Making Money on Youtube is easier than Making Money Writing

It’s a cold, gray, spring morning in Norway.

I’m in my room; I’m cold, my hands and feet are cold.

I can’t even turn on our heater because we’re trying to save electricity. The setting for our gas heater is set to the lowest temperature to save gas.

I received a text message from my wife that the price of benzene and diesel will probably reach 30 kroner (about $3.36) per liter in part due to the war on Ukraine (thanks, Russia).

And let’s not even talk about the price of groceries.

One good thing has been the further easing of travel restrictions between Sweden and Norway in the past few weeks. It means we can travel to Sweden more and do our grocery shopping there where it’s cheaper.

All of these price increases have taken a toll on our finances. And it looks like I have to look for other sources of income because what I’m earning from writing is not enough anymore.

Hello, Youtube?

The easy money available on Youtube

I saw a documentary on Youtube about Filipino Mukbang vloggers making anywhere between $2,000 to $5,000 a month. Wow, that’s still ten times more than the $200 I make from a 2,000-word blog post.

If I were earning an extra $2,000 to $5,000 a month, I’d be happy. That’s more than enough to compensate for all the price increases in the past few months.

And then I saw this:

I almost wanted to pull out the remaining hair on my head after learning Bethany makes $1.3 million a year making mukbang videos.

As a written content creator, I’m confident that the skills I learned will translate to creating video content: SEO, keyword identification, even making an outline or format for the content.

Learning video editing won’t be a problem compared to SEO.

So, I should start doing mukbang videos, right?

If there’s one thing I learned about making money on Youtube from these Mukbang videos, it’s this: these videos don’t add value to someone’s life.

No lives were improved from the making of the video.

It’s all mindless entertainment.

The Filipino Mukbang vloggers admitted that most of their views come from the audience who want to see them eat vast amounts of unhealthy food like a whole roasted pig, braised pork belly, “chicharron,” or fried pig skin.

It’s a dangerous stunt that will take a toll on their health. All for likes, follows, comments, and views.

These videos are easy to make

A lot of these videos are the same things over and over, just a different person trying to make you drool over what they’re eating.

I imagine there’s not a lot of planning and strategizing that goes behind the scene compared to writing a blog post that will rank on Google. It’s simple you can copy and paste it on your channel.

I look at these videos, and I’m like, “yeah, I can make that too.”

But I’m not ready to go down that route because I don’t see that as the type of creation I can be proud of.

There’s a reason watching videos is more popular than reading

More people consume video content over written content because it’s easier to watch than read.

When you watch, all you need to do is sit in front of the TV, phone, or laptop and turn off your brain most of the time. It’s easier to understand something when you’re using both your sense of sight and hearing. And the best part is, you can even eat and drink while enjoying.

It takes more effort to read a blog post. You have to scroll, and if you can’t get what the writer is saying, it’s easy to close the tab and never return.

I get it.

I watch plenty of youtube videos and read blog posts too. I can say that reading feeds your mind more than watching videos does. If you’re looking to learn, read something (or watch something educational). If you’re looking for entertainment, watch a video.

Unfortunately, more people prefer entertainment over learning.

Of course you can still make money writing

But that comes with a caveat.

If you want to earn millions from writing, the process will take longer. You need to build an audience, gain their trust by providing tons of free value, and you need a product that sells to make money.

That will take a lot longer than the mukbang videos making money from advertisements and sponsorships on Youtube.

Outside of titans Huffington post, Moz, and Mashable, other successful bloggers earning over a million annually are Smart Passive Income, Smart Blogger, and Making sense of cents. They sell courses and other affiliate products.

Even freelance writers like Carol Tice started a blog that offers a premier membership at $40 a month.

And if you’re not aware, all these sites offer great value from teaching people how to manage their finances, write, make extra income, etc.

Then there’s me, helping people transition to veganism and earning $200 per post.

I have to be very aggressive to find new clients, more work, and higher-paying jobs. I’m also facing stiff competition from people worldwide that are applying for the same jobs.

At least I’m earning extra, right? It’s just not as much as I wanted, for now.

I’m two years into freelance writing

Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I’d be writing online for extra money. The end goal is to earn enough from my writing to quit my current job and work at home to spend more time with my family.

I’m very proud that my work helps people improve people’s lives by changing their mindsets, helping build better habits, and maybe even improve their health.

I’m going to continue writing, get better, improve my skill set, sharpen my skills, whatever it takes, and I believe that I’ll attain success eventually. I have to be patient.

In the meantime, if you see me making mukbang videos, that means I need money badly.

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