Is 25% revenue is enough
I have started to develop course for Udemy. I have collaborated with a firm who is paying me 25% of revenue earned. I will develop the full course, but ownership rights will belong to firm and firm will do all the promotions of the course. I need suggestions should I collaborate with the firm, or I should publish my course myself.
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What, exactly, are they promising to do in terms of promotion that is worth leaving you with almost nothing? Unless you are partnering with one of the absolute top-selling instructors on Udemy and they are working closely with you on the production process to meet their standards, I can't see this working to your benefit.
You'll end up making less than a dollar per enrollment, even though you're doing all of the work. Much less. Remember Udemy takes 67% of your revenue, app stores can take another 30%, taxes another 15% in some countries... and then you'll only get 25% of whatever is left over? Keep in mind you're typically only starting from a sale price of $5-$12; people do not buy courses at their list price.
Who is responsible for managing Q&A and updating the course over time? Will this be worth your time going forward?
AND they want you to hand over copyright so they can monetize your content in other ways and give you nothing? If I were you, I'd send the details to policy@udemy.com as I question if they are even in compliance with Udemy's co-instructor policies. They might at least let you know if the firm you are dealing with is reputable or not.
It's possible you're dealing with someone legitimate, but I'm afraid it's more likely you have crossed paths with one of the many shady characters trying to exploit new Udemy instructors.
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Being new in the field, I don't have much idea about promotions but feels that it would be a challenging task. Please suggest some sources where I can get authentic information about promotions and also about distribution of revenue.
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I think the moderators here have a set of relevant community links they can share, but to get you started with some official sources:
Section 5 of the instructor terms lays out the distribution of revenue:
https://www.udemy.com/terms/instructor/
It doesn't detail all of the "third party" fees that can be deducted, though. Typically these include app store fees and local taxes, and they can be substantial. The effects of local pricing and currency conversion can also be large. See also https://support.udemy.com/hc/en-us/articles/229605008-Instructor-Revenue-Share
The reason we give Udemy such a big cut is because they do a lot of marketing for us:
https://teach.udemy.com/teaching-on-udemy/how-udemy-markets-for-you/
It can't hurt to do some marketing of your own as well. Here are some resources on doing it yourself:
https://teach.udemy.com/marketing/
However, my personal advice is that marketing matters much less than your choice of topic to teach. THE MOST IMPORTANT THING is to research your topic in Udemy's Marketplace Insights tool:
https://www.udemy.com/instructor/marketplace-insights/
If you choose to teach a topic that is already saturated with established, well-reviewed courses, it's going to extremely hard for your new course to gain traction no matter how much external marketing you do. The trick is to find the rare topic that is rising in demand but underserved on the platform, and that you are qualified to teach.
Hope this helps.
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