In Regards to Monetization

29th July 2024

Hey (YouTuber),

In regards to monetization and your making six dollars for a video you spent hours on there are a few things you could be doing. Keep in mind that I’m not famous and a good day on YouTube for me is over a dollar. These don’t work for me because I don’t have the numbers, but they could work for you.

The first point would be channel memberships. If you go into YouTube studio you will find it under monetization. It took me less than an hour to set up channel membership, and I set up one level at the lowest price. If I had any members I would get ninety nine cents a month from them, but you can make more levels where you get more.

The question here, as you would put it, would be “is the juice worth the squeeze?” The answer would be “most likely”. This is something you’re going to do once and then it will have little more impact on your work. You could upload members only videos that you know will be demonetized but for the most part the work is negligible and the reward looks worth it. You do it once and it has lasting benefits.

Another point would be to start a free blog with Blogger/Blogspot. These are one and the same and they are already owned by Google. It should be no trouble for you to link your adsense account. Go to any video on YouTube and in the share tab you should find a white B in an orange background. Click this and it will take the video to Blogger.

By posting your videos in this manner you would get page ad revenue which will be far less than YouTube but will not impact your YouTube ad money and be harder for YouTube to take away. You would still get the same ad money from folks watching the video and more ad money from page views.

Is it worth it? I would give it a fifty/fifty shot. You’d need to set up the blog. You’d also need to make every post which could take some time. The coding is already done for you and the system is user friendly but it takes some getting used to. On the one hand, people make their living on blogger, on the other, most people using the platform don’t make much. 

 

There are any number of “it could be worth it” things that I could bring up but these are the best options from where I’m sitting. Maybe they work and maybe they don’t, but at least they’re something to think about.

Best,


Richard Leland Neal

Battled Bepression

By the fact that this letter has no name at it's end I can tell I never finished it. Well, I was depressed. 

In any case, I hope what is there makes good reading. 

6^th March 2014

Dear Mr. (YouTuber),

It was the fifth of March that you asked your audience, of which I am one, to tell you the stories of their depression. I have battled depression for the whole of my life, and so the story of my depression cannot be held in a comment. So long a story needs thought and introspection notwithstanding the need of all things done by the depressed: time.

My depression found its start in the rough handling I received in tender youth. The youngest of three children in an unsupervised home my older siblings would unite against me as a force of violence and so I would fight until exhaustion against them. This prompted my mother to send my older (sibling) to live with other family members for a summer, but it did little good as (they) had to come back for the school year.

These beatings of youth left me with what is called transient brain damage as a result of trauma to the back of my head. I struggled to read and struggled to write because of this problem, and even now I would be unable to write this letter coherently without a program that reads my work back to me as the written word and I simply do not get along.

My depression worsened with my mother’s second relapse of cancer. She fought the disease for as long as she could but lost and died a week after my tenth birthday. My father was what one may call an absentee parent. He would arrive at my residence on Friday night and leave Sunday evening, and so I would see him for the weekend. This left the home in the care of my older (sibling) who, mentally ill and violent, ruled by needless force.

At the time, in wake and sleep my life was a nightmare. In my waking times I stood silent looking after myself and staying away from siblings as best I could. I often had dreams where my hands were cut off, and I learned in college this is symbolic of the feeling of helplessness.  

By age fourteen my depression had reached its height, and I could hardly lift my hands. I had medical insurance, but my father refused to take me to see a psychiatrist. Why I cannot with certainty say, but he would always dismiss my maladies with “it’s all in your head” or “You’re a hypochondriac”.

For much of my high school years I felt like a piece of dead meat with a soul trapped within. There were times I would sit in bed unable to sleep but unable to stand as if a prisoner in my own flesh. Every morning I would vomit, I’m not sure why, before or when I got to school.

I made it past high school and suffered with depression my whole life finding what friends I made of little help. I learned in psychology that the abusers find the abused and that many of us accept abuse as we think it to be normal. I was twenty nine when I walked away from the abusive people in my life, and I still have trouble making friends often due to my condition. I take medication, and I live with my problem but there is little hope of recovery.

The one great silver lining to my condition is that I can relate to my clients as I work with the homeless population of Los Angeles. Many of them lived a life as sad or worse than my own. They find in me a listening ear and accepting mind a comfort.