Udemy

I really love my Shure SM7B microphone. As I do more screencast / voiceover lectures than "talking heads," it's the most important piece of gear I have. It's not cheap, and to make matters worse you also need a "CloudLifter" device to boost its signal on top of a A/D adapter (I use a Blue Icicle) in order to connect it to your PC. But I don't regret re-investing some of my course earnings on it. As an extra bonus, I sound better than everyone on Zoom calls 😛 ... View more

I think you're asking in part about who owns your course and the student data. You own the course you produce, and are free to host it on other platforms as well (there is an exception if you are picked up by the Udemy for Business catalog, in which case they will require exclusivity to Udemy. They still don't "own" your content, but from a practical standpoint they do in that case.) Udemy however owns the students; you will be expected to answer the questions they may have in your course, but you can't leave Udemy and take Udemy's students with you. You're not given any of their personal or contact information.   As for the bigger question of how to make $500K on Udemy... well, I don't have a recipe for you, as it involves a good deal of luck and being in the right place at the right time. If you look at instructors who have reached that level, you'll find most got started on Udemy many years ago, when there were far fewer instructors on the platform to compete with. So, it was easier to find in-demand topics that had no or very few existing courses you had to overcome in the marketplace. I don't know your particular expertise, but if it's something like technology where there are new emerging topics all the time, then it's still possible to move quickly and be the first to market with a comprehensive and well-produced course. Doing that repeatedly would be the key. If there is a specific topic you're considering teaching, I'd advise you to use the Marketplace Insights tool in your Udemy instructor view to deeply research the level of student interest in that topic, the existing courses you are competing against, and how much those courses are earning today. Remember Udemy is under no obligation to make money for you. They are merely a marketplace. It's up to you to make quality courses in topics that are both in-demand and underserved. The reality is that most instructors make very little on Udemy, a fair amount earn some nice extra cash, and a few are able to live off it comfortably full time. You could probably count the number of instructors earning $500K in one year on your fingers.   I also want to set expectations that you will on average only earn $1-$3 per course enrollment on Udemy. That's something that took me by surprise after publishing my first course. So to earn $500K, you need to create courses that hundreds of thousands of people will purchase. The sorts of topics that attract that kind of volume are already saturated with existing courses, but if you made enough courses on emerging topics that tens of thousands of people might buy, it can still add up over time. It just takes a lot of work, talent, and very careful topic selection - and you have to be lucky enough to have the expertise to teach those topics yourself. ... View more

Just click on her name in this thread. That will lead you to her instructor profile, and you'll see her course listed there. ... View more

Nicely done. Really good promo video, good page copy, and great social proof so far. The course is also a good length; there's nothing on the landing page that would dissuade me. ... View more

Wow, I'm not sure what is more frustrating - your audacity to exploit someone like this, or the fact that you actually found someone that quickly.   I was about to report you to Udemy's trust & safety team because co-instructors are both supposed to bring something to the table in the production of the course. But either I mis-remembered that part of the policy, or it was changed.   I take solace in the fact that if you are in fact paying someone $100/hr to create and market a 2 hour course in soft skills, that will probably run you about $15,000 or so, and you're unlikely to make that back. The instructor you hired may well get the better end of this deal (but I'd advise him to insist on an advance payment.)   I get it, though. After seeing ACloudGuru get acquired for $2B a lot of us are wondering if we should be hiring a stable of instructors and building up our own large catalog of courses in hopes of getting acquired. Gotta remember they built up a catalog of thousands of labs and courses in the hottest topic there is though, and they did at a time when there was much less competition. ... View more

I use a "parrot" teleprompter attached to a DSLR camera for "talking head" segments. Most of my courses are just narration over slides and screencasts though.   It is very hard to read from a script on a teleprompter and not sound like you are reading from a script. Stick to bullet points, and do multiple takes until it sounds natural and smooth. ... View more

My biggest mistake was publishing a major update to an existing top-selling course as a new course, and redirecting traffic from the old course to the new. Doing so caused me to lose the head start I had in reviews and sales on the original version, and I lost the #1 spot in my category permanently as a result.   Even if the entire course is being overhauled, it's best to replace the lectures in the existing course rather than create a new one. A big part of success on Udemy is being the first to publish a good course on a new hot topic, and you never want to throw that advantage away if you have it.   ... View more

The single best thing I did for *me* was hiring people to help with social media, marketing, and Q&A. Honestly the business would probably be better if I saved the money and did it myself, but I'd be working 24/7.   The single best thing I did for my business was saying "yes" when the opportunity to create a course on Udemy first presented itself; it turned out I was in the right place at the right time. You just have to keep trying lots of new, diverse ideas in business. Some will flourish; many will not. But if you keep working at trying new things (in an informed manner) eventually you'll get lucky. ... View more

Welcome!   It would be good to get the community focused again on positive, constructive discussions, such as instructors sharing tips for driving reviews, launching new courses, choosing a topic, etc. Perhaps actively interviewing some of the top instructors would make for some great content here. ... View more

Everyone has their own favorite tools... personally, I just use PowerPoint and TechSmith Camtasia. ... View more

I would add that you're probably an expert in more specific topics than you think. It's often possible to "niche down" into a specific tool, technology, or technique within your area of expertise that isn't already saturated with courses. Sometimes that lets you select a topic that is a good balance of popularity and lower competition. ... View more

They don't work on weekends, so if you submitted it after business hours in the US West coast on Friday, really it had only been one day when you posted this. Be patient; success on Udemy requires a long-term commitment, and a few days isn't going to matter in the long run. ... View more

In your instructor dashboard, you'll find a tool called "Insights." This lets you research how popular different topics are, and just as importantly, how much competition exists in those topics. Often the best selling topics are the worst ones to create a new course in, because there are hundreds of entrenched courses you have to beat. But, the Insights tool tries to balance this for you and tell you which topics are good opportunities, and which are not. It can be very helpful. ... View more

Why were you banned? ... View more

As usual Lawrence said it all, and said it well. I'd just summarize my own answers as:   - Focus on what you can control, and don't worry about what you can't. What you control is the topics you choose to teach and how much effort you put into creating a quality course in that topic. Often the former is more important, as there's a lot of existing courses you're up against in most topics. Topic selection is key; niche down if you must to find a green field.   - Don't worry too much about your own marketing, because you can't match the power of Udemy's own marketing. If you do nothing more than use promotional announcements to push your own coupon codes, and establish a YouTube presence, you'll have picked all the low hanging fruit for promoting your own course on Udemy.   Really the key is to create one of the first good courses in an emerging topic that is growing in popularity. If you can do that, the students will come. The reason we give Udemy a cut of our revenue is for all the marketing they do on our behalf, so let them worry about that while you worry about making great courses in the right topics. ... View more

I would definitely report that to Udemy and have them look into it. They are cracking down on refund abuse lately and I'm surprised they didn't catch that automatically. I think policy@udemy.com would be the appropriate contact. ... View more

To those saying this only benefits top instructors... well, I'm one of them, and I actually stand to lose a few percent in my revenue because I do unusually well on organic sales today.   But I'm not freaking out about it, because I'm confident Udemy will grow more than a few percent to more than make up for it.   It's not some conspiracy to screw us. They are just simplifying the revenue model and they have tried very hard to make the net effect overall a wash. As they alluded to in the announcement, it's really about the increasing difficulty in attributing the sale of a course to a given ad or affiliate accurately. Some platforms (like TV) are difficult to track, and as browsers crack down on cross-domain cookies, attribution for affiliates and ads is going to become less accurate as well. They are just trying to keep the system fair and accurate. ... View more

It's up to you. Udemy doesn't do it for you.   Simply putting a copyright notice on your videos and slides is a start and much better than nothing. Getting a registered copyright on a video course can be tricky, as you have to provide copies of the videos to the copyright office somehow. But an attorney that specializes in intellectual property can help if you want the most protection you can get. It will cost money though.   ... View more

Do you mean certificates of completion? I don't recall doing anything special to enable that; I think it's a feature you get by default. ... View more

Is this what you're looking for? https://www.udemy.com/collection/udemy-insights-courses/   There is also lots of information on getting started at https://teach.udemy.com/ ... View more

If you opted into Udemy's Deals program (check at https://www.udemy.com/user/edit-promotional-agreements/) then you've given them permission to adjust your list price. You're probably seeing the system trying to experiment with different prices to learn what students are really willing to pay for your course.   If you want your course to be offered firmly at the price you set, you'll have to opt out of deals. But that will probably do more harm than good. ... View more

Are you talking about the "Top Liked Authors" ranking? That's only visible on the instructor community page; students won't ever see that. So don't worry about that at all.   What's an example of a forum you can't comment on? Apart from a few closed "user groups", or threads where a moderator disabled commenting because the discussion was going in a bad direction, you should have access to pretty much everything here as a published instructor. ... View more

The short answer is yes; Udemy doesn't require you to include any sort of image of yourself in your course. You could have a course that is just slides and screen captures with you doing a voice-over, for example.   It might put you at a slight disadvantage as it's a little more difficult to establish a personal connection with students that way, but if you're teaching a technical topic I don't think most students care if they see the instructor or not. They just want the material.   Speaking clearly will be all the more important though, if they don't have any visual cues from you. ... View more

For me, complaints about video quality stopped after I asked support to *disable* adaptive streaming on my courses. It's a tough decision to make, as you're degrading the experience for most of your students in order to improve it for a few. But I don't think it's acceptable for students to find a course they purchased unwatchable. ... View more

The legal battle involved an image I found using Google Image Search with its licensing filters. It turned out the image had more complicated licensing terms than Google implied, and because I didn't follow them exactly, I got sued. There are people who post images online making them look like they are free to use, but then track down anyone who uses them and sues them. You have to be careful. You absolutely cannot just use an image you find on Google just by crediting it. At least not in the US. You can be sued for up to $250,000 per usage of an unlicensed image.   It is also possible for you to download an image from pixabay or pexels that somebody uploaded who did not actually hold the rights to the image. If the original rights owner finds that you used it, you can still get sued.   That's why it is best to pay for a license you can prove for the images you use, from sites like istock.com. ... View more

Whoah.   This is just a rumor, though. I can't find anything definitive about this or any sources, apart from a few people on the Internet "projecting" an IPO in early 2021.   I'd certainly prefer an IPO to Udemy getting acquired. So if true, I'll consider it good news.  ... View more