Create Something Awesome: How Creators are Profiting from Their Passion in the Creator Economy

By Roberto Blake

Roberto Blake has grown over 500,000 subscribers on YouTube and helped hundreds of channels grow to 100,000 subscribers from zero, and earn a full-time income as Content Creators. In Create Something Awesome,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Create Awesome Media LLC
• Release date: Aug 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9798985633108

Roberto Blake

Roberto Blake is a Creative Entrepreneur Public Speaker and Founder of Awesome Creator Academy. Roberto is one of the leading educators in the Creator Economy and monetizing online content.He has grown an audience on YouTube of over 500,000 subscribers, and directly coached hundreds of content creators, helping them build brands and businesses online. Roberto is truly creative at heart and has produced and edited over 1500 videos in his career, written hundreds of articles, and broadcast over 1000 live streams.Prior to his career as an online creator, Roberto had a background and career in graphic design and advertising, and his personal passion is wildlife photography. Today he helps full-time content creators to increase their income, influence, and their capacity to create content their audience values. In addition to his business coaching creators, Roberto works directly with brands and Creator Economy-based startups. He currently owns and operates several YouTube channels as well as hosts the "Create Something Awesome Today" podcast.

Book preview

Create Something Awesome

How Creators Are Profiting from Their Passion in the Creator Economy

Roberto Blake

Create Awesome Media

Copyright © 2022 Roberto Blake

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 9798985633108

This is dedicated to my family,  whom without none of this would be possible,  as they have been my motivation to work unreasonably hard,  stay the course,  and whether the storm.

This book is also dedicated to my community,  for the acceptance,  support and love they have shown me over the years.

Thank you all.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

PREFACE

CHAPTER 1

THE CREATOR ECONOMY

CHAPTER 2

BUILD A POWERFUL PERSONAL BRAND

CHAPTER 3

NO MORE STARVING ARTISTS

CHAPTER 4

MONETIZING YOUR CREATIVITY

CHAPTER 5

VALUE FIRST CONTENT

CHAPTER 6

AUTHENTICITY AND BOUNDARIES

CHAPTER 7

CREATING A COMMUNITY

Chapter 8

HOW TO STAND OUT AND BE NOTICED

Chapter 9

Picking A Platform

CHAPTER 10

FEELING OVERWHELMED AND OVERWORKED

CHAPTER 11

IMPOSTER SYNDROME

CHAPTER 12

CONSISTENCY IS KING

CHAPTER 13

BUILDING A MILLION DOLLAR CREATOR BUSINESS

CHAPTER 14

COLLABORATING AND NETWORKING

CHAPTER 15

HOW TO PIVOT AND ADAPT

CHAPTER 16

BECOME KNOWN

CHAPTER 17

HOW TO DEAL WITH CRITICISM

CHAPTER 18

STAYING MOTIVATED AND THE CREATOR MINDSET

CHAPTER 19

HOW TO DEAL WITH FAILURE

CHAPTER 20

REVEALING MY SECRETS AS A FULL-TIME CREATOR

FINAL THOUGHTS

APPENDIX

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

About The Author

PREFACE

There are times when I can’t seem to sleep at night and quiet the ideas bouncing around in my head. Yet, every day I wake up grateful that those ideas don’t have to live in my head; I was born in an era where almost anyone can take the vision in their mind and bring them into the world.

The modern internet and the technology that sits in our pockets give any creative person almost god-like power that people have never held; the ability to create, publish, and broadcast, mainly for free, is right at our fingertips at all times.

And because of the growing Creator Economy, we can monetize that creativity. As a result, the age of starving artists is coming to a close.

Ten years ago, I was an employee making just over $30,000 a year, and with little more than a blog, and access to YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, I was able to build a profitable personal brand from my passion and my creative skills. Today I have a multiple 6-figure business, and in 2020, I found myself making $300,000 a year (as of 2020); my story will become more and more common, I promise you.

Websites like YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch are helping ordinary people gain the ability to make a living doing things that they love and are genuinely passionate about and excited about.

These creators are no longer living for their nights and weekends.

The Creator Economy is paying people to share the things they are passionate about for a living on the largest online platforms in the world. Individuals are now becoming media companies and publishers without the gatekeepers of television, music labels, and the old world holding them back and telling them they aren’t allowed.

Everyone who has access to these platforms has the opportunity to be seen and heard, and the audience decides who they want to support with their attention and with their wallets.

Throughout this book, you’ll learn how people just like you and me are building powerful online brands and businesses from their bedrooms, using free tools and platforms. You’ll learn about the origins of this industry, how it impacted the internet you use every day, and what is coming next.

What I also hope to share with you is the most actionable advice I possibly can to help you navigate a career as a content creator if you want to pursue it or if you already are but have found yourself struggling to find an audience or monetize your content.

You’ll learn how I and many of the creators you know and love made our money, built our businesses, and how we grew our audiences from nothing.

People were very skeptical when I started talking about this vocally in 2015. Many people still do not respect the Creator Economy and think that only outliers can be a success story. But I promise you they said the same thing about the early internet over 20 years ago.

When I graduated from high school in 2002, I remember that being a web designer, which was my goal, was not considered a stable profession, and very few businesses felt the need to have a website. Now, people don't take you seriously if your business doesn’t have a website. Entire companies are built now that exist exclusively online.

My, how the tables have turned.

The hope I have for every one of you reading this book (thank you for that, by the way) is you will embrace the growing Creator Economy and start to build and monetize your personal brand. This is very practical, and I don’t want people to leave a good steady job to chase a fantasy.

For many of you, this will be your first step into building multiple income streams and can provide you with a way to express yourself.

I sincerely hope you will realize there is more opportunity today than your parents and grandparents had and that there is even more to come.

You are not limited by the technology of your time in the way people were just a decade ago, and I hope you will make the most of it; I want to help enable you to do that.

To help you on your way, you will be learning a bit more about me and my own story and efficient examples of what you can do with what you have right now.

This book is actionable.

There are chapters dedicated to granular details on monetizing your content, earning from it, and producing quality content to the point of everything but telling you what camera settings to dial in or what microphone to buy.

This book was written to introduce beginners to new opportunities and help people execute on those opportunities or help those already active refine their ideas and execution.

I also want to impart a history lesson on the evolution of the modern internet and how it has removed much of the gatekeeping that has forced creative people to be starving artists for generations. I believe if people know better, they can do better.

Being able to do what you love for a living may be the exception, but I believe it can be the rule for those who embrace our creativity and God-given gifts.

It just might require a decade of discipline. It’s not easy, but for most, it’s worth it.

CHAPTER 1

THE CREATOR ECONOMY

What is the Creator Economy?

This is a fair question for anyone who might be reading this book on a whim or is unfamiliar with my content. Let’s start with a straightforward explanation of what it means to work as a content creator and how creators make their living.

A content creator uses online platforms to create content through video, audio, images, or writing, typically hoping to earn money from sharing that content.

Generally, these creators use popular online platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, or Twitch to create content and grow an audience that will support them. They earn money through various means, including revenue sharing with the platforms, direct donations from their fans, selling products such as merchandise or digital downloads, or promoting brands in exchange for payment.

It’s now possible for an otherwise ordinary person to earn a livable income by talking about their thoughts on sports, media, or politics, playing video games via live stream, or reviewing beauty products. Some creators earn substantial incomes ranging from $50,000 a year to millions of dollars a year.

This is the Creator Economy, and if you’re reading this book, you have the opportunity to be a part of it.

I’m not sure people understand how much the world has changed in the last few years. But, of course, there will always be challenges.  Make no mistake, as someone who worked many jobs they were unhappy with I can tell you that whatever stability and security you may think it provides is primarily an idea sold to you by the employer. And in that sales pitch, they have all the leverage.

If you can do something with your time you are genuinely interested in on your terms, is it worth the risk to pursue it?

What if you could make $40,000 a year on the internet talking about video games or unboxing Pokémon cards?

Leon Hart is a popular YouTuber in the Pokémon community with over 1.4 Million Subscribers on YouTube. He left his career as a lawyer behind to unbox Pokémon cards on the internet. His passion, initially a hobby, has made him much happier and wealthier. Some people may think it is absurd to abandon a traditional career path to make money on the internet, but it comes down to something fundamental. If you could be like Leon, would you instead spend more time with your family? Or keep working a job you dislike five days a week because the people in your town or your older relatives will respect you for it?

And for that matter, what does any of this have to do with you? Maybe everyone can’t be a full-time creator or do what they love, but why not you? The free platforms of the internet have created a massive paradigm shift most people still don’t understand. For creative people, it represents the same impact that open source software had on the culture of programmers and developers allowing them to become technology startup founders.

Online platforms like YouTube and TikTok are turning otherwise everyday people not just into internet celebrities but into new media companies. This is not me making predictions; the average person just isn’t aware these huge shifts are happening until it’s already an established fact.

In 2003, a few friends created a small company called Rooster Teeth producing a web series around the game HALO, and today Rooster Teeth is a subsidiary of WarnerMedia. Their story is just one example of building something massive out of seemingly nothing. The legitimacy or validity of social media and the internet has always been questioned. Think about the people who thought social media was dying in 2011, then decided in 2017 it might be the single most incredible tool that could sway our democracy, and by 2020 proclaimed it was detrimental to everyone's mental health.

Something that powerful is at your disposal for free—a weapon of mass creation.

Make no mistake, this is not some get-rich-quick scheme, and overnight success is rare—if it exists at all. Instead, I am talking about the path that I took, a decade of discipline that lets you live the rest of your life on your terms—not waking up daily with a pit in your stomach, mustering up the tiny scraps of courage to face the day and just endure it.

There is no reason, in the modern era, that if you have access to the internet, you can’t start the process of building your brand even as a side hustle for 10 hours a week. Turning your passion project into something that allows you to have an audience, and potentially monetize that platform, is becoming more common every day.

STARTING AT ZERO

What if I told you that almost everyone who is a successful content creator today started at zero? We all had to begin somewhere, and most of us were no better than you.

Let me share the story of how I got started and how a total introvert with zero on-camera charisma managed to find himself with an audience of hundreds of thousands of people and make a living as a content creator.

When I first made my current YouTube channel in 2009 and filmed my first videos about the Sony HD Webbie camcorder, I had no idea I would find myself a decade later with an audience of half a million subscribers. It was never my intention, and at the time, there was no money in it or the option to monetize it.

In 2013, having only ever uploaded about 30 YouTube videos in 4 years, I decided I wanted to commit to making content for people like myself. It started very modestly with me making videos about my career as a freelance graphic designer and my previous experiences in finding work in a creative career. By making tutorial videos every week, I was committing to myself and an audience I didn’t have yet. Within about 11 months, I woke up and realized I had 10,000 subscribers. I promised to upload a video every Thursday, which means it usually would come out on Friday morning.

The truth is that 90% of all content creators on YouTube never achieve 10,000 subscribers, which I didn’t know at the time. However, my content was earning me a whopping $200 a month, and it was something I looked forward to doing each week.

I would continue uploading once or twice a week until the beginning of 2015 when I had about 20,000 YouTube subscribers and made about $300 a month in ad revenue from YouTube. For those of you who are unfamiliar, most content creators make their money through revenue sharing with content platforms, which split a portion of ad revenue with their creators.

By the spring of 2016, I would have 100,000 subscribers on YouTube, and I managed that with wildly imperfect content and making 101 mistakes along the way.

What might surprise most people is that I am an introvert and was never very good on camera initially. I was very stiff for my first 100 videos, had trouble expressing my personality, and had nervous energy on camera.

Growing an audience didn’t make me more confident either. On the contrary, it made me more insecure and self-conscious because I was practicing in public.

The terrifying thing to me was not the idea that nobody would watch me; it was the idea that people would watch me and