YouTube Channel Monetization Audit: Diagnose Why We're Not Making Money

I run marketing for Eat With Steve, a YouTube channel run by Steve Kapelonis covering healthy eating, vegan/vegetarian recipes, and NYC restaurant reviews. Steve also has a published cookbook, Live Longer: Recipes for Good Energy. We've got consistent content and affiliate links live in our videos, but the channel isn't making any money — we have over 200K subscribers and solid overall watch hours, but we're not even in the YouTube Partner Program yet because our "valid public watch hours" specifically aren't high enough. I need someone to actually dig into why this isn't converting and tell us straight what's wrong, with a real plan to fix it. To be clear — I'm not looking for subscriber growth services, bots, or anyone promising "guaranteed monetization." If that's what you do, this isn't the right fit. I'm already handling marketing in-house, and we have a video editor, so I just need the diagnostic piece: figure out what's broken, document it, and walk me through how to fix it myself. Here's roughly how I'm thinking of structuring this (open to adjusting once we talk): 1. Audit ($600): go through our YouTube Analytics (retention on recent videos, traffic sources, how Shorts are doing vs. long-form), check where we stand on YPP eligibility, and look at our Amazon Associates click data. Also, check how/where affiliate links and book mentions actually show up in our videos right now. 2. Diagnosis + roadmap ($600): write up what's actually causing the revenue gap (could be traffic volume, link placement, YPP timeline, something else) and give me a prioritized plan to fix it. 3. Handoff call ($300): get on a call, walk me through what you found, make sure I can run with it on my own after. Ideally, you've actually dealt with YouTube monetization or affiliate conversion before, not just general social media marketing — and you're comfortable in YouTube Studio Analytics and the Amazon Associates dashboard. I'd rather hear an honest, direct read on what's wrong than vague encouragement. If you're interested, tell me in your proposal: based on what you've seen before, what's one reason a channel might have affiliate links live and decent content but still see no income? Just want to get a sense of real experience versus a generic pitch.