YouTube: An Insider's Guide to Climbing the Charts

Chapter 11. Money Money Money!

Alan Lastufka

Monetization

Monetization, an old financial term, has recently been applied (perhaps even overapplied) in the Web 2.0 world. In short, when you monetize your online content, in this case your videos, you find ways to make money from your free content.

You can monetize your online videos in several ways. You can host them on websites that offer revenue sharing, as YouTube does with its Partner Program (usually referred to by users as the Partnership Program). You can run commercial preroll or postroll ads on your videos (see the "Preroll and Postroll" sidebar). Or you can put in paid product placements. Some of these techniques are easier than others to accomplish, but you will take a look at each technique throughout this chapter, with the focus, of course, being on YouTube.

Before we get into it, though, let me preface this chapter with a word of caution: Don't expect to retire off your online video earnings any time soon. In fact, for the first year, don't even expect to cut back to part-time at your day job. Building an online presence, especially an online audience, takes time. Capitalizing on that audience takes even longer. It can be done, and my current work schedule proves that. I work every day at my "day job" from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., and then the rest of the day is mine. To write. To edit a new video. To make popcorn, kick back, and watch other people's YouTube videos. To take a nap and then watch reruns of Monk. It's up to me ...