What It's About
Successful writer finds a successful side hustle in selling online writing courses.
Business Model
Skills Required
Complexity
Profit Potential
Words of Wisdom
When we asked her for tips for others looking to start their own courses she had this to say:
“Don’t be afraid of sharing EVERYTHING you know about your topic to your students—that’s why they’re buying the course after all. Apart from the content of my courses, the most common piece of positive feedback is people who appreciate that I didn’t hold back. I gave them ALL of my secrets. I think new instructors worry about giving away too much like they’re creating their own competition, but you can’t think that way. No one can BE you—only you can do that.
Even if you tell your students everything you’ve ever done to succeed, not everyone is going to do it the same way or even interpret it the same way. If you hold back key information that you believe are your ‘trade secrets,’ students can tell and the course (and reviews) will suffer because of it.”
Fun Fact
When Jessica got her first customer, she didn’t even realize it. She put the course online, promoted it on social media, and waited. She thought Udemy would email her whenever they made a sale, but they don’t. After she and her husband landed in Dallas to visit family, and they sat down at a Mexican restaurant in the airport, Jessica watched her inbox obsessively thinking nobody was interested in her course and she’d wasted a ton of time. When she actually logged into Udemy, she saw that she’d already sold over 30 courses. She was ecstatic. They ordered another round of margaritas.
Notes from Chris
Episode 303
Jessica Brody (a recent transplant to Portland, OR from Denver, CO) is a seasoned author with over a decade of experience under her belt, and more than 15 novels for teens, kids, and adults to her name. She’s worked with some of the biggest publishers in the world—Random House, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan—and she’s also the author of The Descendants: School of Secrets series, published by Disney Press, based on the hit Disney Channel Original Movie, Descendants. Having found the success many writers dream of, she thought it might be worthwhile to share her knowledge with others. As many before her, Jessica started leading workshops on writing in person with her local communities and even started picking up paid speaking opportunities at middle schools, high schools, book festivals, and writing conferences. But as much as she enjoyed having an opportunity to share what she’s learned and connect with other writers, it was time intensive and provided little flexibility. But all of that changed when she heard about the education platform, Udemy. Jessica’s husband runs a software consulting business and he stumbled onto Udemy when he was looking for platforms for him to host training sessions. Udemy’s online marketplace was essentially the digital version of what Jessica was doing with her in-person workshops, but they would require far less of her attention since she’d only have to create the courses once. Naturally, her husband suggested that she look into it for converting some of her in-person workshops into online courses. Similar to ideas for side hustles, ideas for courses are sometimes challenging to develop, so Jessica started out by reflecting on problems she encountered when she first started out writing—things like how to be productive as a writer, how to approach publishers and deliver a winning pitch for your novel, how to develop stories that become lucrative blockbusters, and general guidelines for how to write fiction and nonfiction. And from there, she built her courses with the intention of solving these problems. Since then, Jessica’s launched four courses and is aiming to launch her fifth course by the beginning of November! She has over 3,700 students in more than 90 different countries, and she was able to bring in an additional $21,000 her first year on Udemy. MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:- JessicaBrody.com: Read up on Jessica and her books on her website!
- Jessica Brody | Udemy: Interested in writing books of your own? Take a peek at Jessica's Udemy page
- Udemy: The educational platform that Jessica used to launch her writing courses
- PromptSmart, Final Cut X, & Camtasia: The trio that Jessica used to film her Udemy writing courses
- Miserable Day Job Turns Into $100,000 Side Income: An education district employee follows her passion for writing and creates an online side hustle raking in over $100,000
- Woman on Food Stamps Earns $86,000 Teaching People to Bake Bread: An online music marketplace offers a young lawyer an opportunity to fulfill his dreams of having his music heard, and also provides him with a new source of passive income
- Lawyer Creates Online Course for Mothers Returning to Work: For her first side hustle, a Washington, DC attorney creates an online course for new mothers returning to the world of work—and then finds a way to get employers to pay for it
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