July 2013 Income and YouTube Channel Analytics

Welcome to my July 2013 Income and Analytical report. If you haven't read my other reports, I've recently started publishing these with information about my "passive" income. These were inspired by a blog post by Dries a couple months back. The income is passive in the sense that it is coming from advertising and product sales but there is definitely an up front time investment.

That said, you'll quickly see July was a little disappointing in the passive income sense as my income fell again. However, on a happier note, the drop wasn't caused by a dip in the popularity of my YouTube videos / channels. But more on that below.

July 2013 Income

Adsense (TWD.com and a small niche site) - $21.14, -$14.19 from June
YouTube Adsense (estimated) - $125.44, -$45.59 from June
YouTube Adsense adjustment from June - $8.42
Tutorial sales on TWD.com - 7 tutorials bought, $117.94, no change in number sold or earnings from June
Host Gator affiliate sales - $0, -$50 from June

Total - $275.94, -$98.36 from June

Income Notes

So for another month, it definitely sucks to see my income slip. However, it got me wondering why it happened. Looking at the data for both Adsense and YouTube adsense, the bottom line is that the clicks I received were worth less in July than in June. I've found the fluctuation to be pretty drastic - I actually had a significant increase in the number of clicks on YouTube but they were worth about 50% less than the previous month.

The video sales is another story. Admittedly, I'd like to be earning more so I can focus on continuing to develop tutorials. However, I want to make sure the information is accessible - I don't want price to be a barrier. I've been trying to come up with a sustainable model that would allow me to keep giving information away for free while making enough to sustain tutorial development and so far, have come up with 2 options.

1. I could look for sponsors. I'm not entirely sure what this would look like but I have been reading up on people who have done this, particularly with podcasting. Again, I have no idea how much I could get from this or how the model would even work but I think it might be worth exploring. I would definitely want to make sure that if I did do this, it didn't impact on the information being provided or the quality of the tutorials.

If you're interested in sponsoring my video tutorials, feel free to contact me via my contact form. I'd definitely be willing to wear branded clothing throughout the tutorials... perhaps even a mid-tutorial stretching session with a full shirt logo???

2. I could develop some type of premium add on content. Again, I'm not sure what this would ultimately entail but the tutorials would remain free and accessible and maybe I'd add tests, badges, office hours, etc. to month subscribers. Still brain storming though... Love to hear people's thoughts.

July YouTube Analytics

Total number of videos as of July 31, 2013 - 62, +5 more than June 30, 2013
Video Views - 28,101, +3,865 more than June
Estimated Minutes Watched - 181, 311, +26,826 more than June
Likes - 327, +124 more than June
Dislikes - 3, +1 more than June
Comments - 146, +28 more than June
Shares - 3, -3 less than June
Favorites Added - 40, +16 more than June
Subscribers - 307, +47 more than June

Youtube Notes

While seeing my income go down definitely sucks, seeing the analytics get better is great. I was able to record 5 tutorials in July which is way lower than I would like but it's great to see people continuing to find the tutorials useful. As well, I started a new series on an Introduction to PHP which has had better success than the Heartbeat series but no where near my Views or Ubercart series. The plan is to finish up the PHP series and move on to Drupal module development, walking through the Flag Application module so hopefully that will help things pick up. I'll also be selling both series as a download which hopefully will bring in a little extra money.

I'm continuing to see positive results from asking people for some time of engagement, be it comments, likes or subscriptions. If you're also creating some kind of YouTube videos, I would recommend doing the same of your users.