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HOW TO MAKE
MONEY WITH
YouTube
Earn Cash, Market
Yourself, Reach Your
Customers, and Grow
Your Business on the
World’s Most Popular
Video-Sharing Site
BRAD AND DEBRA
SCHEPP
New York Chicago San Francisco
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Copyright © 2009 by Brad and Debra Schepp. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United
States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or
by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the pub-
lisher.
ISBN: 978-0-07-162618-7
MHID: 0-07-162618-2
The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: ISBN: 978-0-07-162136-6, MHID:
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such claim or cause arises in contract, tort or otherwise.
To our nieces, Elissa Sorkowitz Lejeune and Adina Sorkowitz Levin:
When you were small we thought that you were brilliant, beautiful, and
completely magical. Now that you’re grown, we know it to be true!
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v
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
INTRODUCTION xiii
CHAPTER
1 YOU TOO CAN BE A YouTube STAR! 1
YouTube and You 3
A Quick Guided Tour of YouTube 9
A Little YouTube History 21
Using YouTube for Fun and Profit 24
What I Know Now 27
Just for Fun 27
CHAPTER
2 MARKETING YOURSELF THROUGH YouTube 29
Performers 33
People in Business for Themselves 39
YouTube Teachers 46
Video Résumés: Good Idea or Bad? 49
College Admissions Videos 54
What I Know Now 56
Just for Fun 57
CHAPTER
3 MARKETING YOUR COMPANY ON YouTube 59
What Types of Videos Work Best? 62
Do YouTube Views Equal Revenues? 70

CONTENTS
vi
CHAPTER
7 OTHER VIDEO-SHARING SITES
AND THE FUTURE OF YouTube
185
Broad Coverage Sites 187
Niche Video-Sharing Sites 197
What about Your Own Site? 205
A Multiplatform Strategy 206
Search for Tomorrow—What Lies Ahead
for YouTube 207
What I Know Now 213
Just for Fun 214
INDEX 215
CONTENTS
vii
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ix
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Any book requires hundreds of hours of research and then hun-
dreds of hours of writing. Although we’ve worked on many projects
together in our years as writers, we’ve never been a team of only two
players. There are always hundreds of people behind any project,
and this one was no different in that respect. Where it was different
was in how much fun it was to research. We’ve never laughed so
hard while working! We’ve also rarely met a group of people who
are so optimistic, creative, and energized about what they were
doing. We’re going to do our best to thank them all, but because
we know we’re bound to miss a few, please accept our apologies

Wenckebach and showed that even overworked medical students
just want to have fun on YouTube. Leah Nelson and Jay Grandin
of GiantAntMedia.com, made us take a second (and third) look at
how we shower. (Honestly, guys, where did you hide that camera
to learn how we shower?) Marc Black created a video that gave
Martha Stewart pause, and Bob Thacker, Senior Vice President of
Marketing and Advertising at OfficeMax, blew away any precon-
ceptions we may have had about “corporate types.” The same is
true for Michael Parker of Serena Software. (Magic really can hap-
pen in the IT department once that pocket protector comes out!)
Dr. Steven Yarinsky, thanks for the advice about gaining exposure
in a professional way on YouTube. Clearly your advertising needs
no facelift. Thank you to George Wright of Blendtec, the WillIt
Blend? guy who quickly saw how to mix up things in the some-
times staid world of advertising. Ben Relles of Obama Girl and
barelypolitical.com fame, thanks, although, honestly, you made
us wish we were about 20 years younger! We appreciated every-
thing you did so much, that we’re still willing to thank you.
Still more YouTube mavens include Ralph Lagnado and
David Abehsera of the Woo Agency, just some of the grown-
ups behind Fred’s success. Also, thank you to Jamie Dolan, of
Sonestaentertainment.com, Fred’s business manager; Ryan
Adler of Drumpr.com; Maisha Drexler of Acadian Ambulance;
Prabhat Kiran; Fred Light; Amer Tadayon of Render Films; John-
Scott Dixon of Semanticator; and Patric Douglas, CEO of Shark
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
x
Diver. Thank you to Chris Chynoweth of DropKickMonKey.com
(Chris, you were a big help, but we implore you, please don’t ever
drop-kick a monkey), Paul D. Potratz Jr., of the ad agency bearing

from mice. It’s hard to imagine what a completed manuscript
would look like without its fair share of cat hairs.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
xi
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It isn’t often that we get to witness a life-changing innovation. Our
parents spoke of their first television sets with an enthusiasm those
of us who grew up with the device couldn’t quite appreciate. Hon-
estly, did people gather in one house in the neighborhood just to
watch Milton Berle? In many ways, the following generations have
been extraordinarily fortunate. Not only did we see the arrival of
the Internet and all that came with it—e-mail, instant messaging,
online shopping, online banking, global positioning systems, just to
name a few—but we’ve also seen the arrival of Web 2.0 technologies.
Social networking and social media have changed the Internet
almost as much as the Internet has changed us.
Thanks to YouTube and other social media sites, each one of
us can take center stage and present our views of life to a world-
wide audience. For the very first time, individuals have access to
the same broad audience once reserved for major television net-
works and their wealthy advertisers. This is not to suggest that
anyone can just pick up a camera and automatically gain the
exposure and gravitas of, say, Walter Cronkite. But each of us can
work in our own little corner of YouTube to create a following and
an audience for our own particular view on life. Whether we go
onto YouTube to spread a political message, promote our busi-
nesses, or share our humor (as everyone else seems to think we’re
funny), we’ve got the power within our own hands to change our
lives through video on demand. Even Queen Elizabeth II has her
own place on YouTube!

of junk, but a lot of it is golden, too.
In the chapters that follow, you’ll discover how to create a
YouTube presence in the latter category. You’ll get acquainted with
the phenomenon that is YouTube, learn how both individuals and
companies are using the site to achieve their goals, and explore the
basics of how to produce a great video. Then, once you have your
video posted to the site, you’ll learn how to promote and distribute
it so that it won’t be lost in the tsunami of video that gets added to
the site every day. Finally, you’ll find out about potential revenue-
sharing sources for you through YouTube, and you’ll learn about
other online video-sharing sites that might prove to be at least as
profitable for you as YouTube is.
INTRODUCTION
xiv
All along the way, you’ll discover the fun and enthusiasm that
marks YouTube and its contributors. You may have to go a long way
to find a group of people more energized and enthusiastic about
the work they’re pursuing.
It’s been a great deal of fun to research and write this book. It’s
our fervent hope that you’ll find it to be a great deal of fun to read it.
Brad and Deb Schepp
www.bradanddeb.com
INTRODUCTION
xv
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1
CHAPTER
1
YOU TOO
CAN BE A

got to do with you and your business goals for YouTube? If you’re
like us, you don’t happen to hang out with the likes of Robin
Williams, Harrison Ford, or Cameron Diaz. We’re pretty sure
Sarah, Matt, Jimmy, and Ben don’t even know we exist. But, one
thing we all have in common is the potential to strike it big on
YouTube. We’re here to tell you that 99 percent of the most suc-
cessful people on YouTube are like us, not the Hollywood elite.
“Average” people and companies are finding fame and fortune on
YouTube with some regularity, and everyone has an equal shot,
thanks to this amazing phenomenon.
Since its founding in 2005 (yes, that’s right, it’s that recent),
YouTube has revolutionized the way people all over the world share
information, entertainment, education, and advertising. Between
1948 and 2008, the three major television networks in the United
States produced 1.5 million hours of programming, according to
professor and YouTube video lecturer Michael Wesch. YouTube
users, he’s said, have produced more than that in the last six
months! In fact, YouTube estimates that 13 hours’ worth of video
gets uploaded to the site every minute. More important than the sta-
tistics, however, are the demographics behind the statistics. For the
first time ever, programming has been taken away from the major
players with the big money and put squarely in the hands of every
HOW TO MAKE MONEY WITH YouTube
2
person who decides to create and post a video. You may not have
the fame and glory, yet, but you have the same shot at exposure that
once was reserved only for those rare few people destined to be-
come stars.
Throughout the pages of this book, you’ll meet dozens of indi-
viduals and company representatives who have found ways to

and 34—a prime advertising demographic. Kick in the fact that
73 percent of viewers say they don’t mind the discrete advertis-
ing that now accompanies some videos, and you’ve got a willing
and prime market. They recognize that advertising is the means
for keeping the site free to users. As if this news weren’t good
enough for those of us looking to enhance our businesses, 68
percent of YouTube users report they have purchased something
online in the previous three months. We told you this would be
exciting!
YouTube corporate is a tad coy and only releases the most gen-
eral numbers about site usage, but this is what the company was
saying as this book was being written:
HOW TO MAKE MONEY WITH YouTube
4
FIGURE 1-1: YouTube’s HOME PAGE PROMISES FUN AS SOON
AS YOU ARRIVE.
People are watching hundreds of millions of videos a day on
YouTube and uploading hundreds of thousands of videos
daily. In fact, every minute, ten hours of video are uploaded to
YouTube.
We’re willing to bet that as you read this, the numbers are even
more impressive. So, how do you find a way to distinguish yourself
in this ever-increasing buzz of creativity? That’s a very good question
without an easy answer. Let’s start with a reassuring story so you can
see that, although it may not be simple, it is possible to start with
nothing but a good idea and make that idea grow into a genuine
YouTube phenomenon. Say hello to Hetal Jannu and Anuja Bala-
subramanian, shown in Figure 1-2. You may not know them, but
tens of thousands of people who log on for ShowMeTheCurry!, their
weekly cooking show on YouTube, do.

ball along the way.
When they began, Hetal and Anuja had one thing going
for them. They were both devoted and experienced cooks. Al-
though neither was formally trained as a chef, both had grown
up learning the techniques of Indian cuisine and gaining a
lifetime’s worth of tasty recipes. They decided to focus on two
target audiences. “We targeted beginner cooks with exact,
tried, and tested recipes and foolproof methods,” said Hetal.
“We also targeted seasoned cooks with healthy alternatives to
YOU TOO CAN BE A YouTube STAR!
7
traditional Indian food and time-saving tips.” Hetal explained
that the pair tries very hard to release videos consistently: “If
you have one or two videos and take a break, your viewers will
forget about you.”
This is just one of the many lessons these two have
learned in the year or so since they began. At first, they’d se-
lected Saturdays as filming days, and they appointed their
husbands as the cameramen. It didn’t take too many hectic
work-filled Saturdays spent with the kids entertaining them-
selves before Hetal and Anuja realized that to be successful,
they were going to have to learn to work independently. They
set about learning how to film, edit, produce, and advertise
their YouTube show themselves. Editing was their real chal-
lenge. Neither had ever edited video before, so their first ef-
forts involved a sharp learning curve. But they dedicated
themselves to learning the software required for the task, and
today they’re quite comfortable with every aspect of the job at
hand.
These days Hetal and Anuja get to work as soon as the

been possible. But, Hetal and Anuja aren’t alone. To whet your ap-
petite, we’ll give you glimpses of more individuals you’ll meet
throughout this book.
HOW TO MAKE MONEY WITH YouTube
8
More YouTube Cewebrities
Asa Thibodaux is a rising young comedian who is actually
able to support his family through his YouTube videos. Many
people have aspired to live the life of a stand-up comedian,
but of the many thousands who set out on that path, how
many actually ever earn a living? Most of them are comedians
by night and waiters by day, but Asa is managing just fine,
thanks to YouTube.
Michael Buckley writes, records, edits, and manages his
own YouTube show, What the Buck?!. His show is currently
one of the most popular channels on YouTube, attracting
more than 230,000 subscribers and 4.5 million views. He