In theory it is a good idea: update the course every 6 months to make it more attractive to the buyer. I am all for providing as much value as possible: it can only benefit both me and Udemy. In practice, it seems a big problem: if I have to add 5 minutes of video, it is not long enough to teach anything with any real depth; and if I have to add a lot more than 5 minutes, I might as well make it a separate course, but I can't because if I don't add something, my published course will be unpublished. Add to this that it takes me up to 40 minutes to create a 2 minutes video (yes, really. I edit out all the useless bits, pauses, ramblings etc), and now adding 15 minutes to teach anything would take me hours. And if I have to do that for 10 courses, then it becomes a real problem. Further, the course is already thought out to stand the way it was devised originally.... if I have to add little bits, it becomes difficult to integrate them. It's not as easy as 1,2,3 to just add a 5 minutes video, because, again, it is not enough to teach much in any detail. I can teach a ton of stuff, but picking bits just to update a course every six months is not easy. But adding more than 5 minutes it would take a lot of work. It is as if I wrote a book, and then I am asked to add a new paragraph every 6 months....it would take a lot of thought just to think of what to add, and where. Some instructors can teach more naturally, especially if English is their first language. For me it is not so, so every word I say must count for something, I literally edit the video second by second. And yet some of us, like me, are making but a few sales because Udemy stopped promoting our courses. I don't blame anyone for that: I know I am certainly not the only one creating courses, and Udemy can do as it sees fit; all I am saying is that I have less incentives now than I had before to do all this work, and I am starting to get discouraged. Udemy has already flagged 3 of my courses, and it took me hours just trying to think what to add without creating an additional course for each "update". So I see lots of problems. I really love Udemy, but frankly this keeps getting harder and harder.....something has to give. I will try to do what I can, and I hope things get better, but so far this is not happening. Again, the ideas seem great, and I understand why Udemy wants to be as competitive as possible, offering as much value as possible, but I am not confident about the future, and I am looking for alternatives. As the proverb goes, "don't put all your eggs in one basket". I say all this with due respect for Udemy, it's a great company but the burdens for small instructors like me are getting heavier. I have tried all Udemy suggests for promotions, etc, but things aren't working well enough anymore. They were, but not anymore. In part, I am part of the problem: I am no internet person. I don't like "social media", and I quite detest internet marketing. I am a musician, not an internet marketer. I just want to teach what I love. Maybe Udemy could give us the choice of paying for promotion? (of course, I would have to earn a little more than I pay for promotion). I'd rather pay Udemy than Facebook, for example. And youtube, I detest it. Who wants to sit in there sifting through inane comments, and trying to be a dancing monkey for people who are just wasting their time looking for empty entertainment? Sorry about the rantings here and there in this post. I wish a great day to all.
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