If youâre reading this email, youâre in one or more of the camps of productivity, tech, business, or content - this email is definitely on the content side because, boy oh boy, some big platform moves have happened in the last month.
â Are you a writer?
Because things are happening, and it could help you fatten that purse as the Richest Man in Babylon might say.
News Break, breaking the news.
News Break's platform just hit the scene with a lot of Chinese money backing it, and Medium writers went berzerk. Why? Because News Break, with its 45 million monthly actives, is retaining creators with $1000 USD a month.
If anyone has written on Medium, they understand how difficult it is to gather enough reads to get to that. Meanwhile, anyone can apply to be a writer on Newsbreak and, once accepted, can earn, much like Medium but with a guaranteed sum.
Here are my experiences and some other details you might want to hear.
You can publish already-published work, perfect for those who have gathered a repository over the years.
You need to publish at least 12 articles a month that are over 1000 words to qualify.
The platform is clickbaity, think Buzzfeed, or YouTube.
And, more than anything, itâs legitimate; this is their strategy to win in the content wars - pay creators, who would have thought, right?
The application takes 5-7 days (on paper), but mine took a day. So go for it, ladies and gents, cushion that revenue.
Medium going short-form.
Medium made some changes that will display your article in its entirety if itâs less than 100 words long. Some people are calling it a monetized Twitter.
You donât provide a heading. Instead, you bold the first sentence and continue writing.
You can still upload snippets, links, and pictures.
You can still earn from them feat. the partner program
Iâve published one about my favorite productivity tool as of late, but let me say something, off about 40-ish reads, itâs earned something like 12 cents.
See, this was obvious. Youâll get paid on reading time, and with short-form, thereâs less of it. Although Medium bets that people will adopt a style to post 4-5 times a day and earn 50 cents to a dollar per post, their reach is still up for debate.
Iâll be posting more short-form content to get a better handle on the possibilities - then Iâll let you know how it went. Itâs good to note that this is only an option. Medium is still very much a, well, medium-length platform.
đč Do you make videos?
Sweet, me too; hereâs a couple of things you should know if you either publish them or consume them (âifâ haha, I know youâre as addicted as me).
YouTube is fucking small creators.
Crass? Yes, but true. I published this recently: Small Creators vs. YouTubeâs New Terms of Service.
But Iâll give you the TLDR. YouTube changed their terms of service. The terms of service were this: To earn money on YouTube, you need 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watch-time.
These rules came about in 2018 in response to the 2016 election meddling and the fact that ads were showing up on controversial videos.
Now, with all that as a distant memory, YouTube said in their new terms that they have a right to monetize any video, regardless of whether theyâre in the partner program or not.
22 million out of 37 million channels have under 1000 subscribers. Pooled together, and with no revenue sharing, YouTube is going to make a killing out of these smaller creators, all without paying them.
Even if you donât want to display ads on your content, YouTube says that they can and will.
All references and numbers in the original article.
If youâre a small creator, this is worrying. If youâre a viewer, youâre about to see a lot more ads. Hey, donât get mad at me; Iâm the messenger.
2 months on YouTube, here are my numbers.
As much as I love the âshit on YouTube party,â for all its flaws, itâs damn powerful.
I posted 15 videos
Received 4.5k views
475 hours of watch time
177 subscribers
120k impressions
Thatâs insane.
You see 4.5k views on a single video and think, well, thatâs a flop. But that only happens when youâre a viewer. When youâre creating content, you really see how far you can go.
With a âmeaslyâ 4.5k views, people have spent about 500 hours watching my content; it blows my mind.
No matter the type of content you produce, articles, photos, illustrations, or audio - turn the process into a video too. Itâs worth your time.
Articles can be narrated; illustrations can be turned into speed drawing; photos can be turned into tutorials. As a creator, youâll have one more avenue for revenue, and Iâm not talking about Adsense.
Products and merchandise.
Subscriptions
Affiliates
Commissions
And more. Widen that top-funnel and grow that audience.
I hope you enjoyed this one. Iâve made the mistake of pooling several different niches into this email list, so apologies if this wasnât your cup of tea!
Also, here are a couple of articles from me that you might like:
If you got some value out of it, definitely consider sharing! Iâll see you in the next one.
Cheers,
Sah
** Iâve got some referral links in this one, ladies and gents, up there with the News Break stuff. Indeed the hustle is real đ