OT? YouTube Video Earnings

[The Metal Butcher]

What I find boring and off putting. Posting every basic machining job on you tube.. the simple stuff. And worse , we have had people come on here and post links and ask people to watch... Hey checkout .. Jimmy makes a Bushing ! , ,! Featuring drilling and BORING.. and as a bonus PARTING and facing !
...There are already hundred of videos showing the basics. Imo....

This is the primary issue I see with a lot of the small machinist youtubers (and older folks tend to be the worst about it TBH) is no sense of time scale. If you can't be comfortable with taking the amount of time you spent on a project and reducing it down 10-100x, then you won't make much money. It's tough. I know. I still tend to make some of my videos too lame, I can see it in the analytics.

Setup? None, minimal if interesting/unique.
Machining? Minimal. If you're doing 40 cuts, show some of your best roughing shots and maybe the start and finish of the finish pass. The other 38? Cut.
Talking? Minimal, unless you're This Old Tony. Jump into the action ASAP. Save your talking for voice overview or at the end. A lot of the most watched channels have no speaking.

My general rule of thumb is that if by your 10th time watching it in the editor you find yourself getting bored and wishing to skip, so will you viewers. Cut more.

As far as equipment goes, lighting is critical. You cannot have too much light. This is why you can always tell videos my Adam Booth instantly. Everything is extremely well lit. Cell phones are a bad idea, and so are most handycams unless they are very new. You'll need a good sized sensor unless you have a tremendous amount of light.

Take this all with a grain of salt, as I still have only a small channel myself. But I certainly know what I like viewing.

[wierdscience]

I started a channel mostly just to show relatives some of the stuff I do for a living (some still think I work on lawnmowers, go figure??). I don't make any money off it, but to date my most popular video isn't even a real video, it's just a slideshow with onscreen descriptions of a woodworking vise I restored. I never would have believed it would get almost 5,000 views.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LOkb8gbWMY

I will also say that IF a video goes viral for whatever reason, you can make a lot of money off it. Consider the "Superglue trick the cops don't want you to know" video that got 19 million views-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCvGpkw2P-k

[wierdscience]

You're on the homemadetools forum, Paul. Watch the DIY videos there, if you can. Most of them are boredom made solid, even if run at double speed. I've pretty much given up on them unless they come from someone with an established reputation.
.

This, wholeheartedly, if it takes a 45 minute video to explain how to cut a inch long 1/4 inch wide keyway, you're doing wrong.

Now some have broken a ten minute job down into four half hour videos spread out over two months

[Ohio Mike]

My question regarding that $2/1000 views is, is that only during a certain time frame, or is that as long as the video is up? Time limits on that? Mr. Pete has videos that are almost a decade old, is he still making bank on them?

No, virtually nobody watches older content and those videos were released back with Mr Pete had a fraction of today's subscribers. Which is exactly why he is releasing (aka RePete as he calls it) his older videos.

[RB211]

Camera's compared to the human eye in regards to picking up light are horrible. As others said, do not under estimate how much light you need, you need a LOT.

[alanganes]

Start every video with a thirty second or so explanation of what you're going to build and why someone would want to build it. After you've made the video measure its length and then edit it to half that number.

+1

This is one of the key weak points I see in so many videos. There is a nondescript thumbnail picture and a description that says something like "Handy metal bender I made from scrap!" and then the video starts out showing some rusty angle iron and rolls into 5-10 solid minutes of marking with a pencil, cutting with a side grinder, and zapping parts with a welder. In the end, even if I wanted to duplicate the project, I can hardly do so because at no time did the presenter show dimensions or offer other useful detail. And it either has some silly music playing or nothing but the sound of the side grinder as a soundtrack.

Please start off showing the finished product and giving a brief description of what it is, how it works, what's so cool about it, and why I might want to learn how to build one. Then I might actually watch the video.

I know that learning stuff from watching videos is all the thing these days, and I have learned my share that was as well. But in so many instances a 25 minute boring video could easily be replaced with half a page of text and a few photos and drawings.

[Glug]

Neighbor kid's band had music vids up on it. They made a couple hundred a month from it.

You might make a small fortune if you put some videos of that Dell laptop problem up there

"Video channel livestream of laptop, waiting for it to hang"

[Bob Engelhardt]

The real money for YouTube creators is Patreon support. AvE, for instance, is estimated to get $44,000 A MONTH from his supporters. https://creatorhype.com/top-patreon-creators/

[RB211]

The real money for YouTube creators is Patreon support. AvE, for instance, is estimated to get $44,000 A MONTH from his supporters. https://creatorhype.com/top-patreon-creators/

Over at Linus Tech, he started a service called "Float Plane" that allows content creators to bring their audience over to their service. No adds, no left wing leaning rules, but the catch is you subscribe and pay money to see the content. Potential to make the most money with that, but I will be surprised if it succeeds. People won't even pay 99 cents for a mobile game.

[Baz]

I agree with 754 and a lot of others' postings. Adding that I see no reason whatsoever for a machinist video to show the wittering face or belly of the protagonist and the '30 second introduction' can be a 10 second voice over a picture of the finished item maybe rotating so I can see it all to decide if I need to see how it was made. Mostly I don't need much more to work it all out. Like a machinists haiku.
Yet still tomorrow we will see some bozo coming on here with " hey look I started a channel".

Please explain: Is there a technical difference between 'setting up a channel' and just posting some videos?
Apart from youtube how many other video platforms are there I should search for perhaps more obscure material?
Would there be a value for us here in having a thread in which to post requests for a video on a subject not found in searches, like how to reverse thread a grollybong, so that someone could then make a worthwhile film next time they are doing one?