Field notes
Playbooks, teardowns and the occasional argument — everything we have learned helping creators grow across every major platform.
YouTube's chapter rules are a parser, not guidance. Break one of the four and you get no chapters at all — not the valid ones, none of them — with no error anywhere on the page.
The pinned comment is the only part of a published video you can still edit. That is what it is for: the things that change, and the thing you got wrong.
Upload 2560×1440. Design for 1546×423 — the window every phone shows, which is 17% of the file. Four devices crop the same image four different ways.
YouTube publishes the categories that limit ads. The opening of a video is weighted hardest, context decides everything, and no word list can see context.
Mid-rolls need eight minutes. Everything after that is editorial: put breaks on cuts you already made, keep them out of the opening, and leave the end screen alone.
RPM = CPM × your monetized playback rate × your revenue share. At a 40% monetized rate, a $14 CPM is a $3 RPM — and unmonetized views cost you more than YouTube's cut.
YouTube has its own short domain, youtu.be. Here is how to build one from any link shape, and why copying the timestamp across usually breaks it.
YouTube engagement rate is easy to calculate and less useful than three other numbers. Here is the formula, the bands, and what to track instead.
The honest answer to how long 1,000 subscribers takes is arithmetic on your own growth rate - not an anecdote from someone who got lucky.
Shorts pay from a shared pool at a 45% creator share, not from watch-page ads at 55%. That structural difference explains everything about Shorts income.
There is no public monetization badge. Here is what a channel's public page does reveal, what it cannot, and how to read the signals honestly.
RPM vs CPM confuses most creators. One describes what advertisers pay, the other what you keep. Here is the difference and which to track.