Lauren Bateman explains she started doubting YouTube ad monetization and instead created and sold a beginner guitar course. She recorded and edited the course herself despite poor production quality, began selling it to viewers who asked for a course, and started earning a few hundred dollars per month from course sales versus small YouTube ad income.
Maybe this YouTube monetization thing isn't the way to go. So I started recording a course. Gotta have something for people to buy. Because I had people reaching out to me, being, do you have a course? And at the time, in the beginning, I didn't. And I said, let me put together a course that helps an absolute beginner get started with the guitar, start having fun playing songs, show them some drumming patterns, show them some chords, and just give them a big win and show them that this is possible. You can do it. And I uploaded that course. I recorded it again all myself. I did all the editing. It was horrible. But I started selling some courses. And while I was was making $10 on YouTube advertising, I was like, all right, at least I'm making a few hundred bucks a month here.
