Does anyone here Motovlog on YouTube for a living?

[Moto Mengy]

So I had a discussion with a viewer earlier this week, she saw my 1000 subs vid and wanted to know if I plan to make a living from YouTube money and if so how hard is it to do that. In my vid I sarcastically made fun of how little YT pays motovloggers, but I told her for real it's uncommon for someone to make enough money from YT to earn a living wage, and for a small niche like motovlogging it's even rarer.

However, it's not impossible, some people do make enough from YT to live off of.

This got me wondering, does anyone here actually do motovlogging full time, like as a career, and earn enough to live from it alone? I must admit the sound of it appeals to me, maybe it's not as difficult or rare as I think it is?

 

[HippoDrone]

We have a good few members who now are full time, or at least have large enough channels to make a considerable difference to their life financially. Obviously only a few members compared to the total membership are regular posters, but this forum has been going a while now and not all members post anymore, although some do check back in on occasion

 

[MachKneel]

We have a good few members who now are full time, or at least have large enough channels to make a considerable difference to their life financially. Obviously only a few members compared to the total membership are regular posters, but this forum has been going a while now and not all members post anymore, although some do check back in on occasion

That is so cool!

I mean, when we started this it was because we love bikes, I am a huge tech nerd, and no one in our local area in Ireland does it so we thought, why not...and why not us?!

But to be amongst greatness...that's crazy! We are buzzing with our first 2 out of 3 vids hitting 3k views and 50 subs

When I look at the channels that are pro that I follow, really their content is very...achievable, or ''doable'...if you know what I mean...

 

[Drakhen99]

Good question! I'd love to some day, but don't know anyone who does. I have some statistics from a YouTuber with <10k subs, he showed me how much $$$ he makes per month... and it ain't great. You need a TON of subs or multiple income streams in order to make a dent in your finances with YT as the vehicle to push the other streams.

I will share this, though: I have an Amazon Affiliate account and an associated blog site that I have to pay for hosting on... and has Google ads on it... and if my growth continues at its current pace, I might make a few hundred dollars this year off of vlogging.

If you do some back of the napkin math on my hourly rate, given my "income" from my 2 streams ... I make about $.25/hour.

-John

 

[Meifesto]

I'm no where near making a living from it.
Not even close to working fewer hours at my fulltime job yet.

But i did made the youtube into a business, mainly so i could get the taxes back from buying the GoPro. xD

 

[Drakhen99]

I'm no where near making a living from it.
Not even close to working fewer hours at my fulltime job yet.

But i did made the youtube into a business, mainly so i could get the taxes back from buying the GoPro. xD

I wish I would've done that... oh, the money I've wasted spent on this hobby of ours!

-John

 

[BikeFather]

Not a full-time YouTuber, maybe one day.. Although I'll probably be broke by then.
As it seems I'm always looking for a good excuse to buy new mods/gadgets of the bike..

 

[Meifesto]

I wish I would've done that... oh, the money I've wasted spent on this hobby of ours!

-John

Was the only option i had left to be able to buy it this year.
And i didn't want to use the Drift a full year longer xD

 

[Moto Mengy]

We have a good few members who now are full time, or at least have large enough channels to make a considerable difference to their life financially.

Oh that's awesome! I'd be happy with my channel simply paying for cameras, gas, and bike maintenance!

 

[nophix]

I have a pretty lucrative career I don't think I could leave, but if I could get the channel to offset the costs of my motorcycle obsession a bit....

So, if I log it as an actual business, do you think I could write off a new bike as a business expense? Lol!

That said, I may start doing it full time when I retire from my current job. Only 15 more years! lol

 

[Baldbiker]

The only one I can think of that worked hard at this and got to the point of a full time income, was Walteriffic, who was one of the originals that really made motovlogging a thing. It took him several years, and he has a particular talent for interacting with people, holding your attention and expressing an absorbing personality. As we used to say in the music business, musicians will always be broke, it's the entertainers that make the money.

I look at this as a hobby, but as with any of my hobbies, it's nice to generate a little bit of income just to keep me motivated. It's like my drone photography business, which gets like 3-5 gigs a year. I make nothing from it, but it's a legitimate registered business and gets me a nice writeoff and tax refund each year on any drone expenses I incur over the year.

 

[mymotorrad]

Pareto seems to live there too, on YT that is. I am not part of the small part of the distribution.

 

[Moto Mengy]

The only one I can think of that worked hard at this and got to the point of a full time income, was Walteriffic, who was one of the originals that really made motovlogging a thing. It took him several years, and he has a particular talent for interacting with people, holding your attention and expressing an absorbing personality.

Walter is certainly one of the most successful motovloggers financially but there are a few others who also make living wage levels from motovlogging. Itchy Boots for sure, Royal Jordanian too, Missenden Flyer, Blockhead as well, even Her Two Wheels is getting very close after only one year. I'd say all of them have worked hard as well, but maybe not as long as Walter has.

 

[mymotorrad]

Walter is certainly one of the most successful motovloggers financially but there are a few others who also make living wage levels from motovlogging. Itchy Boots for sure, Royal Jordanian too, Missenden Flyer, Blockhead as well, even Her Two Wheels is getting very close after only one year. I'd say all of them have worked hard as well, but maybe not as long as Walter has.

There are a lot of factors to success in anything. Great book about these kinds of things is Outliers, but Gladwell. Hard work matters a lot, but it's not the only factor in success. Lots of folks work hard if you know what I mean. YT and social media in general is quite a black box too. After watching The Social Dilemma and Zeynep Tufekci's ted talk on building a dystopia on ad clicks, I have to question myself for even participating in this. Yet another side of this is what you don't see with the people that are successful. we see what they present in a 2D format. What's behind the curtain, the amount of time they spend on it, the consequences with family if they have one and personal relationships etc, is an unknown. It's like when people look at a Jobs or Bezos or some other uber successful person and think if I read a book about/by them I can be successful like they were. It kind of gives short shrift to the whole story. For instance, for the times I tried to do 2-3 craptastic vids in a week, my wife got pissed. If I dedicated the time some of those folks do, I'd be in divorce court. So there has to be a high tolerance to dedication/obsession for all involved. Sorry for the rant, but I think that the whole story is a lot more interesting, detailed and nuanced.

 

[Drakhen99]

Haha, my wife gets mad at me all the time for the amount of time/energy/money I put into this "hobby" ...

Still hasn't divorced me, or even threatened it. But you're right - if you put a ton of energy into it, that energy has to come from somewhere. I am way behind on my "Watch Later" queue on YT, my DVR, and sleep.

If I find myself unemployed any time in the near future, however, I will put at least 8 or 9 hours a day into it and see if I can't make a go of it money-wise. At least until I find another job.

-John

 

[mymotorrad]

Haha, my wife gets mad at me all the time for the amount of time/energy/money I put into this "hobby" ...

Still hasn't divorced me, or even threatened it. But you're right - if you put a ton of energy into it, that energy has to come from somewhere. I am way behind on my "Watch Later" queue on YT, my DVR, and sleep.

If I find myself unemployed any time in the near future, however, I will put at least 8 or 9 hours a day into it and see if I can't make a go of it money-wise. At least until I find another job.

-John

That would make sense as you have the time...But working and everything else, IDK. Gotta sleep sometime. I burned myself out when I got my MS in 2007. I would wait until the kids went to sleep and then did my school work, sometimes to 3am and then go to work normally. One, it was only a year and half, two, I was a lot younger. Now, I couldn't do that anymore. If I don't get at least 6 hours, it's F'd up. Anyway, I think you're doing great, but my wife has a low tolerance for my hobbies. If I don't have one, she's like why don't you do something, then when I do and I get into it, why are you spending so much time on it...Can't win.

 

[Drakhen99]

That would make sense as you have the time...But working and everything else, IDK. Gotta sleep sometime. I burned myself out when I got my MS in 2007. I would wait until the kids went to sleep and then did my school work, sometimes to 3am and then go to work normally. One, it was only a year and half, two, I was a lot younger. Now, I couldn't do that anymore. If I don't get at least 6 hours, it's F'd up. Anyway, I think you're doing great, but my wife has a low tolerance for my hobbies. If I don't have one, she's like why don't you do something, then when I do and I get into it, why are you spending so much time on it...Can't win.

Yeah, having a job right now is a bummer ... less time than I want for editing my videos. My wife is always b***hing about my hobbies, but now she has one of her own, so I get a few nights here and there to work on it, and about an hour or so after she goes to bed

I'm super blessed too, to have my mom ... she watches the kids for part or most of the day on the weekends, so I get some editing and riding time there. Mostly it's riding time, with dumping the video files to my computer and starting the rough cut.

-John

 

[SighBored]

Nope. In order to do this for a living you have to do that "influencer" lifestyle and always trying to stay in trend. Good for those that thrive on being social and popular.

I think I've mentioned it before, but I don't believe in the saying of making your hobby as your job. If you make riding and making videos your job and not a hobby, no matter what you say now, eventually it will become a job. You will start thinking and worrying about how to continue making content and making sure the money streams in, bills get paid, etc.

That's my opinion anyway.

 

[Arfa]

It's a tough one to make big bucks in this game. As mentioned, there's a whole tonne of hard work that goes into things and it can take its toll on life/family etc. On the plus side, a lot of the work can be done by dipping in and out as you like, fitting around whatever you have on. Less so the editing, but more the social media, blogging, SEO and so on.

You do also need to have your fingers in many pies, hedge your bets, don't stick all your eggs in one basket, yadayada... I don't earn anything on YT, but a bit from a number of affiliate schemes, Adsense, ebay partner network, sponsored posts etc. I've a couple of sites, the biking one is the main one and others I've only kept for their residual income. Nonetheless, I'm managing over a grand a year income (not including kit sent for review). More than covers hosting costs, domain name, software, etc. and then covers any gadgets or computer gear I need - yep, all business expenses which helps tax-wise. Some financial years I make a big loss if I have to purchase a lot of camera or computer gear for the work. Ho-hum.

 

[Moto Mengy]

I think I've mentioned it before, but I don't believe in the saying of making your hobby as your job. If you make riding and making videos your job and not a hobby, no matter what you say now, eventually it will become a job. You will start thinking and worrying about how to continue making content and making sure the money streams in, bills get paid, etc.

That's my opinion anyway.

I agree, I like my channel being small. I really don't want to make ads for sponsors, I'd much rather keep doing my fun pace of one video per week, making the videos I want to make not have to make.