Is Making $10,000 a Month as a Content Creator is still possible?

Hi Creators,

This week we want to focus on ways you can MONETIZE properly as a Creator and diversify you're income streams.

One of my personal goals for this newsletter is to help more of you become full-time content creators who are able to earn $10,000 a month or more from your online ventures, and that will become more of a focus with the newsletter content, and my content overall.

You'll still of course, be learning how to grow your audience with Content Strategy since it's very hard to monetize without anyone to actually support you! We will also be focusing on how you can build a stronger relationship with that audience by building your personal brand on authenticity and authority.

Also, be sure to Watch How to Stand Out on YouTube in 2024 one of my latest videos! (Trying to upload 2-3 times a week again!)

96% of Creators Earn Less Than $100K a Year from their Content

The 2024 Creator Economy Report from Kajabi had some interesting data points, including how few Creators earn a livable income from their content and business ventures.

On Social Media, we can constantly see the success stories, but for every one of those outliers, there are 10,000 people who didn't make it.

One of my goals is to help Creators through this newsletter, our FREE Email Course, and Awesome Creator Academy Pro Group, so that more Creators can be in a position to earn $10,000 a month a become full-time content creators. Ideally with some sort of proper work-life balance.

In the Creator Economy Report it says that 66% of the Creators surveyed, made most of their revenue from just one revenue stream... Brand Deals.

While Brand Deals are a huge part of monetization as a content creator, most Creators don't have a long-term strategy for brand deals and constantly have anxiety about whether or not they will find enough sponsors. I teach a different approach to this, both in terms of becoming a UGC Creator if you're under 100,000 Subscribers on YouTube or under 20,000 on Instagram, but also for larger Creators, the importance of long-term partnership contracts.

If you'd like to work with me 1-on-1 specifically around coaching when it comes to Brand Deals and Sponsored content, you can reach me here.

To become a 6 six-figure creator, the secret is to actually have 5+ different sources of revenue. But I also believe you should earn multiple streams of income across multiple platforms. Each platform should be an opportunity to promote your own Membership, Digital and Physical Products, and affiliate links. All of these will increase your off-platform revenue and make you less dependent on social media beyond growing an audience, and allow you to grow an actual business.

How to Earn $10,000 a Month as a Full-time Content Creator

YouTube is ultimately the best platform for Monetization and for building your personal brand. However, it can feel hard to grow on YouTube and very competitive, and many Creators are trying to get their start on other platforms like TikTok, Twitch, Instagram, or X (formerly Twitter) to build an audience and bring them to YouTube long-term.

The reason behind this is that YouTube offers the most ways to monetize on the platform directly through their YouTube Partner Program YPP. While I do talk about how you can Increase this Revenue, its still very unreliable.

However, the problem lies in the fact that once Creators are monetized with YPP they become very dependent on the platform and sponsors for most of their living income and don't diversify enough. At best, they might start getting into creating merchandise and print-on-demand products.

As a Content Creator, I have been very fortunate in that I have always tried to diversify my revenue streams. I have been earning over $100,000 a year as a content creator for nearly eight years now (since 2016).

HOW TO EARN $10K PER MONTH BREAKDOWN:

This breakdown is not how I earn $30,000+ each month as a Content Creator, but a more reasonable set of target goals for diversifying income, that I would try to set for myself if I was trying to become a full-time content creator today. The links below also go to individual videos that can teach you how to earn more with these income streams.

• $3000/month Recurring Brand Deal Sponsorships
• $2000/month from YPP or Platforms
• $2000/month Affiliate Links
• $1500/month Product Sales
• $1500/ month in Donations/Memberships from Audience

Currently, I earn more than $18,000+ a month from brand deals because of long-term sponsor relationships with 6-12-month contracts. This is something we train on in the Academy Pro Group consistently.

What most people don't realize is that you can combine brand deals and affiliate marketing in many different ways to increase your revenue and earning potential. In my case, I currently average roughly $6000+/month in affiliate commissions, many of which overlap with my sponsorships.

By comparison, if I upload infrequently to YouTube, I will earn $30,000 to $40,000 from YPP if I upload roughly 50 times in a year. YouTube earnings are on the lower end of my income streams, with my coaching business and sponsorships being on the higher end.

Currently, the Academy Pro Group earns roughly $5000/month in recurring monthly revenue, making it a more reliable income stream with our 90 Members than earning from YouTube, with a much lower weekly time commitment to earn that revenue.

Diversifying these income streams means that I don't have to focus exclusively on how many views I gain each month or each upload, don't have to prioritize growth at all cost, and can control the amount of time I have to spend in my Creator business.

Sponsored by Kajabi

Start Monetizing Membership Websites

When my tutorial and tech content finally reached 100,000 subscribers on YouTube in 2016, I wanted to pivot and start helping other creators. I started getting emails from other Creators with questions asking me for help, so I decided to start taking 1-on-1 Coaching Calls. Eventually, these ended up turning into weekly group calls, too.

In late 2017, I needed a solution beyond a simple landing page on a clunky WordPress website and a link to PayPal. I decided to launch Awesome Creator Academy using Kajabi, which, aside from Sponsorship, is my most lucrative and reliable revenue stream. It allows me to offer Coaching, a Membership Community, and $99 Digital Products.

Within the last 6 years I've earned $600,000 in revenue on Kajabi, not having to do a 70/30 revenue share with the platform (like YouTube Memberships, 50/50 on other platforms) and delivered for over 3,400 customers!

Suppose you're a Creator who wants to grow a sustainable online business and offer more than free content. In that case, Kajabi makes this easy with no-code tools for your website, built-in email marketing, and AI tools that make it simple for first-time online business owners to launch.

Want to learn more? Watch my $5000/month Membership Blueprint video on building and scaling your paid membership community with 100 True Fans!

My INSIDERS Take on Diversifying Creator Monetization

Creators continue to rely heavily on platform revenue like Adsense (the YouTube Partner Program), and the Creativity Program on TikTok, but these revenue streams cause Creators anxiety and help lead to burnout.

Many full-time content creators have turned to working with brands on sponsored content in order to have a reliable income but have trouble with reaching out to brands and pricing themselves properly.

To help with brand deals we created resources like The Brand Deals Starter Kit but also free content like this Live Deep Dive into Brand Deals and Sponsorship.

However, this still puts creators in a position where they lack control over their income, where it is less reliable and still dependent on their reach and overall relevancy.

I have always believed that Creators should diversify their income streams and sources. I earn from 20 different websites each month that pay me in some capacity.

There is much less anxiety when you know you have so many sources of significant income ranging from $500 to $5000 each month.

It's why I am a part of multiple Affiliate Programs and not just the Amazon Influencer Program and why I go out of my way to be monetized on as many platforms as possible and cultivate multiple long-term brand partnerships.

One of the issues I see many Creators facing is that they look at this as too overwhelming, which is understandable. However, all of this can be built up over time by not focusing so religiously on growing views and followers.

Creators worship at the altar of "attention at all cost", and while it can, in the short-term, make for a career around viral content, explosive growth, and big paydays, it is not even close to being sustainable long-term.

I believe that more creators should be building off-platform income streams that don't rely on constantly being on a performance treadmill to maintain relevancy and popularity with an audience that might jump from trend to trend.

We are seeing this with Creators who blew up during that pandemic and who struggle to be relevant now that people are returning to school and the office and just overall normalcy.

In the long term for Creators to have reliable income and long term careers they need to be able to have an audience that doesn't just support them with their eyeballs, but with their wallets, and they need to be prepared to build products and services in order to accomplish that.