A few years ago, not long after I (temporarily, for now) left the workforce at 50, I started tinkering with the idea of building a YouTube channel as an extension of The Springboard—if you want to call it a "brand." The blog, the writing, the commentary...all the stuff I've been doing for years.
The Springboard has lived in a lot of places. This Blogspot blog under The Springboard Answers, the main blog, The Springboard itself, my presence on HubPages back when Arena Media cared about it, and a handful of other platforms that have since also dried up like HubPages recently did.
My writing always had the built-in audience. I've had well over 1 million views on my posts. It paid enough to justify the time.
For me, writing is easy. It comes very naturally to me. Videos are another story. They're harder to produce, require a skillset I don't necessarily have, and are time consuming.
You wouldn't believe how long it actually takes to make even a short 5-minute video from start to finish. Needless to say, it's an entirely different beast.
So, at the time, I paused. Or shelved it. Or perhaps procrastinated. You pick the verb.
The final coffin nail, or motivator if you will, was when HubPages pulled the plug. In the writing world, I had been there for almost 16 years, and it was my main source of income from any of my writing efforts, despite higher view counts from Blogspot.
Despite millions of views, Blogspot just doesn't have the goods when it comes to money. And that's just me being honest. It's not to say I do any of this for the money. I love to share my thoughts and perspectives. Writing is something I feel like I almost have to do, just as much as my heart has to beat.
But the pursuit of anything taken seriously needs to have a monetary element to it to keep doing it, right? That's just the nuts-and-bolts reality of things. The more money you can make doing something the more time you can afford to spend doing it, of course.
So, the thought occurred to me that if I am going to put in the time for little reward (as it is now), I might as well put that time into something with a higher ceiling. Which brought me back to YouTube. But this time with intention. With purpose. With actual ambition.
I mean, think of it. What would a million views mean for me from something like YouTube vs. any of the writing efforts? And if I could achieve that doing that, why couldn't I translate that into something as equally successful on YouTube?
Now, before I go any further, if you've followed me for any length of time, you know I'm also into music. Truth be told, I'm actually a bit of a polymath, but that's for another day. I've released an album and a few singles over the years. Look up Pink Flamingoes on Spotify or any music streaming service and you'll find me—yes, spelled wrong on purpose.
The reason behind the misspelling, again, for another day.
When I dipped my toes back into YouTube, I actually started a brand-new channel. Synthetic Echoes. It's basically AI meets original music. I run my songs through Suno, turn them into music videos, and the whole idea from idea to upload is faster, and maybe even a little more fun.
But somewhere along the way—after batching videos on Synthetic Echoes into March, after watching HubPages collapse, after realizing Blogspot was never going to pay the bills—I thought maybe it's time to return to The Springboard channel and give it a real shot.
A serious shot.
So that's what I'm doing. With a new objective. Get monetized in 2026. Through either channel—Synthetic Echoes or The Springboard. Preferably both. I have my reasons, trust me. But the point is to pursue them with actual intent.
That goes for all of my social media presence by the way. My Facebook fan pages. My TikTok. My X account. All of them.
This wasn't a New Year's resolution. I gave up on those ages ago. My last resolution was to never make resolutions again, and ironically, that's the only one I've ever successfully kept.
Will it happen? Who knows. Growth is slow. Painfully slow. But I'm seeing signs of life. The Springboard channel went from 23 leftover subscribers to 31 in just a couple of weeks. Synthetic Echoes went from zero to 8 in about a month.
Meanwhile, I'm breathing new life into my main YouTube channel—the one with almost 1,500 subscribers—by posting AI videos and other fun stuff even though it's considered my "artist" channel. And my TikTok, sitting at nearly 1,400 followers, is still kicking. At some point, I think all of these efforts might converge into something meaningful.
Will I hit the objective? Maybe. I've got a plan now. I've got direction. And I've got more determination than I've had in a long time. The world is competitive. The platforms are crowded. But anything can happen.
Besides, what do I have to lose when all is said and done? Some time. Maybe a little pride. That's about it. The upside, though? The upside could be huge. If I manage to monetize even one of these channels in the coming months...
That could be a game changer.
© 2026 Jim Bauer
