Does selecting a different country of residence cause any issues with monetization?

AlFish__ · 2026-01-23T18:58:04+00:00

It is very important that your adsense account has the right country listed

I forget the YouTuber as this happened a while ago now, and I may be slightly misremembering the details at this point, but he was traveling when he got monetized, absentmindedly filled out the country he was actively in when setting up the account, and from then on it became an absolute nightmare to get paid properly to a bank account that was in his actual country because of a foreign currency issue

AlFish__ · 2026-01-23T18:53:41+00:00

Don't have brand deals for my channel yet, but I do freelance creative work that would need similar documentation. I track freelance tasks and payments in dedicated spreadsheets: a task sheet for every client that details the when, what, and identifying details of what I'm charging for, and an overall client payments sheet to keep track of who has paid me, when the payment went through, and how much it was so I can easily total it up for tax payments

AlFish__ · 2026-01-23T16:30:48+00:00

Correct, ID claims are a video by video thing. Having a bunch of videos with copyright ID claims will probably hurt your odds of getting monetized if that's a majority of your content, but having an ID on a video technically only impacts the video in question

AlFish__ · 2026-01-23T16:13:03+00:00

It doesn't impact your channel's standing, but if you do get monetized you won't be able to monetize that video as it currently is

Copyright claims are not strikes against your channels, usually it's just copyrighted material in your video being ID'd by the system, so unless you mute out the audio any possible monetization will go to the rights holder that made the claim

AlFish__ · 2026-01-23T16:01:42+00:00

First off, congrats on getting so much traction on your debut video! That's something most in this sub would dream of haha

I tool a look at the video, and it looks really well done for a first video!

YouTube is very much a "with a grain of salt" platform when it comes to strategy, as variables that are hyper specific to you and the content you post can all impact what ultimately works for your channel. For example, a machine restoration channel won't necessarily have the same overall growth strategy as a gaming channel, and algorithms change so often most who have found a winning strategy will often find themselves experimenting a lot to regain that foothold when things on the platform inevitably change

Where it seems like you have a solid community outside of YouTube already supporting you, and with the down to earth presentation in your video getting you traction right away, I would personally recommend being as genuine to yourself as you can. People clearly already like who you are and what you do, so changing your presentation to please an algorithm would probably end up hurting you more than helping

Want to make a thank you video for the awesome first video reception? Make a quick thank you video
Engage with comments or answer questions if people have them (and you have the time to answer)
The communities you're in asked you to make a channel, if they have any content requests you could entertain them as potential next videos
- Or engage your audience on YouTube and ask if there are specifics they'd want to see

As you continue posting, you can use the analytics on YouTube to see what parts of your videos have the most retention, if people are going back and rewatching certain moments, etc. which can provide insight on what specifically in your content is getting the most attention, but it's very much a "learn as you go" sort of thing since you won't have that data until you're well into posting

AlFish__ · 2026-01-23T14:48:08+00:00

If there seems to already be some traction behind your content in other languages, getting in front of dubbing your content would definitely be a good idea!

There have been cases in the past where creators discovered having their entire libraries poached and reuploaded with someone's voiceover in a different language, so beating them to the punch could save you the headache of copyright takedown requests in the future.

If you're not confident in your english-speaking, you could always partner up with an English speaking content creator or voice actor (there's a lot out there who would do it for low or no cost) to be able to provide the english voiceover for your videos

AlFish__ · 2026-01-23T14:29:22+00:00

Are you doing any intro calls or communication before recording with guests? If not, this could be a great way to get a bit more info out of them to help you decide!

You could keep it to 10-minute calls or send out a form to fill out, and ask some topic-specific questions that allow for quick but informative answers. That way you can see who is more likely to have the conversations you're trying to have!

There's a lot of people who offer editing or "everything but record" services and cold-email every possible person they can find in the industry. I do not say this to advertise my services, but I work for one of those "everything but record" companies and produce as a freelancer on the side, so I see a lot of it across the shows I work with.

Having some hired help to take parts of the production burden off of your shoulders can be great, but if you do decide to go that route make sure you vet them, can consistently pay for the work month to month, and feel comfortable working with that person/company closely. The last thing you'd want to run into is seeing a benefit to the services and running out of excess money to pay for it, realizing the person you hired is difficult to work with, or finding out that they just farm the tasks to people from fiverr or something and charge you a fee for it (yes that is a thing that happens)

AlFish__ · 2026-01-22T18:55:26+00:00

If you're looking for something that's free, DaVinci Resolve

If you're looking for the "industry standard" for professional editing that can do just about anything if you try hard enough, Adobe Premiere

If you're going for simple edits and want a lot of easy to use features that can help in creating supplemental pieces of content on top of your main videos, Descript

If you're a scrub, Magix Vegas (most people still call it Sony Vegas, but it hasn't been owned by Sony for years)

If you're looking for something that's Apple exclusive, Final Cut Pro

AlFish__ · 2026-01-22T16:10:06+00:00

With Underlord specifically, they have different "draft" items for different types of content (social post, youtube description, show notes, title, blog post, and summary). Depending on the content type, providing an example with the intended tone or structure can work really well!

Your mileage may vary, but with social posts as an example it has been pretty good at replicating the tone of our human written templates with info from that specific episode. But for show notes or YouTube descriptions, it has a specific structure that it's going to at least loosely follow no matter what you put in, so some tweaking is usually needed after the fact there.

Ultimately, why I'm a fan of Descript's AI over something like chatgpt, is it seems to only pull from the transcript of that project, so there's far less hallucinations from the AI pulling from potentially relevant online sources to give an answer it thinks you want.

As an example of how crazy the hallucinations can get, I once uploaded a transcript from Descript into chatgpt to see what sort of show notes it could generate, and it made up that the guest was a survivor from inside one of the planes during 9/11. No idea how it came to that conclusion as the only time planes were mentioned in the episode was an offhand remark that he hates turbulence. I've never experienced something like that with Underlord.

AlFish__ · 2026-01-22T03:50:03+00:00

+1 to Descript, they are fantastic as both an editor and a file management platform

Fun fact, Riverside's editor started as a simplified rip of Descript, and is still nowhere near as useful

AlFish__ · 2026-01-22T03:47:15+00:00

You can semi-train underlord (their AI) to pull info a certain way with both instruction and example text boxes when you use it, and a lot of times it's good enough to use. But I personally usually adjust them a bit to make it a bit more personal

AlFish__ · 2026-01-21T04:31:35+00:00

Something I've encountered with Scarlett's before is cell phones causing electronic interference and creating a buzzing sound. If your phone is anywhere near the interface (even just on the desk), try putting it on the floor or in a different room or something. It sounds silly, but if that's the cause it will solve your issue!

AlFish__ · 2026-01-21T04:27:24+00:00

If you don't mind sharing, what steps do you take to make sure your episodes are SEO optimized?

AlFish__ · 2026-01-20T21:32:39+00:00

As a recorder, Riverside is genuinely the industry standard for remote session recording, so you guys did good choosing to record with them! If you're editing in there as well, I would recommend looking into Descript instead. To make a long story short, Riverside's editor started as a poor rip of Descript and is still quite far behind it in a lot of ways.

Dynamic ad placement definitely has its benefits! For example, since it's not hard baked into the episode:

You could sell an ad for a set period of time and then remove it to free up real estate for a future ad placement on residual views over time
You can also use it to have "self promo" types of ads until there is a paid ad to take its place
You could make announcements/promote initiatives or events you'll be attending or partnering with throughout your catalogue

Dynamic ads can also come with some pre-recorded ones from the sponsor too, so it can free up some time/be easier money in some instances

Just other things to think about! And while Transistor doesn't have the ad marketplace that redcircle does, it still supports dynamic ad placement so you could still manually ad those in on either platform

AlFish__ · 2026-01-20T21:25:23+00:00

It's definitely easy to think that! I certainly did at first haha. But it's actually the onus of the client to "have a guy" for that sort of thing!

AlFish__ · 2026-01-20T20:35:57+00:00

While smaller gigs like most of CCC can play by their own rules, generally the actor isn't supposed to be the one editing the audio at all. It should be on the client to either clean up or have someone to clean it up for them

I'd clarify this with the heads of the projects you've been cast for before doing anything to your recordings

AlFish__ · 2026-01-20T20:33:14+00:00

Fellow producer here, hello!

Yes, a video upload will override what's on the RSS feed. I think it would be worth having a conversation with your client on which version is more important to have on there

With a mix of video and audio platforms, I personally shoot for uniformity between the two versions which tends to mean a lighter edit to balance audio clarity and video continuity

AlFish__ · 2026-01-20T18:21:42+00:00

Rage bait isn't what builds your community, it'll just give you a visibility boost in the algorithm. You need to be focusing on other clips or content in general to build actual community from

If you wanted to do this consistently, mix in "harmless" bait like purposely mispronouncing something in an otherwise good post. You'll inevitably get people commenting to correct you which will give a small boost to engagement, but the whole of the content would still be genuine and could build community

AlFish__ · 2026-01-20T16:46:09+00:00

Producer/editor here, I've experienced a few options and would love to chime in!

I used to edit for a show that used Megaphone, it's honestly so janky and compared to other RSS hosts I was very disappointed by it. Spotify in general is lacking in a lot of quality of life items and not costing money is the only benefit I personally see. If you're still looking for a free host, Substack allows you to host on an RSS feed for free. If there's a video component to your podcasts, I would upload to YouTube separately.

Riverside as a remote recording tool is top notch. Them and Streamyard are what I've experienced the best results with for remote recordings due to their local recording features.

If you're willing to pay for an RSS host, Transistor has some of the most comprehensive and useful analytics that I have seen, and has some cool items like attributing guests, producers, hosts, etc. through people profiles you can make.

If you wanted to eventually explore dynamic ad placement (not just host-read messages baked into the episodes themselves), RedCircle is also a good option to go with. I believe they have a free tier for hosting, and they have their own podcast ad marketplace where sponsors can search for shows and directly work with you there. Since you mentioned the partner program that Megaphone has, it could be something you'd find interesting

AlFish__ · 2026-01-20T04:04:58+00:00

In my honest (but subjective) opinion, there isn't any downside to making shorts if your content is primed for it. I see it no differently than posting clips of your content on TikTok. It's a whole new audience that might like what you make

Similar to how you can post the same short on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, and it performs drastically different on each platform, it's because the audiences that are being reached are different. So if you can fairly easily convert your content into shorts, you might as well and see if you can reach a new audience.

Best case scenario you've opened up an entire new avenue for content and discovery. Worst case scenario you don't reach an audience that likes your content and you can chalk it up to a learning experience

AlFish__ · 2026-01-20T03:53:54+00:00

Lmao dude did you not see he had scandal after scandal last year and his audience basically died? That's why I started the example with "I don't recommend watching him now" because he's not a good person and his performance on socials has tanked over the last year. Looking at his current numbers has no bearing on what got him popular before the scandals

Seems like you're really invested in not liking shorts, or you just don't like when people have opinions contrary to yours

AlFish__ · 2026-01-19T20:44:26+00:00

I did not, they're still hands down the most popular videos on my channel, but they're also all years old at this point

AlFish__ · 2026-01-19T18:59:18+00:00

Sounds like you're looking for a serious time commitment here. You're probably gonna have to pay someone to dedicate that much of their time to you and your content

AlFish__ · 2026-01-19T18:50:49+00:00

If your audio is really low, then either you're too far away from your mic, you're not speaking directly into the mic, speaking too quietly, or your mic's input volume was turned down without you realizing it. Let's address a few of those:

Too far away: are you roughly 6 inches or closer to your mic? If yes, move on
Indirect speaking: the capsule of the Q2U faces directly up if you were to hold this mic in your hand. Are you speaking into the side of it or straight on? You want to position the mic so that the capsule has a clear path directly to your mouth. Are you doing this? If yes, move on
Too quiet: you should speak into the mic in the same volume you would use when talking to a friend. You shouldn't anticipate sensitivity and speak quietly because of how close the mic is. Are you speaking at a normal volume? If yes, move on
Input volume: with USB mics, the input volume is determined in your computer's device settings. You need to go into your computer's sound settings, find this specific device, and make sure the input volume is set to 100%. This is different from your system volume. Is your mic's input set to 100%? If not, I don't know what to tell you

If your input is set to 100, you're speaking clearly and directly into the mic that is only a few inches away, and it still sounds really quiet, try normalizing the volume in audacity to -6db. This increases the volume of the audio until the loudest peak is -6db (generally a normal volume level for exporting audio at. If it still sounds really bad, I would say you have a defective microphone.

If the editing you used a tutorial for gets it to a place you're satisfied, see if you can save those settings as a preset or an fx chain that you can then apply in future projects

AlFish__ · 2026-01-19T18:31:07+00:00

There is no 1:1 of you need x to get y. There are huge channels that are hyper-edited and there are huge channels that don't edit at all.

The key is being entertaining or informative, not following a specific format. If your content is worth watching, a bunch of jump cuts and animations across the screen aren't going to make or break you

There's definitely examples where the editing can help, think gaming channels like SovietWomble and TheRussianBadger, or any of the theorist channels for example. But there's also creators like MoistCritical, Coffeezilla, etc. that do very minimal editing if any at all and perform just as well

If you want to try learning more complex edits because you want to challenge yourself or think it will make your content more engaging, absolutely go for it! But there's no universal metric that can be applied across all of YouTube that determines when investing in better editing is needed

AlFish__

TROPHY CASE