to monetize...
But I just started a channel for my welding shop and to advertise some stuff I'm making.
Currently a short I made is almost at 20k views and it got me 11 subscribers, which was shocking to me.
I only have a couple shorts up now...I'd like to do a shop tour video. I enjoy watching those in general.
Anyway: Like! Comment! Subscribe!
(Is that how you do it?)
That's part of my hang up now. When I was barely monetized I didn't mind it as much because I saw a tiny return on my time investment, .15 and .28 cent months but still it was something. Now I'm nowhere near being monetized.
In the past month I took two "car" trips, one for parts 24 hour / 900 miles to VA and back. And to MA to buy back a car I sold on the forum and now have back.
If I was motivated I would have done a video on those trips but I didn't. I even packed the GoPro for one of them.
I just took a look at what's been happening in the last 28 days on ours. Looking at the top 10 over that period, the top performing videos tend to be the opinion/list videos:
Three are good tech:
The other two are a product install video and a video about us doing a track day for staff - the latter was fairly recent and I suspect we'll never see it in the top 10 again.
Of those top 10 in the past month, only 2 were published this month (there's usually an initial surge of views). One of them is from 2021. There are four hosts, but 7 of the videos have the same host who always performs better than others. They all have about the same number of views this month, with 3,876 for the most popular to 2,042 for #10. We had 22 videos with at least 1000 views, and at least 50 videos with 600. In case you're wondering, we have about 480 videos dating back to 2010.
29% of our traffic came from "browse features", which I suspect is subscribers. 44% comes from search and suggested videos. Interestingly, the suggested videos have a significantly longer average view duration than any other source - about double.
From this, I'm going to say that for a channel like ours - one that isn't intended to be a profit center, but which is a promotional/branding tool for a business - having a deep catalog makes all the difference. Just keep putting out topical, useful content and don't try to chase clicks. Having opinions and giving people general direction on modifying their cars is good, though.
Damn you guys. I just looked at my demographics. My biggest age group is older than me.
Next door neighbor of mine has an "outdoorsman" focused channel and is presently at 893,000 subscribers on YouTube. He and his best friend (and content partner) each were given new Chevy 4x4 Silverados courtesy of a Realtree camouflage sponsorship. I have no idea how much the channel generates in dollars but it appears to flow pretty healthy income.
The video quality has risen steadily over the years - it's damn good now. The channel got a big bump after a collaboration on catfish noodling with Hannah Barron. For a couple years I had no idea what he did. Then I figured it out and I feel like a voyeur - but I enjoy the content.
Dude is living the dream but also had to take on a business manager, and a crew of camera guys and editors. People are lining up 200 deep for a photograph at outdoors shows. They are constantly on the road. Definitely putting in a ton of work.
Give him a sub. He split cutting down a giant oak tree with me and it's the least I can do to help him grow the channel some more! https://youtube.com/@seekoneproductions
In reply to OHSCrifle :
I follow a number of car YouTube channels and it's interesting to see how some grow up and become huge. I think it has to do somewhat at least with their motivation and what they want to achieve. Like Adam LZ and Cleetus are pretty huge. Then still pretty big and requiring staff like Jimmy Oakes. Then a nice middleweight where it's their full time job, but they seem to be at a relaxed pace like Gingium or Taylor Ray.
I always thought that middle weight would be perfect. Have a shop at home or rent nearby. Work on projects, go to some events, etc. Still be able to do most or all the filming and editing myself.
I guess I should really just try. Right now I'm just working part time so I have the free time to devote a couple hours a day to making something.
To do YouTube and make a decent living looks like a lot of work. I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist so I would never finish editing a video. 😁
I have a YouTube Chanel I just post up what ever happens to intrest me or sometimes just what I think may intrest others. Like the wiring diagram for a basic relay or the plumbing diagram for the abs pump in a 2000s GMC pickup. I figure if I take the time to figure it out I may as well share it.
Since this thread started, I've followed another YouTuber who posted some detailed videos about the money she's made from YouTube. One of the big takeaways was it's not just the number of views a video gets, but also the content of the video. The income from a given video can vary quite a bit depending on what the video is about as advertisers pay more to have an ad in some videos than in others. She had some videos make more than 2x the money for the same views because the content of the video was apparently more valuable to advertisers.
This is also why if there's some hot news topic, you may see a bunch of YouTubers creating videos about it even if they are straining to relate the subject to their regular content. Because it's a hot topic, they know they'll make decent money from it.
Javelin said:Channel - youtube.com/playswithcars
Subscribers - 1,640
3 years and 4 months later...
3,025 Subscribers
Revenue between $35-$43/mo
Still just a hobby channel, and that hobby has been *hard* since 2020. Tried doing a bunch of shorts, got over 50k views, made $0.11. Now I'm shifting to just doing what I want and screw the algorithm.
Javelin said:I have a follow up.
I have a 2nd channel for Warhammer 40K stuff (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY1lZ_4Q8FOEq5APVr4KbtA). It has 6-7 videos on it, and only 2 that are longer than a few minutes. Those 2 are in the 1,000's of views and increasing steadily as well as pulling in subscribers. It is easily outperforming my decade-plus old main car channel with 1660 subscribers. If I put 1/10th the effort into that channel that I do the car one, I would probably have a decent side income from it.
Also 3 years and 3 months later... I launched this channel seriously in June of 2023. https://youtube.com/@daredwunzgofasta
5,763 Subscribers
$85-$197/mo in AdSense
39 paying Patreons, 8 channel members, and most importantly merch sales.
In 2024 I earned $2,614 from all channel sources besides merch and $3,559 including merch. I just launched a brand new merch store last month and I'm already at $68 in profit in 4 weeks.
In reply to Javelin :
That's kinda what we do. Use the channel to drive merch sales :)
The thing that gets me too is how random views can be. Just uploaded, small caption, no music / popular audio, no hashtags.
I guess I should start putting in at least a small amount of effort...
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