This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there, what's up? It's Chris Guillebeau with Side Hustle School, back with you again today. And we're gonna look at the scrapbooking industry. Now the scrapbooking industry, just in case you're skeptical, is an enormous industry. Both physically and digitally.
People who scrapbook, scrapbookers, are very committed to it, and will spend a lot of time and money investing in their hobby. If you have this skill or interest, there are a lot of ways to make money with it. Now today's story is about a speech language pathologist, who makes more than $1,000 a month on the side, helping digital scrapbookers work more efficiently. But first, all week long, we've been looking at your Cytosil ideas or current projects. Let's hear a couple more responses from listeners.
- Hey Chris, it's Bernadette calling from North Bend, Oregon. I met you at a Side Hustle School workshop in Portland in February. When I was there, you and I talked about me doing some video tutorials, some lessons in communication, so people can crack the codes for good communication, hopefully leaving some sticky situations feeling successful and in control, instead of feeling frustrated. Today, my to-do list is huge, just from my normal life as a college professor. But I am going to record my first tutorial on my phone today.
It's not going to go anywhere past me, but I am practicing for when I am going to be doing my tutorials for real. Thanks Chris. - Hey Chris, this is Anthony from Brandon, Mississippi. I have an idea for a baby carrier or a walker that would easily fold up. I have two small children, and sometimes when you're carrying a baby, you just have to put her down for a second to get something done.
The walker that she has currently is massive, and it can't be moved from room to room. I've looked around to see if there's one that meets this need and it doesn't. I haven't started on it yet. I'm a little intimidated by the patenting process and where to get materials and things like that. I've considered just buying a cheap lawn chair and taking it apart.
I'm pretty mechanically inclined, so maybe it would work. But anyway, thank you for the show. Thank you for what you do. It's inspiring. It's a part of my morning.
I look forward to every day. Bernadette and Anthony, thank you. Bernadette, it was so fun to see you in Portland recently. I love this update. I'm so glad you're going strong.
Definitely continue to keep me posted. Anthony in Mississippi, the baby walker does sound promising. Obviously a lot of work there, as you mentioned. But hopefully there's a reward on the other side as well. Let me know how it goes.
We'll have more listener call-ins tomorrow and every day. Today's story is coming up right after this. Today's story comes from Carol Asselin in New Brunswick, Canada. By day, she's a speech language pathologist. Her side hustle is creating and selling scripts for PaintShop Pro, primarily to digital scrapbookers.
So what's PaintShop Pro and what is a script? Well, PaintShop Pro is photo editing software made by a company called Corel. It's lesser known than some other products like Adobe's Photoshop, but it has a dedicated cult following. And scripts are sets of recorded, coded steps that are executed automatically in the program to accomplish a repetitive task or to do calculations and measurements more precisely than can be done manually. Carol also teaches people how to use PaintShop Pro.
She works on product coding and creation on weeknights. And on the weekend, she holds live classes and works on class content. It all started more than a decade ago when her mom gave her a copy of PaintShop Pro 7 as she was upgrading to version 8. Carol started using it as a graphic program when she discovered digital scrapbooking. Back then, there were very few tutorials available so she experimented and developed some expertise using the program to create designs.
An online friend invited her to teach the skill to a group of amateur photographers. At first, Carol shared tutorials and guidance on a few Yahoo groups for free. Side note, does anyone remember Yahoo groups? If not, maybe I'm just old. She then built a website to host the tutorials for a group and to host work created by group members.
She brought up the idea of charging a small fee for tutorials but didn't get a great response. So she didn't pursue the idea. Then Carol learned about scripting and she took an online course on scripting for PaintShop Pro. She started with simple sequences using common commands, then began integrating more advanced commands including some mathematical calculations. Carol tried selling her scripts on an online consignment store.
And if you don't know what that is, it doesn't matter because it doesn't exist anymore. The relevant point is that the store closed a few years later and Carol set up her own teaching site called Campus and some of her students followed her there. New members came through Google search, forums Carol was posting in, guest posts, and a small group of crafters who promoted one another. Speaking of promotion, Carol promotes this store on the campus site and she also has a Facebook page for each of her courses. She regularly posts products, freebies, testimonials, and videos.
She also offers live master classes that are free to attend and free to watch for the following month. And then she charges for permanent access to the video. With these different efforts, Carol makes at least $1,000 a month. And she's now also partnered with Carol, the company that owns and develops PaintShop Pro. This partnership happened at least a bit by accident.
After she was tagged by Carol's Facebook page, she contacted them by private message to ask if she could get a copy of the software to give away as a prize. This led to her being invited to beta test new releases of the software. And now she's listed as an expert on their site. She promotes freebies through the Carol Discovery Center, which has led to hundreds of new subscribers, some of which eventually buy products or courses. Carol is just a couple of years from retirement, from her day job, and plans to use her side hustle income to supplement her pension.
She also hopes that income increases. And since she'll have more time to work on it, she's hoping to offer workshops or be invited to teach live classes in different cities. As I said, the scrapbooking industry is no joke. It is in fact a time intensive hobby, as well as a hobby that a lot of people spend money on. Now, I suppose technically you could scrapbook for free or for low cost, and I'm sure some people do, so this is not a knock on them.
But there are also so many potential items to purchase that most people who scrapbook, physically or digitally or both, do end up investing in it a bit. And of course, a lot of those people do consider it an investment, not just an expense, because they're reliving and preserving important memories. If you're doing at least some of that process manually, why not save time? Why not make your life easier? So Carol has identified that need and is building out an entire suite of solutions for that need.
Making something that is valuable and helpful to other people while getting paid for it yourself, well, if you've been listening for a while, you may know that's what Side Hustle School is all about. Inspiration is good, but inspiration combined with action is so much better. If you wanna see the show notes for today's episode, learn more about Carol and this software, anything else I mentioned, just come to sidehustleschool.com/152. You can also find some resources there, including a free Five Steps to Hustle course. Thank you for listening.
I'm Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. [Music]
