YouTube 101: Set Up, Get Seen, Get Paid

YouTube changed its monetization rules on August 10, 2026. New creators who qualify before February 1, 2027 get in under today's requirements. After that, the bar doubles.

This book is the map through that window.

42 pages, no fluff. The 60-minute channel setup most people get wrong for months. The verification steps that unlock custom thumbnails and clickable links — before you need them. How to pick a niche where money already flows. What the algorithm actually measures, and the exact video structure that feeds it.

Then the big chapter: every way YouTube pays you, in the order you turn them on. Ad revenue and the new Premium Lite split. Shorts. Fan funding at just 500 subscribers. Shopping and affiliate links. Your own store. Brand deals. And the off-platform stack that out-earns all of it.

You also get the brand-new 2027 thresholds explained, what counts toward monetization (and what quietly doesn't), the reused-content traps that reject more applications than missing watch hours, a 90-day action plan, my personal software toolbox, and live links to YouTube's own official pages so you can verify everything at the source.

I don't teach theory. I open my books every quarter and show the real numbers. This is the system behind them — written the week the rules changed, so you're working from what's true now, not what worked in 2019.

The clock on the current thresholds is already running. Start publishing.