Become a Full-time Content Creator in 2025
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Hey Creators, Make this the year that you become Full-Time and finally LOCK-IN. It may seem like an impossible task or dream but this issue of the newsletter is here to help you focus on accomplishing exactly that. For most of you reading this being a full-time content creator means earning $5000 to $10,000 per month from your content. You can certainly accomplish this if you monetized correctly. So that will be the focus of this issue. Realistically this also means you have to grow a reasonable audience, if you're in entertainment niches as an influencer, this will be more challenging but we have an answer for that. If you're in education niches as a thought-leader this will be a lot simpler to accomplish. For anyone who is just starting a YouTube Channel read this 4 Minute breakdown on 6 Simple Steps to Start a Channel in 2025 . โ My BEST FREE WORKSHOPS on Becoming a Full-time Creator
โ EXACTLY How to Make $5,000-$10,000 a Month as an InfluencerFor influencers who focus on entertainment style content, there can be a lot of challenges in monetizing since this type of creator business relies much more on REACH than it does on REPUTATION. The audience typically is harder to monetize directly, however the audience can also be so large that converting a small percentage of them though a series of micro-transactions can still be profitable. Over 90% of influencers make more than 50% of their income from sponsored content. So it is important to maintain reach and relevancy in the entertainment space. The most practical approach for influeners who want to go full-time is to build long-term relationships with sponsors and lock-in 6-12 month contracts with them. I cover this a bit more in-depth in this video. Usually what I recommend is to find 3-5 Sponsors you can work with as a creator, and pitch them on packages that are $1500-$2500 per month. When combined with YouTube Adsense, and the potential to monetize other platforms, and get audience support through fan-funding, it should be possible to earn $5000-$10,000 per month and become a full-time content creator. You don't need extraordinary views to command these kinds of prices in your package. Leverage things like licensing to your advantage. Remember, its a Brand DEAL...
โ You can use all of these in negotiating value, I genuinely advocate for Creators to use value-based pricing instead of view-based pricing. If you're a Creator who specifically has an audience that fits for lifestyle products or consumer products, you can also pursue UGC (User Generated Content) based brand deals, and earn that way rather than qualifying based on your audience size and reach. This would be more about your production value and presentation. You would essentially be a producer and spokesperson for a brand, posting to their social media accounts rather than your own, and this would be cheaper for them than working with an ad agency, and hiring union talent. This works if you are the face of a channel and you do on-camera work, but typically isn't viable for faceless YouTube channels. Channels who want to make faceless content in entertainment niches have to rely on Ad Revenue from YouTube and other platforms, sponsored content, but they can also benefit from fan-funding and memberships. โ For memberships I recommend creating a $1.99 tier and a $8.99 tier, usually because of YouTube taking 30% and then another 30% that happens if a purchase is made with an iOS device. This ensures the creator gets $1-$5 per membership. Your goal should then be to try to acquire 1000 true fans, that support with their wallet and not just their eyeballs, and this will help you with achieving your goal of becoming full-time. Where most influencers go wrong is they fully prioritize Ad Revenue because they find the other income streams too intimidating compared to just posting content and being paid for it. But on average to ever hope to go full-time they would have to average 1M-5M views per month every single month to be full-time while relying on Ad-revenue exclusively.
EXACTLY How to Make $5,000-$10,000 as a Thought LeaderAs a content creator who does education-based content, one would be more of a "thought leader" than an online "influencer". This also means the opportunities to earn a full-time income are radically different. For one thing a thought-leader tends to have an older and more affluent audience ranging from 25-55 rather than the 15-25 demographic that influencers depend on for broad appeal. Thought Leaders usually get less overall views and reach because of the narrow focus of their experience and expertise, but they sell their REPUTATION, rather than just their REACH, and with an older more affluent audience, they benefit in quality over quantity. This audience is far more easy to directly monetize. โ Monetizing an Education Based Audience:
โ Beyond monetizing an audience directly, the same opportunities that exists for influencers to monetize exist for thought leaders, though the opposite isn't always true. The Ad-revenue in most thought leader niches, tends to be significantly higher. I've broken down the most profitable niches on YouTube several times. In addition to brand deals and UGC opportunities, there is also the potential for affiliate marketing beyond the typical Amazon Influencer Program, by taking advantage of SAAS affiliate programs that offer recurring commissions. If you want to earn $5,000-$10,000 a month as a thought leader you can still pursue long-term brand deal partnerships with $1500-$2500 per month contracts. โ However there is also an opportunity to earn this money directly with a $29-$99 per month private membership with your 100 Super Fans who want more access to you and to each other, via a private membership community. This is a model I currently use that generates over $5000 per month in recurring revenue. In terms of Ad-revenue, a thought leader is less dependent on this revenue stream if they directly have a business behind their channel, however the Ad-revenue can still be significant. To reach full-time levels of income a though leader might only need 500,000 to 1M views per month to earn $5,000 to $10,000 in revenue directly from the YouTube Partner Program. โ
โ Key Takeaways for Becoming a Full-time CreatorThere is no one way to become a full-time content creator, but the principles and foundations are generally the same. This also holds true when it comes to growing an audience, which despite algorithms and trends changing, human psychology typically does not. When it comes to business fundamentals and the laws of supply and demand, and general marketing principles, those things don't change much with time or technology either. Traffic, Trust and Transactions, will always be the proper framework for building a creator business. The execution of it may vary from creator to creator, niche to niche, and platform to platform, but at it's core, it remains the same. And that is why in Awesome Creator Academy we focus so heavily on teaching timeless principles and mental models for creator success.
If you're not ready to join the Awesome Creator Academy Pro Group or even an Academy Basic Membership, consider taking our FREE Creator Foundations Course so you can understand the principles of attracting your tribe and not just building an audience, and how to put value for the viewer first. This course is a "pay what you can" course, which means you can pay $0 and get it completely free, but any contribution that supports the work of myself and my team is fully appreciated. |