For me, I did not expect much when I created my first course. I created my first course mainly as a side hustle job to earn a few extra bucks to pay the bills. When I made my first 10 dollars during the first month, I could not be more excited. I expected to make a few bucks but kind of felt more real after that first sale. Over the next few months that one sale per month increased to 10 a month, then 15 sales per month for that first course and that gave me a thought. If I can do this with one course, what would the sales be like if I had two courses, three, four? The income could add up to make a livable wage that could seriously supplement my freelancing income. It would take me a while, but I have my evenings free after work, I needed a side hustle. I came up with a course creation schedule by creating one course every two months with a goal of creating 6 courses that first year. I would have to work in the evenings as I still had a full freelance business I was maintaining. 6 months ago I let all my freelance clients go to focus full-time on teaching. I have been able to more than replace my income. There has been some stressful days, and this recent thread about insturctor burnout is a good read and very raw and real - Instructor creativity burn out? At first, it was about the income, but then it started to become about helping others, not only students but other instructors. I found a wonderful community at Udemy that was warm welcoming and helpful. Now with 14+ courses it is safe to say I am in this for the long run and look forward to increasing student reach, enrollments and have a positive influence in the educational space. I thought I would share this to encourage others who may feel like they have to have one amazing successful first course. You can still make a lot of money by just by making one course, some instructors on Udemy have done just that. For those building a fresh new audience, it can take several courses and a growing student base to get the ball rolling in the right direction. For me it was not until course 5 (8 months after my first course was published) that I started to have a fairly popular course. My first course is actually no longer available as it has already been replaced by another course. It made a few hundred bucks over it's entire lifetime (18 months), but has since faded away, but it did its job of solidifying (and started) a student base for me, even if that student base was fairly small at first.
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