This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Today's listener from the UK is wondering about publishing an online course with a platform like Udemy or Coursera. Does she have to choose one of them? Or can she cross publish to multiple platforms? Welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
Now I love the thinking here. The thinking of this question, if you can do the work once and reach people more than once and then presumably get paid more than once, what's not to love? Sounds really great. Well, unfortunately, in this case, it might not be that simple. It could be depending on the platforms, but there are some complexities.
I'll explain more in my answer and I'll also suggest a path to pursue that might accomplish the same objective or at least give our listeners some practical action steps. And of course, it's not just about our listener, as much as I appreciate her, it's also about you. My hope is that our listeners who are from all over the world united by the single goal of trying to create extra income, trying to build security and freedom for themselves, through the form of an income generating project, often without quitting their job. My hope is that as you hear these different questions and answers, understand the scenarios that people are working through, hear case studies, successes, and also failures, missteps, challenges, et cetera, that you're gonna be inspired and go away with something practical to work on as well. So today's question, should I publish my course in more than one location?
That question and the answer is coming up after this short message from our sponsor. [Music]
Hey Chris, this is Amaria from London, and I've been following the show for a few years. Thanks for all the great content and advice. You shared a lot of stories from listeners who've developed courses for platforms like Udemy and Coursera. I'm probably a few other platforms that I can't think of now.
My question is, why not publish your course everywhere? Aren't there different users on each of these platforms? If you could reach twice as many or even four times as many people, it seems you would have that many more students and paying customers. But then I think, well, maybe it's not that simple. Do the platforms require your work to be exclusive with them?
Is there some other disadvantage to cross-publishing? I'd love to know what you think is the best way to proceed. Thanks, Chris. Amaria, thank you so much for listening from London. Thank you for this question.
As I said, I love the thinking, and it's a great idea. If you can publish in one place, why not publish somewhere else? I think Amaria said something like, if you could reach twice as many or even four times as many people, you'd have that many more students and paying customers. So the thing is, as she kind of suspects, it may not be as simple as it seems to cross-publish everywhere because some of those platforms do in fact require the content you offer with them be exclusive. In other cases, they may not require that it be exclusive, but the exclusive content they publish tends to get featured a lot more frequently to their users.
So they essentially prioritize work that is exclusive. Then, even if not, almost all of them have their own format, their own required standards that are somewhat unique. And so you can't necessarily take what you have recorded for one platform and then just kind of port it over elsewhere, at least not usually. You may have to reshoot or rerecord the whole thing. If it's a video course, if it requires a fair amount of AV work, then you're gonna have to do that same work all over again.
Then there's the matter of student support. Especially for a platform like Udemy, the way that people tend to be successful on Udemy is over time, they're developing multiple courses, they're building up kind of a library of followers, essentially, but they're students who have purchased their courses in the past. And there's a community there, there's a way to interact, answer questions and such. So are you really going to be able to do that three or four places? So this is why it's not always as simple as it might seem.
So here's a couple of ideas. Sometimes it is possible to cross-publish your courses, but before you do, I would suggest to Amira and anybody else that you publish well on one platform. Like you focus on making the best possible course for one of these platforms, wherever you have the opportunity, wherever you think is the best fit that you're able to get approval to do your course. Then when you think about cross-publishing, consider making your next effort to be one where you're producing the course yourself, you're publishing it yourself on your own website. That way, for people who register there, you'll keep much more of the money from it.
And perhaps some of the students who originally found you on the platform, whether it's Udemy or Coursera or Teachable or one of many others, hopefully they'll come over and buy your new work directly. So that would be my suggestion. Don't try to publish on eight to 12 for however many of these mass educational platforms. Focus on maybe one or two, and then think about how can I make the next course myself to be able to keep more of the money. I hope that has helped put anybody out there who's thinking about creating a course.
It definitely can be a good idea with the right topic, with the right approach, et cetera. Now listeners, if you have a question, come to siloschool.com/questions. We will continue to feature them throughout the rest of the year, along with updates from other listeners as they launch their projects. I'm so fortunate to be able to produce this show for you every day. Thank you so much for listening.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
