YouTube for Business: How a Doctor Turned His Channel Into a Book Deal and 11,400 Pre-Orders

TL;DR:

• Dr. Ulrich Selz says anyone with a business should start a YouTube channel: it proves your expertise, pays you, and shows you who your audience is.

• Germany's top publisher told him they wouldn't have signed his book without his YouTube audience.

• He sold 11,400 pre-orders through YouTube, and about 30% of buyers go into his free online area for readers.

• He barely watches subscriber counts. 60 to 65% of his watch time comes from people who aren't subscribed.

Dr. Ulrich Selz still runs a medical practice in Germany. He makes YouTube videos in his free time, and his channel now has 659,000 subscribers. His practice waitlist hit 1,000 people before he closed it.

On episode 294 of Stu McLaren's Marketing Your Business podcast, Dr. Selz makes the case for YouTube for business and explains why subscribers are the number he cares about least. Watch the full episode on YouTube and get extra resources at podcast.stu.me. His examples come from gut health, but the playbook works in any niche.

Should Every Business Start a YouTube Channel?

"Because a YouTube channel gives you authority," Dr. Selz says on the episode. A channel lets you prove your expertise in public, it's free to use, and it pays you once you reach YouTube's subscriber and watch-time thresholds. Best of all, YouTube shows you who your audience is, which he calls a big marketing advantage.

"I think everybody should start a YouTube channel who has a business," he says. He publishes one 20 to 30 minute video a week, thinks in titles and thumbnails first, and rarely plans more than three or four weeks out, because the algorithm keeps resurfacing old videos and showing him what to make next.

Do Subscribers Matter on YouTube?

Not much, according to Dr. Selz. "For me, subscribers is just a prestige number," he says. YouTube cares about watch time, and 60 to 65% of his watch time comes from people who aren't subscribed. When he opens his analytics, he checks views from the last 48 hours and skips the subscriber count entirely.

He compared his channel with one that has nearly double his subscribers. His has more watch time. He also warns that every growth spurt can quietly change who your audience is. "You are serving the channel," he says. His take on asking viewers to subscribe in every video might surprise you.

How Did YouTube Land a Book Deal and 11,400 Pre-Orders?

Germany's top publisher told Dr. Selz they wouldn't have signed his book without his YouTube audience. They specifically didn't want Instagram, because Instagram followings hadn't turned into book sales for them. He then promoted the book on YouTube for about five months, ran a contest with hours of YouTube lives, and collected 11,400 pre-orders.

Every pre-order counts toward launch week, which is what gets a book onto the bestseller list. A colleague released a gut health book three weeks after his, with a similar audience built on Instagram. Hers lasted a week or two on the list. His has stayed for months. It echoes how Hal Elrod's TV appearances sold zero books: where your audience lives decides whether it buys.

How Do You Turn YouTube Viewers and Readers Into Email Leads?

Mention a free resource in the video and put the link below it. Dr. Selz has 15 to 20 freebies, each tied to the videos it fits. He used the same idea for his book: buyers get access to a free online area built for readers, and about 30% of them go into it.

If your channel gets banned or goes down, the platform keeps your audience. "Amazon has the email address, not you," he says. These lead magnet ideas work just as well under a video. Pre-order buyers got early access to part of his book's online area, so he had a list of readers before launch day.

Watch or Listen to the Full Episode

Dr. Selz didn't launch a course or product for two years while he wrote the book. Recurring revenue from YouTube and his two communities, one for people with gut health problems and one that trains therapists, covered the gap. "It gave me the space to do it," he says. That's the case for turning your expertise into recurring revenue in one story. On the episode he also walks through how he diagnoses an underperforming video, and why he only asks Gemini for feedback after it goes live.

Watch the full episode on YouTube, listen at podcast.stu.me, or find more episodes on Stu's YouTube channel.

Find Dr. Selz on his German YouTube channel and his English channel, where his videos are translated.

About this post: The Membership.io team covers episodes of Stu McLaren's Marketing Your Business podcast, pulling out the business lessons worth stealing from the guests who lived them. This one comes from Stu's conversation with Dr. Ulrich Selz, a German physician, YouTube creator, and bestselling author.