The Truth about YouTube Sailing Channels and $$$$

 

YouTube stars are seen as today’s self-made celebrities—people who have earned an audience by creating content geared toward teaching, entertaining, reviewing, and being awesome on the internet. Most of these small-screen celebs do what they do just to do it, to scratch an itch for creating things and being in front of an audience.

 

These young Aussies bought a run down boat in Airlie Beach and learnt how to sail on the go. In the time since they have dramatically improved their boat, their YouTube videos and their sailing skills.
SEE THEM HERE

At first, you may probably think these people upload their content for free. Yes! YouTube is FREE for you to subscribe and watch all sorts of content at no charge. But as a viewer you are probably helping put a few cents in the pockets of those creators, which is no bad thing.

Sure, these self-made celebs, may have started out putting their vids up for free for a bit of fun in their early days, but we’re here to tell you that some of YouTube’s most-watched channels are making money—and a lot of it. But are they all making the big money or is it just a small few.

From a humble beginning, Sailing La Vagabonde are now the biggest Sailing Superstars on YouTube with almost 1.5 million subscribers generating a very healthy income. SEE THEM HERE

So, exactly how much do YouTubers make?  That’s what we’re going to tell you. How is it earned and how much?

According to Social Blade.com, YouTubers can make anywhere between $0.01 to $0.03 per view through Adsence, with an average of $0.018 per view. However, the amount of money to be earned from YouTube.com depends on a variety of factors, such as:

• The number of subscribers the channel has
• The number of hours their video’s have been watched
• The number of views the video receives
• The number of clicks an ad receives
• Ad quality
• Adblockers
• Video length
• and whether the add is watched entirely

With the average YouTube pay rate hovering between $0.01 and $0.03 for an ad view, a YouTuber can make around $18 per 1,000 ad views, which comes out to $3 to $5 per 1,000 video views. This means that to earn only $100 per day, you will need about 50,000 views per day.

 However, you are not eligible to join the ‘YouTube Partner Program’ to earn money from videos until your channel has 1000 Subscribers and a combined 4000 hours of watch time in the previous 12 months (a feat in itself that leaves most new channels penniless for a long time).

 Subscribers are people who choose to follow a particular YouTube Channel so that they can have easy access to the latest videos. When a video is posted, it will automatically show up on the subscribers homepage. If they hit the bell it's even better as YouTube will automatically send a notification to them indicating that a new video has been posted. YouTube does not pay based on the number of subscribers the channel has.

So how long does it take to get 1,000 YouTube Subscribers? It takes an average of 22 months for a new channel to reach 1,000 subscribers on YouTube according to data from TubeFilter. That's if the channel is uploading videos consistently and using some best practices.

 Reaching the 4000 hours of watch time this is where the real challenge comes. 4000 hours is a lot. It's 240,000 minutes or to put it in another way, it's a single person watching your content continuously 24-7 for 166.6 days. If you publish your first video on YouTube, and you get just an hour of watch time out of it, over the first week, you could be pretty satisfied. YouTube requires the 4,000 hours to have been amassed in a 365 day period up until the current date.

 So for example, after 22 months of posting a video on a weekly basis, an average new channel now has 1000 subscribers, .... Congratulations. They have hit the first threshold. However, they still need 4000 hours of viewing time in the previous 12 month period, not the average of 22 months it took to reach the subscriber threshold .

 If you prove to be a megastar and reach 4,000 hours of watch time in say three months (umm, Wow!), so long as you also have at least 1,000 subscribers you’re then eligible to apply for the YouTube Partner Program. Note the keyword being “eligible” — you still have to apply and be approved before you can actually start earning anything out of your content.

 

To be accepted into the YouTube Partners Program, you must:

 Have at least 1,000 subscribers

• Reach 4,000 valid public watch hours in the past 12 months (you can’t play your video constantly they know who is watching)
• Sign and agree to the terms and conditions
• Have an AdSense account
• Get reviewed and approved

Adsense will pay 68% of the revenue, so for ad or ads shown in videos for an earn of $1000 the creator will receive $680. BUT, in order to get paid by YouTube, you have to accrue earnings of $100 before any payment is made. This means around 20,000 ad views.

You may have heard that you’ll make one dollar per thousand views or that it’s $1,000 per Million Views. Some say it’s $5 per thousand views but that’s very misleading. Video views themselves DO NOT equal money. If viewers watch a video, but no one watches the advertisements through, only a very, very small amount is paid for an ‘Impression’ (meaning people saw the ad flash up but then hit skip so the sdvertiser did not get full exposure).

So if were asking about making money from views, we’re asking the wrong question. We should be asking, “How much ENGAGEMENT does it take to make money on YouTube?”  YouTubers make money based on people’s engagement with the ads. Engagement here means watching an ad right through or better still, clicking on the advertisers link. YouTube Advertising is managed in the Adwords platform. Advertisers choose ads on a Cost Per Click (CPC) or Cost Per View (CPV) model.

So here are some estimated ranges of earnings on 10 randomly chosen Sailing YouTube Channels that you may subscribe to, watch, know about or have heard of:

These statistics were correct at time of writing (Sept 2020) and were gained from Social Blade. You’ll quickly notice the huge difference between the estimated minimum and maximum earnings. In a nutshell the minimum figure is based on impressions only with ALL viewers skipping the adds while the max is estimated on every viewer watching every advert and or clicking on links. The reality is no doubt probably somewhere in the lower quarter to half of the ranges shown.

Follow the Boat

471 Uploads

52.2k Subscribers

234.5k Views for last 30 days

$76-1.2k Estimated monthly earnings.

Free Range Sailing

172 Uploads

95.1k Subscribers

504.6K Views for last 30 days

$164 - 2.6k Estimated monthly earnings.

Sailing Ruby Rose

241 Uploads

121k Subscribers

480.05K Views for last 30 days

$156 - 2.5k Estimated monthly earnings.

Sailing Nandji

207 Uploads

109k Subscribers

510.02k Views for last 30 days

$166 - 2.7k Estimated monthly earnings.

Sailing Catalpa

229 Uploads

27k Subscribers

75.5k Views for last 30 days

$25 - 393 Estimated monthly earnings.

Sailing La Vagabonde

395 Uploads

1.46m Subscribers

5.16m Views for last 30 days

$1.7k - 26.9k Estimated monthly earnings

Sailing SV Delos

410 Uploads

600k Subscribers

3.66m Views for last 30 days

$1.2k - 19k Estimated monthly earnings

Sailing into Freedom

301 Uploads

76.4k Subscribers

801.3k Views last 30 days

$260 - 4.2k Estimated monthly earnings

Sailing Yacht Florence

83 uploads

61.5k Subscribers

163.8k Views last 30 days

$53 - 852 Estimated monthly earnings

Expedition Evans

9 Uploads

46.2k Subscribers

1.03m Views last 30 days

$336 - 5.4k Estimated monthly earnings

 

And this is little old us

Dreamtime Sail

9 uploads

372 Subscribers

2.7k Views for last 30 days

$0.80 - $14 Estimated monthly earnings

(Based on our current figures if we were in the YouTube Partner Program. We are currently averaging 130 new subscribers a month which would see us reach the 1000 threshold in another 5 months –  Reaching 4000 hours of view time in 12 months requires 333 hours per month, we gained 331 hours in the last 28 days so are almost on target)

Do you watch every ad that is in your favourite YouTube video? If you said no, well you are in the vast majority of people. So you can realistically say Adsense earnings are nowhere near the top estimates. If you are one of those people who do watch the ads, congratulations you are helping these YouTubers continue their creative work. If you love what you are watching there is no harm in watching an ad or two in appreciation of the time and effort it took to give you 20 minutes or so of entertainment.

You can now see the estimated earning potential for these YouTubers on a monthly basis. But before you go wow let’s start a YouTube Channel sit back and reap in the rewards there are several things you should ask yourself.

The Dreamtime Sail crew editing another Episode at Foxy's Bar on Fitzroy Island
while the boat sits on a mooring as high winds blow by.

Do you know how to produce, record and edit a watchable compelling 15-20 minute video? If you already have these skills it is fair play to you, and you will be on your way to producing slick professionally edited videos. Most vloggers, learn along the way and usually get crucified whilst in the early stages. This brings us to the equipment side. Sure you can vlog with an iPhone but, in reality, to compete with the best you need good equipment. Salt air is horrendous and you will find you will be replacing equipment more than you think. We currently have two DJI Osmo waterproof action cams, a Sony FDR-AX33 video camera, a video capable Canon DSLR, a DJI Mavic Pro Drone that we are still learning to fly and recently we purchased a Rode Wireless GO microphone kit as our main negative feed back from our earlier episodes was regarding the audio quality. We also have two laptops for editing plus an Epidemic Sound subscription for music that can be used with our videos on YouTube and Social Media.

 

Just like boat gear, it would be very easy to spend tens of thousands of dollars on the latest wizbang gadgets to make YouTube videos

Are you prepared to spend time recording and editing that you could be spending enjoying yourself and relaxing? There’s a rough rule of thumb in television that says it takes an hour to edit one minute of television and this applies pretty well to Vlogging as well. Then add the time spent planning, shooting footage and filing video clips in a sensible method onto hard drives and the whole YouTube experience can become quite time consuming. This is more so if you are set on publishing a new episode very week and keeping the timing close to current.

 

We're determined to make sure we keep enjoying the cruising life rather than spending all our time recording and editing.

In our case we decided very early on we are not going to try to keep our published videos current. While we are out cruising, we are concentrating on enjoying that experience and are quite happy to limit our videos to every second week even if they are a few months behind LIVE. We are letting footage stack up into a backlog which we will edit and publish when we return south for the summer to escape the cyclone season. In the meantime, we do most of our editing when the weather is bad and we’re anchored up sheltering from wind or whatever. When the weather is good we’re out enjoying it even with cameras in hand.

And the final question ..... Do you want your life exposed? For many it’s about fame and fortune and jolly good luck to them.  They have set out to make YouTube their occupation and plan to rely on it to fund their sailing lifestyle. However, with now literally thousands of Sailing Channels alone, it’s an incredibly competitive market where getting noticed has become paramount. Enter CLICKBAIT. Catchy but often sensationalised or even misleading video titles and of course, the sex sells, skimpy bikini, no bikini thumbnails abound. A few have prospered from this approach but most do not build the loyal viewer base needed to be successful. Rather they attract the casual voyeur who has no interest in much other than having perve and definitely aren’t the type to support a channel either directly or by even watching through an advert or two. They are more likely to be fast forwarding through videos looking for the next glimpse of skin.

 

Clickbait - How a channel doing short day sails only on a McGregor 26 attracts 126,000 subscribers

For others it’s about documenting their life for friends, family or even future generations and simply a pleasurable hobby enjoyed onboard. We fall into that category. We have enjoyed creating a written record of our sailing life since we began cruising ten years ago. Recently we have added YouTube Vlogs to that record. Our main goal is simply to share the lifestyle we’ve come to love so much and, heaven forbid, when our seaborne existence eventually comes to end, have a full colour, action record to jog our failing memories. Having said that, if we were able to recoup some of our equipment costs or supplement or meagre sailing budget with a few bucks from our YouTube we are not going to say no.

What other ways do YouTubers make money?

• Affiliate links: Have you ever watched a video of a YouTuber reviewing a product? How about one where a YouTuber throws in the name of their “favorite brand”? If so, you’ve experienced affiliate links. Affiliate links involve a YouTuber reviewing or mentioning a product, such as equpment or a service, such as marketing software. When a viewer clicks on the link located in the video description and makes a purchase, the YouTuber will earn a small percentage of that purchase.
• Merchandise: Whether you follow a popular gamer or a day-to-day vlogger, you’ve probably noticed they opened up shop and created apparel for their loyal fans to purchase. YouTubers who have a large following often create a brand out of their channel and sell things such as shirts, bags, hats, and accessories.
• Patreon: Patreon is a way to join your favourite creator's community and financially assist them to make the video content you enjoy. Instead of literally throwing money at your screen (trust us, that doesn’t work), you can now pay a few bucks per video that a creator makes.  For example, if you pay $2 per video, and the creator releases 3 videos in February, then your card gets charged a total of $6 that month.  This means the creator gets paid regularly (every time they release something new), and you become a bonafide, real-life patron of the arts.  That’s right--Imagine you, in a long frilly white wig, painted on a 10-foot canvas on the wall of a Victorian mansion.  And imagine your favorite creators making a a couple of pennies doing what they do best… because of you.
• Sponsorship: Put simply, sponsorship is a mutually beneficial business relationship between two parties, the business (sponsor) and the person (sponsored). Sponsorship may be in the form of cash, donated goods and services or access. In the sailing world equipment is often the big one, think sails, electronics, safety equipment, clothing etc..  These goods and services can become far more valuable than cash support.

 

Regardless of how the creator is earning or not earning the choice is in your hands. If you love their work and get entertainment from their work there is no harm in sharing their work with others via social media, watching an ad or two, becoming a Patreon, buying a published book or merchandise or supporting a sponsor’s business to encourage YouTubers to create more content for your enjoyment.

Thank you to all who support us through watching our videos, reading our blogs or who step up and support us though Patreon and Ko-Fi. You inspire us everyday to be creative 🙌

You can help us out and support our creative work for FREE. 

By watching, 👍, 🔔, Subscribing, Commenting and best of all Sharing this video or blog with your friends 

If you would like to make a donation towards our creative work, you can by heading over to Ko-Fi they take no fees so the support goes directly into helping us buy and upgrade equipment 

Do you want more? 

Patreon gives you that … you get behind the scenes updates, 

Patreon only photos and posts, you can watch our 

episodes ad free and before they go public … you get it first!

Another way of support is through buying from our store.

Checkout the range of books we have available 

https://payhip.com/Dreamtimesail

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