How I make money as a content creator

Welcome to Fidgets and Fries. Somewhat free. Somewhat not. If you’d like to honor my writings with a monetary contribution, thank you. If you already have, thank you. Your support allows me to invest in my writing in a way I hadn’t thought possible as well as pay for my son’s communication lessons. And if you are still an unpaid subscriber, thank you. Cause in a world where everyone wants their eyes on their work, you still chose to put your gaze on mine. This newsletter rests at the intersection of the unserious ramblings of a woman full of buttered rice and dad jokes and the somewhat sophisticated stories and essays of someone who knows just enough “smart” words to sound super intelligent and insightful.

What will today’s newsletter be? Hmm…

I don't.

And I do.

About three times a week I will get a message from someone wanting to know two things:

• how to build their audience.

• how to make money on social media.

Most of my audience is disabled or cares for someone disabled. I understand the need to generate income in whatever way they can. Been there. Actually, still there. When I spend more than five minutes on social media, I always see someone asking page owners how do they make money on social media or I will see those page owners telling their audience how to work them algorithms to get noticed, to avoid being shadow banned, to grow an audience, to make money with Instagram, FB, TikTok, etc. If you feel like this will be a post that will tell you how to perform them social media dances to make money directly from those sites, sorry to disappoint you, it's not.

I make my money OFF those popular social media sites. Far more than I would if I would have tried to figure out them damn algorithms.

Two things:

• They move the goalposts too much on social media for anyone to keep up with. That's deliberate. They want to pay you as minimally as they can, while keeping you hooked to their site and creating content.

• I am not of the body that the algorithm favors. Always at a disadvantage.

So, I don't work myself into the ground to make money directly from social media.

I make my money indirectly from social media.

I will share how to grow an audience that'll support you in whatever your endeavors are in another post.

Let's get into the nitty gritty of it all, shall we?

I will say that I never ever feel comfortable calling myself a "content creator." I feel like it diminishes my work as an activist. No disrespect to those who call themselves that. I dislike it for myself, but I don't dislike the term at all. For myself, this was the beginning of my figuring out that I wanted to make money for myself online (and off). I needed to nail down what I wanted to be known for. What I wanted to be known as. That would shape everything.

I am not a content creator. And many would call me that. They would be well within their right to do so. I don't have to respond to anything I don't want to. But, I am not a content creator. That keeps me centered in the work I want to do. Keeps my mind on my purpose.

Are there many who make money (and lots of it) on social media? Yes, there are. There are so many. And because there are, that's what keeps people hooked on there. But I don't make my money on there, and I am talking about how I make money, not them.

I leverage the audience I have on social media into consumers of what it is I have to offer outside of social media. This results in slow growth on social media, but it is organic growth that will eventually turn into more steady, reliable income for me in the long run. Social media is where I will have free offerings always and elsewhere I will make the decision to charge or keep it free or very low cost. I want to be accessible, but I also want to acknowledge that what I do is work that deserves compensation.

I will say that I used to be monetized on both Instagram and Facebook. And in the beginning it was lucrative for me. On both, but more on Facebook. I was bringing in about 1700 per month for about 4 months. That's not a lot compared to many creators on there, but it was a lot to me. But, this bonus was temporary and it stunted my reach. I was making less and less each month because my reach was impacted. And many creators, even larger ones were saying the same thing. You know how you "get tired of seeing the same content over and over..." Yeah, they trying to keep up with algorithms. They are trying to keep their reach up. And they believe this means to post often. That will increase the chance that their content is seen.

I can't chase the algorithm like that. I don't like video that much so when they trend towards paying reels more, that was something I couldn't get into. So, potentially lost income there. Or was it?

I abandoned monetization on my platforms and my reach bounced back. When they offer it again, each time I ignore it. I want to create what I want to create. I want it to align with my principals and who I am as a person. I have to be comfortable with what I share and how I share it. That is the only way this works for me.

My income streams.

For myself, the best way for me to make money is to generate multiple revenue streams. Outside of social media.

Patreon. Substack. E-books. Consulting. Speaking. Brand partnerships. Paid writing gigs. Touring for my book. The book itself.

Those last two are more recent streams for me, but the bulk of my money comes from outside of the book. I just use the book to legitimize what it is that I do.

For each and every stream of income I bring in, I use social media to drive an audience there. I am a storyteller who advocates on behalf of myself, my children, and others...my work centers on this. I use social media to inform people of my purpose, my work, my passion, all while making us human to them. Giving them a reason to care about me and my family beyond the grids of IG. Or the timelines of FB. So, when I share that I exist outside of there, they are more likely to want to meet me over here.

You still have to produce quality content even if your goal is to send them to spaces outside of social media. So, IG and FB are still so very important to me. Always will be. I just don't make no money on there.

Patreon. 

This subscription based platform was the first I set up outside of social media with the intention of making money as a storyteller. I once had it donation based, starting at a buck per month. That wasn't sustainable for me. I could just still share on social media alone for that. So, I abandoned the donation based. And hoped that one day they would offer a free version, like they have now. Then I could share long form posts just like this one.

Substack. 

This is a direct to your email newsletter. This one is more writer friendly to me and as a writer, that means the world to me. They have free and paid subscriptions and that helps me to convert free into paid over time. This is another source of income for me and I can only see it growing from there.

E-books. 

I offer them for free on Buy Me a Coffee, but because of how it's set up to "buy" them, you can input a dollar amount if you want. And many times, my audience pays for them. So, I continually bring in an income on "free" e-books. I am eventually moving my e-books to my own site. That is end goal. To have all my work under sites I own. At the end of the day, you don't own anything until you own something. I don't own my work on social media, nor Substack or Patreon. Something can happen one day and they bar me access to my account, they crash and burn, etc. I need to be on my own shit.

One day.

Consulting and Speaking. 

This is an offering I have had for some time now. It was here and there and when I finally registered Fidgets and Fries as a business, that is when I got more serious about securing gigs. I have a website that is all professional looking (go me!) and it details what it is that I do an offer. I direct people there and I get a large amount of my work through that site. I work with all kinds of companies and organizations. I recently worked with Whirlpool and I consulted with Nickelodeon for Monster High. I speak with many companies and organizations as well. I have two keynotes coming up next year and I am speaking with two schools this month. One elementary and one college.

Brand Partnerships. 

This one is tricky. One, they mostly reach out to me through my site. I can also reach out to them via my manager and a well-crafted media kit (if you want to know about making one of those, let me know in the comments). Big brands are hard to work with but not impossible. I have worked with Airbnb, GoHenry, and Whirlpool. I have done work with AssistiveWare (company behind Proloquo) and Tiimo.

Paid Articles.

These can be so fun for a writer like myself, but also kinda not, because I do write a lot. But they pay. And many pay well. I have written for Scarymommy, Love What Matters, TripAdvisor, Romper, and more. If you are a writer and you love to do it, many publications have an online submission process laid out on their sites. I am planning on doing more articles to build up some experience there.

A Day with No Words. 

This book itself has made me some money. But it's also open some doors for me. It's allowed me to travel the country and speak with different schools, attend different events for the book, and more. I get paid royalties too.

The tour that comes with ADWNW.

Earlier I mentioned that I use the book as a business card for my other offerings. And I do. Most of my tour isn't spent talking about my book, it's talking about all the other things y'all know me for. I take an interested party's interest in me because of that book and I show them everything else I do. Or, they learn of the other things I do because they saw I wrote this book. However we come to work together, it most often isn't about ADWNW. I can't tour this book forever, so I have started to focus on doing things that don't relate to this book.

Okay, there you have it. How Tiff makes her money on social media as a content creator.

I don't and I am not a content creator.

*insert winky smiling face*