I made a real push this year to monetise my YouTube channel, BrickMechBuilds.

I've had a few videos reach millions of views. The problem is that I've found those successes incredibly difficult to replicate.

But I kept trying.

At the beginning of the year, I had what I thought was a fairly simple plan. I would build one large themed LEGO mech every month. By the end of the year, I would have 12 new mechs and, hopefully, a long-form series that would steadily grow the channel.

It didn't.

The views weren't there and, more importantly, neither was the watch time. I was nowhere near the 4,000 watch hours needed for monetisation.

The problem with the format is that these builds take time. I have to design and build each mech from scratch, record the process, photograph and film the finished build, then edit everything into a video.

That can take most of a month.

So I tried filling the gaps between the big builds by repurposing some of my older creations around different themes.

That did even less.

I also had a Short showing my LEGO mech frame that performed well. There was clearly demand for it, so I turned that idea into a longer video explaining how to build the frame.

I thought that was exactly the kind of thing that could work in long form.

It didn't.

Eventually, the maths became difficult to ignore. If a long-form video takes most of a month to create and barely moves the watch-time number, I can't justify the time or money involved in making it.

So I've pretty much given up on long form.

What has worked is Shorts.

Two formats in particular have consistently shown some promise. My themed War Machine builds and the Buildable Ruler.

I've also had a lot of eyeballs on the LEGO mech frame, but there are only so many different frames I can build.

For a while, I thought Shorts might be the route to monetisation instead.

I'd already accumulated millions of views, so when I looked at the initial three-million-view requirement, I thought I must be close.

I wasn't.

The "valid public Shorts views" YouTube counts towards monetisation aren't necessarily the number you see when looking at the views on your videos. When I finally understood what was actually being counted, I had roughly half of what I needed.

So, by the measure I set myself at the beginning of the year, I failed.

And now the target has moved even further away.

The strange thing is that the channel itself hasn't failed.

I've gained thousands of subscribers this year and I'm on track to reach 9,000 soon. I've made videos that millions of people have watched. I've discovered formats that people clearly enjoy and I've learned far more about what works than I knew at the beginning of the year.

But subscribers aren't views.

And views aren't necessarily watch time.

And ultimately, watch time is what turns attention into money.

So what do I do next?

I honestly don't know.

I love building custom LEGO mechs. I love editing the videos. It develops my skills, challenges me creatively and connects me with LEGO fans who enjoy the same things I do.

I don't want to stop doing that.

But believing that I might eventually monetise the channel made it easier to justify the amount of time I was putting into it. As that goal starts to feel increasingly impossible, the equation changes.

Without monetisation, BrickMechBuilds is a hobby.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But a hobby has to fit around everything else competing for my time, particularly work and the rest of my life. I can't consistently dedicate weeks to making videos in pursuit of a target that keeps getting further away.

So there isn't a new YouTube strategy.

I'll keep building mechs because I enjoy building them. I'll keep making videos because I enjoy making them.

I'll just make them when I can.

Maybe that's what BrickMechBuilds was supposed to be all along.