Building a Sustainable, Multi-Topic YouTube Channel // October 2025 YouTube Report
If you want to build a sustainable, long-term, multi-topic YouTube channel, this video is for you. I'm going to dive into that idea as part of my reflection on last month's YouTube analytics and the progress I made after publishing 25 videos in October.
This year, in January, I got serious about YouTube, starting with just 68 subscribers. Now I'm just short of 400, currently at 385 subscribers. I've made a lot of progress, and I'm very grateful for it. I've learned a lot of lessons that have helped me figure out what works and what doesn't. I'll share some of that with you today.
I'll also dive into what makes me optimistic about my YouTube growth and the philosophy that is emerging from this experiment. As someone who earns my income primarily through freelancing, working part-time, and earning six figures, I'm using the rest of my time to figure out how to build a content creation business that allows me to earn income instead of just creating content for free.
📈 October Analytics: The Value of Old Content
This is the first month this year where my top video was an old video. Every month this year, I've been publishing new content, and usually, one of these new videos hits off, but not in October. That was a surprise and something unexpected.
Part of that is because I didn't have any new videos that got traction. The older video did really well compared to my other older videos, but it wasn't so strong that a new video couldn't have beaten it. It's just that none of my new videos got that type of traction.
I'm actually excited about this development. If older videos are getting more traction than newer videos, that means I'm accomplishing my objective: building a content library that delivers watch hours while I'm sleeping. I don't have to make new videos for the old videos to get watch hours. If those are helping me grow my channel, that means I've hit a success point. The more of those I can get, the quicker I can get to monetization in a sustainable way, without having to have a viral video hit.
A key insight I want to share with you is that building that content library will be a huge advantage toward moving to monetization and building a channel that's sustainable.
📊 Monthly Watch Hours Overview
Let's dive into my analytics to give you an overview of the progress I've made, and how many watch hours I got last month and throughout the year. We're going to look just at long-form videos, excluding Shorts, so we can get a pure picture. As a YouTuber, you need 4,000 watch hours and 1,000 subscribers, and those watch hours must come from long-form videos. Short views and watch hours don't actually count toward that goal.
Looking at my YouTube analytics dashboard (in the video chart), you can see the Wolfbox mirror video is highlighted. This is episode five of Juniper and Jones, a series about converting our Ram ProMaster into a bookmobile. My wife does the construction project, and I record and edit. This particular video covers a rearview camera mirror she installed and reviewed, and it's been the most popular video from that series so far. It continues to get watch hours, even though it was published in June.
In October, it got 12.7 watch hours. I had 111 watch hours for the whole month, which is awesome. My goal is to publish 26 videos per month (half of which are podcast clips) and get at least 100 watch hours every single month. I'm excited because last month I got 111 watch hours from 25 videos, with some of that coming from older videos, which is fine.
Now, 111 watch hours per month is not enough to get to 4,000 watch hours within 365 days. But my next goal is to sustain that over time, let the library of old content continue to grow, and then set another goal. Eventually, I'll need a little over 300 watch hours per month to hit the monetization goal.
My top video (12.7 watch hours) only accounts for about 10% of my total watch hours for the month. For many months, my watch hours were heavily skewed, with a few videos getting most of the traction. I prefer having a more diversified watch hour portfolio to reduce volatility and increase steadiness, making the path to monetization more reliable. I'm getting a lot of watch hours across a lot of different videos from the library, and I'm glad for that.
Watch Hours Over the Year
Let's look at the whole year, from January through the end of October, focusing on watch hours by month. You'll see we had a huge hit in February and then a decline until July. In June and July, I took a bit of a break. In August, I ramped things back up, getting to 151 watch hours. Then, September dipped a bit, and I'm back up to 111. The growth was volatile, and now it's getting a little steadier and consistent, which I'm grateful for.
I published a ton of videos earlier in the year—77 in January and 110 in February. A lot of those were clips from my podcast, and I was experimenting with what type of podcast clips work best. The quick answer is: clips over five minutes seem to perform better. I now do fewer clips but am more strategic with their creation.
I've found my "Goldilocks zone" at around 26 videos per month. The watch hours did go up when I was doing more, but I've settled on 26 videos per month and 100 watch hours as a sustainable goal.
📚 Growing Old Video Watch Hours
My old video watch hours are growing steadily, and I'm very grateful and happy for that. Before I dive into those numbers, I want to let you know this is my last YouTube analytics video for the year.
As a blogger and podcaster, at the end of every year, I take time to reflect, capture lessons learned, and then take a break. In December, I won't be publishing anything to YouTube. This will be another experiment: how does YouTube handle someone taking a month-long break after publishing so many videos in the 11 months prior? I'll be taking a break from creating and publishing, as well as from social media. I encourage you to check out my video about that and join me in taking a break so that we're rejuvenated in January.
Throughout November, I'll be doing some of that reflection and looking back at this year. I'll be sharing the lessons, wins, and failures in a series of videos to capture the things I don't want to forget. This is a great opportunity for you to create videos, too, as looking back and aspiring forward helps us grow and avoid making the same mistakes. This monthly reflection has helped me pivot and shift toward a better way of YouTubing.
Old Video Performance
Here are my old watch hours over the last year. I define "old" videos as anything published older than three months ago (so June and older, given the current month of October). This is the progress I'm looking for. If I can get 37 watch hours per month on existing videos, that equates to about 450 watch hours every year that I don't have to make new content for. Since the goal is 4,000 watch hours, this gives me a solid baseline that new videos simply build on top of. The more I see this grow, the more realistic the path towards monetization becomes, and it doesn't require a big hit video.
🔍 Traffic Sources and Growth Strategy
Another area of interesting insight is traffic sources. The sustainability of my growth has to do with search—both YouTube Search and Google Search—and other external channels.
In 2025, my total watch hours are about 1,325. Of those, 222 or 16.9% are from external sources. The browse feature and recommendations account for about 41%.
Under external sources, Google Search has been growing every month. In October, I had my highest number yet at 9.71 watch hours from Google Search.
- Facebook has also been a successful channel for getting people to watch my YouTube videos, particularly after tagging a guest from a March interview who shared it.
- I've been getting a little from LinkedIn (2.3 hours in September, 9.5 total for the year).
- My website accounts for about 13.4 watch hours, with a lot of those coming in October.
YouTube Search gets about 10% of my watch hours. Between external and YouTube Search, I'm getting about 27% of my watch hours from sources driven by search intent. Some say smaller channels shouldn't focus on YouTube Search, but that's bad advice for us. It's a reliable way to get watch hours, and I'm glad for the 132 watch hours I've gained from it.
Content Creation Philosophy
I'm focused on publishing content where I can create value for others and picking the channel that is both best and most rewarding for that content. I like YouTube because of its evergreen orientation, which supports my content library approach.
My ultimate goal is to build a $100,000 content creation business—earning six figures per year creating content through YouTube, podcasting, and blogging. Since my freelancing business already provides my income, I have the flexibility to use content creation as a sandbox for experimentation. This allows me to focus on creating value without the pressure of needing the income for survival.
I've learned a lot this year to streamline my process, including using a prompt to process a video transcript and create a more compelling title. I experiment with titles and thumbnails, following the principle of putting a lot of content out, figuring out what's working, and doing more of that.
I've found it helpful to circle around topics that people are interested in and tackle them from different angles, points of view, and for different audiences. This is creating "orbits" of videos around particular topics that gain traction, which gives me clues on how to create more of what's working.
🔭 The Multi-Topic, Long-Term Vision
I'm building a multi-topic channel. Instead of focusing on a hundred videos on one narrow topic (like "getting more freelancing clients"), I'm tackling problems across different categories: freelancing, politics, technology and software, YouTube growth, small business development, personal development, and Christian faith.
This means it will take me longer to build the library—perhaps 600 or 700 videos—but I'm okay with that because I'm playing the long-term game, looking out across the next 10 years. My financial foundation from freelancing allows me to build something bigger and more long-term that doesn't have to be financially sustainable right away.
This multi-topic approach also creates interesting income opportunities. I've already secured three sponsorships with fewer than 400 subscribers. This was unexpected, but I was able to find a way to make them happen, earning some income without having to wait for 2,000+ subscribers.
Creating a Resource for Life Stages
I want to create the kind of channel where you come for one topic, like freelancing, and once you've learned what you need, you can explore other things from me. You might move from freelancing to my small business videos, or then to my personal development content. This allows the audience to explore and expand across a variety of topics and not be stuck in just one.
I'm replicating what YouTube does in the broader sense, but within my own channel, creating a rich library that will be helpful to my audience over many years as they move through different stages of life.
The YouTube algorithm makes this possible. If I post five videos across five topics, the algorithm will only recommend the stuff you want to see. If I can build a large enough, rich enough library, there will be tons of videos for you to watch in your areas of interest.
As a creator, this gives me the excitement and opportunity to continue to learn, grow, and create across topics so I don't get stale, stagnant, or burned out. I see other YouTubers who started with a specific niche now branching out, realizing that a narrow focus isn't sustainable for them or their audience. I'm simply starting with that intention from the beginning.
I'm being intentional about how to create content most likely to get watch hours and where I can generate income (through my books, products, or affiliate links) to give myself more fuel to keep flying.
🎯 Final Reflections and Goals
Those are a few thoughts I'm having about YouTubing at this time. November is my last month for the year of YouTubing; then I'm taking December off. I'll boot back up in January and probably do a reflection on the whole year and a summary of all the lessons I've learned.
My journey has gone from 68 subscribers to 385. My goal is to get to 400 by the end of the year. If you've found any value in this, please subscribe to the channel so I can hit 400 before I end the year.
My long-term goal is to be monetized by the end of 2026. I'm playing the long-term game, so if it takes longer, that's fine, but I'm hoping all the lessons I've learned and strategies I've implemented will make that happen.
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