Why I’m making 1 more desperate YouTube push before I quit

Jun 17, 2023

Earlier this week, I wrote about the number one reason people fail to make money writing online.

Writing is extremely rewarding mentally and creatively, but there are certainly days when it can feel like a grind.

Creatives have an important choice to make when they’re confronted with this resistance for the first time.

Can they overcome the protestations of their unconscious minds and press on, or will they take the easy way out?

The problem is that aspiring writers typically do what most people do when faced with something challenging: they quit.

The advantage I have as a writer is that I’ve done it as a career for the past, oh, 20 years or so, including about 11 as a working journalist.

When you’re forced to write every day — often on insanely tight deadlines — you learn to just do it. Period.

Over the past two months on this platform, I’ve made what some would consider a modest full-time salary.

That would have never happened had I quit when I hit my first patch of resistance back in October.

When I felt the resistance, I just leaned on my history as a writer and just … wrote.

But as an early-stage YouTuber with no background in broadcasting other than the occasional radio and TV appearances, my natural writer’s advantage doesn’t exist for video.

That has me wanting to pack it in for good.

Platform tricks

The ironic thing is that staying consistent and not quitting is something I harp on constantly on my YouTube channel about making money as an online writer.

In fact, here’s a screencap from one of my videos where I tell people not to be a quitter and to stay consistent as a writer:

The consistency message applies to creating content in any form, really.

Algorithms love and reward it, and you need to succeed in life generally.

My favorite self-improvement book of all time, which I wrote about here, is all about consistently picking up small wins every single day until they compound into massive victories.

Certainly, it has worked for me on Medium.

But after getting an early pop in my YouTube viewership, I’m getting a bit discouraged.

I started out there nine months ago, and while things could certainly be worse, they could definitely be a lot better.

Here’s where I’m at, monetization-wise, since posting my first video in late September:

Honestly, I’m convinced YouTube and other platforms manipulate us to get to this point.

They have you start out and give you just enough of an inorganic boost to keep you motivated early on, and then the grind really sets in.

Medium writer Hudson Rennie recently published a video on his channel discussing this concept pertaining to his start on NewsBreak. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the moment I considered quitting Medium in October was the result of that early boost wearing off.

On YouTube, too, I got a massive pop of viewership a couple of months in, mostly on the strength of these two videos (both of which are over 5,000 views now):

It has since settled into a low hum that has me considering packing it in.

But I just can’t yet.

There are two reasons for that.

Reason 1: I don’t want to be a hypocrite

I can’t well stay credible as a content coach if I’m just going to stop doing something because it’s hard and the rewards don’t currently match my efforts, can I?

The answer is no, no I cannot.

YouTube’s potential is such that it would be dumb to stop here.

Yes, the hurdle to jump over to get monetized is a lot tougher than other platforms, but such is the cost of getting access to some 2 billion viewers.

In this case, I need to listen to my own advice: stay consistent and pick up small wins every day.

Reason 2: I don’t want to be a quitter

This comes back to taking my own advice from the article I wrote earlier this week and a bunch of videos on my channel.

DON’T QUIT.

No matter what.

If you walk off the field of play, you forfeit.

And in this case, I would be forfeiting more than just my pride.

YouTube has already been serving ads on all my videos for months and months, and it just kills me that if I stopped now, it would be making potentially infinite money off my content.

How dumb would it be to make a bunch of videos for them and then stop just short of getting a share of the ad revenue?

So that’s that … I’m making one more big push.

If you’re interested in seeing what happens, you can subscribe to my channel here!

If you’re just looking for a flavor of what I do over there, here’s my latest video:

Subscribe to Medium today using my link ($5 a month, cancel any time) — I’ll get a lil’ kickback, and you’ll get all the awesome content Medium has to offer, risk-free!

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