I have always thought about how to make some extra money on the side. Something easy...something I already enjoy doing. I have found though that the things I have thought up so far to do on the side haven't been very profitable!
Several years ago I had the idea of creating YouTube videos and putting them up on my channel. Friends and coworkers have always asked me about vacations, how I save money for and on them, when is the best time to go, etc. Especially when it came to Disney World. Jeff and I used to go every year, and were always researching ways to save money when it came to paying for the trip and also when actually on it. I figured it would be a great idea to make videos talking about the same thing that everyone was already asking me about, and I could make money on it at the same time. We watch YouTubers all the time anyway, and they make enough money to live off of, just making weekly or daily videos. I had a YouTube account already, so I got to work getting it monetized!
I got to doing some research and came up with topics for several 15-25 minute videos. I thought we could post the videos of us on our vacations as well, so people could see us "in action" doing the things I had talked about in my other videos. About once a month I would record videos, mainly with me sitting at a park either at a picnic table or in my car, reading through the script I had written. I then uploaded and set the videos to go public once per week. I was really good about getting enough videos to have them set to post in advance, so if I ran out of topics or we wanted to take some time off it would not interfere with the posting of pre-made videos.
The problem with this idea though was that if something happened, like some late-breaking news, or some new feature, I was going to be well behind the other Disney YouTube creators, because I already had a month worth of videos scheduled, so any video I made of the latest greatest news breaking item would be at least a month behind everyone else.
A few years into making and posting videos - mainly about Disney World (sprinkled in with various home videos, Las Vegas trip information, and non profit volunteering opportunities), it hit me that I wasn't really getting any new subscribers, and I only made a grand total of $100 for all of my hard work. I also realized that basically what I was making was a video version of a podcast. So, I thought that maybe if I moved to an audio-only format, my content might be more profitable! People could listen to what I had to say while driving, or working, or walking around...instead of just watching me sit at a picnic table. I felt more at ease just talking into a microphone for a podcast, so I was optimistic.
I wasn't sure how the podcasting thing was going to work out, so I found a website that would push my podcast out to all the most used podcast-listening platforms (Apple, Google, SiriusXM, Pandora, Amazon Music, etc) for free, so I wouldn't be out any money while I was trying to figure out if this was going to work. I made the podcast episodes in groups at a time, and had them post once per week in a season format. 15 episodes per season, and I'd have nothing posted for about a month or so after that, just to give me time to research another 15 episodes, record and edit the audio, and finally get the episodes scheduled for posting the next season.
Once we kind of stopped going to Disney, I decided to focus on researching for Las Vegas. I actually had a lot of fun with researching this one, because I put together a series of podcasts where I talked about the history of the strip, and all of the casinos that have come and gone. I also put together a series on the current casinos on the strip, and the history for each of them.
I could see I was actually getting a few listeners per episode, and I was really feeling good about that because I felt that maybe with time, the podcasts would pick up more and more listeners. So, I went through the process of monetizing the podcast through the free hosting site I had found. I know some podcasters who pay a fee for a company to push their podcast out to many, many podcast listening services. I wasn't there yet, since I still had no income from it to offset that expense.
I started losing steam in creating podcast episodes. I was running out of fresh ideas on my own for episodes, and had started just researching tried and true topics for an episode, because I couldn't think anything up on my own! And to top it off, even though I was getting some listeners to each episode, it wasn't enough to make any money. Just a couple cents from every episode, and the website wasn't going to cut a check until I had gotten to $100. In 2022, the website stopped hosting the podcast service. I had already stopped creating podcasts at that point, but had not disabled my account because I was still getting a few listeners on the episodes I had posted. As of the time of this posting, I found out the company is now completely shutting their website down all together.
All this (the youtube video-making and podcast-making) was mostly being done when I was taking a five year break from posting to this blog. I've not monetized this blog - this is mostly just a forum for me to post my thoughts, for me. If I have people reading my posts, great! But I am not out to make money with the posts I make here on blogger. I enjoy writing, and enjoy putting together these posts...
I liked making the podcasts, just like I enjoy writing on my blog. I might give the podcast another go at it sometime. We'll have to see - for now, I am busy enough as it is with the things I have on "my plate," without adding a podcast to it as well.
