AJ Gentile's The Why Files: 5.99M Subscribers, 334 Books, 1 Amazon Tag

Key Takeaways:

AJ Gentile's The Why Files had 5.99 million subscribers, 518 videos and 1,284,493,138 views on YouTube on September 30, 2026, six years after the channel opened in September 2020
The show's Library catalogs 334 books and graphic novels cited across 119 episodes. 331 of them link to Amazon with the show's affiliate tag, and Amazon's published US rate on physical books is 4.50%
The overnight radio show Gentile says sent him to the bookstore now sells its archive through the Coast to Coast AM Insider app for $6.99 a month. It has 7,325 ratings
The Why Files gives its archive away on YouTube. Its fans' reading, rewatching and sighting reports all happen on other companies' platforms

Every week, The Why Files posts an episode about something strange, unexplained or officially denied. The site's tagline promises "we show our work," and the show means it. Every book an episode leans on goes into a public library at library.thewhyfiles.com, and each one has a gold button that says "Buy on Amazon." That library is the clearest map we've found of what a large audience does after an episode ends. It's also a map of who gets paid when they do.

Who Is AJ Gentile?

AJ Gentile is the host and creator of The Why Files, a YouTube show about UFOs, cryptids, lost history and conspiracies, which he has run since 2020 with a wisecracking fish sidekick named Hecklefish. The channel passed 5.99 million subscribers this week, and recent episodes draw between 380,000 and 3.3 million views each. "The Friendship Case" has 3,326,276 views. The Cash-Landrum episode, posted on September 27, passed 1.5 million in three days. He has sat for the long interviews that mark a creator's arrival, including Joe Rogan Experience #2327 in May 2025 and Shawn Ryan Show #229 that August. On the Shawn Ryan Show he traced his interest back to overnight radio: "I read Preston Nichols books when they came out after hearing about them on Art Bell." You can find him on X at @ajgentile.

What Does The Why Files Sell?

The Why Files earns from four places beyond YouTube ads: a Patreon with ten paid tiers from $3 to $1,000 a month, a merch store with 135 products, Amazon affiliate links on its reading list, and a podcast feed. Each one is a different bet on what fans want. The Patreon, live since January 2021, names its tiers after fish. Flounder at $3 gets videos early. Koi at $7 is labeled "our most popular" and buys Thursday nights at an "Ask AJ Anything" gathering on Discord. The top tier, Whale Shark, is $1,000 a month. The shop is built around episodes. A $20 shirt for the Cash-Landrum case went up on September 26, the day before the episode aired. The Friendship Case and Zone of Silence shirts followed the same pattern earlier in September. Hecklefish alone has 27 products, including a $35 talking plushie. Episodes also run as The Why Files: Operation Podcast, with 306 episodes.

Where Does the Audience Go When an Episode Ends?

Mostly to other companies' platforms. Readers go to Amazon, rewatchers stay on YouTube, and people with a sighting to report fill out a web form. Here is where each after-episode habit lands today:

After an episode, fans want to	Where it happens	Who earns
Read the book the episode cited	The Library, then Amazon	Amazon, with 4.5% to the show
Rewatch the archive	YouTube, 518 free videos	YouTube and the show, via ads
Report a sighting or a tip	A form on thewhyfiles.com	Nobody
Spend time with AJ	Patreon and Discord, from $7	The show
Wear the episode	The shop, $20 shirts	The show

The Library tells the reading story in numbers. It holds 328 books and 6 graphic novels across 89 Why Files episodes, 27 episodes of The Basement and 3 Campfire Stories. The most cited title, The Man in the High Castle, appears in seven episodes. At Amazon's published rate of 4.50% for physical books, a $20 hardcover earns the show about 90 cents. Our breakdown of YouTube Amazon affiliate rates shows why books sit near the bottom of that table.

The tip form asks, "Seen something you cannot explain? Sitting on a document nobody wants published?" That is exactly the question Enigma, a UFO sighting app, built a business around. It has 5,926 ratings and more than 200,000 sightings on its map.

The Show He Grew Up On Charges $6.99 a Month

Art Bell created Coast to Coast AM and hosted it until 2003. George Noory hosts it now. Its Insider app, sold by Premiere Radio Networks since 2009, offers the last five years of shows to members plus an "Art Bell Vault" of programs going back as far as 25 years. It costs $6.99 a month or $54.99 a year, and it has 7,325 ratings at 4.5 stars. An app called The Why Fans exists too. Its listing opens with "Welcome to The Why Files" and its first screenshot promises all the show's content in one app. It comes from Pretzel Digital, a company that packages creators' existing feeds into branded apps. It has 4 ratings, nothing to buy, and no update since September 2024. The show's website links to the shop, Patreon, the Library and the tip form. It doesn't link to an app.

Mystery content ages well, which is the whole premise of a paid vault. Coast charges for its archive. The Why Files gives its archive to YouTube.

A $743,988 Complaint Puts a Number on the Deals

On September 29, Page Six reported that Gentile has filed a complaint with the California Labor Commissioner against his former management company, Night Media. He alleges it acted as an unlicensed talent agency and seeks the return of $743,988 in commissions from one year. Per the report, the March 2023 contract took 20% of his earnings, excluding YouTube ad revenue. Night Media hadn't responded at press time, and nothing has been decided. The claim itself is between the two parties. The arithmetic is useful to every creator. At a 20% rate, $743,988 in commissions would mean roughly $3.7 million a year of income outside YouTube ads. That's our inference from two figures in the report. Whatever the outcome, deal income runs through intermediaries. Our comparison of brand deals and subscription products walks through what each line keeps.

Your audience already has homework. Give it somewhere to go.

Built by Foundry builds the product your audience reaches for after the episode, ships it in about three weeks, and runs it after launch. $0 upfront, revenue share, and you own the business.

See What We’d Build You →

The Homework Test

Ask one question of your show: when an episode ends, what does your audience do next, and who gets paid when they do it? For The Why Files, the answers are specific. They buy a book, and Amazon keeps about 95% of it. They rewatch, and YouTube runs the ads. They report something strange, and it goes into a form. They buy a shirt once. The most popular Patreon tier sells a weekly Thursday gathering with Gentile on Discord, which is the one thing a fan can't get anywhere else. Merch and affiliate links are real money, and our look at what a $30 creator tee really costs covers the margins. Both are one-time sales. The habits an episode creates repeat every week.

If Your Audience Leaves With a Reading List

This applies to history channels, true crime, science explainers, book-driven podcasts, and any show whose comments ask "where can I learn more?" If your episodes send people to a reading list, an archive or a tip line, that list is a product. It can track what fans have read by episode, keep the back catalog in order and bring reports home. Our guide to turning a podcast into a subscription app covers what to charge for. Built by Foundry builds that product for creators in about three weeks at no upfront cost, then runs it on a revenue share. Gentile already did the hard part. He built an audience that does its homework, 334 books of it. For now, the homework is being graded somewhere else.

See What We’d Build You →

AJ Gentile's The Why Files: 5.99M Subscribers, 334 Books, 1 Amazon Tag

Get Creator Revenue Insights

Who Is AJ Gentile?

What Does The Why Files Sell?

Where Does the Audience Go When an Episode Ends?

The Show He Grew Up On Charges $6.99 a Month

A $743,988 Complaint Puts a Number on the Deals

The Homework Test

If Your Audience Leaves With a Reading List

Creators who already did this

Brandon Whiteleather

Kristen Donathan

Ellie Fausett

Curious what your app could be?

Keep reading