Maximizing Author Revenue With Online Offerings

In the last year, SkipJack has broadened its scope to offer live webinars and online training. It took us about six months to put our first twenty classes together, fitting this new initiative into our normal operations. During that time of “soft launch”—other than investment of sweat equity/time—we’ve managed to break even on the project, leading up to our March 1st hard launch of the full school. We think it’s worthwhile for you to consider as you brainstorm ways to maximize your own author revenue stream, since it takes your content/expertise, which already exists, and offers it in a 24/7 availability format. Maybe our story will help you decide if it’s right for you.

In 2013, SkipJack’s Pamela Fagan Hutchins quickly learned that she couldn’t keep up with the demand on her for advice without it consuming her writing time. She penned What Kind of Loser Indie Publishes, and How Can I Be One, Too? so she would have something to refer people to that would answer most of their questions. She continued to speak to writers all over the US, and the demand grew. Some people had more in-depth questions during or after her workshops. Others wanted to be able to go back over her teachings and repeat the sections most pertinent to them. Many read Loser, but the questions kept coming. Honestly, charging a consulting fee works for some people, and our SkipJack publishing experts will work with authors on an hourly or per-job arrangement, but they wanted Pamela and she couldn’t afford her time, and they couldn’t afford her time. Don’t get us wrong, she gives away one-third of her time every day helping authors gratis (and working on other charities she is passionate about, like helping rescue victims of commercial sexual exploitation of children, with Hope Rising). That leaves one-third of her time to the business of her publishing, and one-third for writing/revising/rewriting.

In 2015, we had contacts who experienced significant financial success through online training offerings on topics other than writing/publishing/marketing using Udemy. In 2016, Jane Friedman spent some time in support of Teachable. There are others, but these are the two we tested out. Ultimately, they were quite similar, but Teachable just felt right to us, and we signed up and got busy. Why?

• Because it is relatively easy to use. If you have some tech savvy, like running your own blog, this won’t be outside your stretch-skill set.

• The pricing makes sense.

• The interface is attractive.
• We trust Jane. 🙂

The result? As mentioned above, we have twenty courses less than a year later, and breakeven before a real launch. Here’s a snapshot of just six of them:

In fact, thanks to some of the cool Teachable features, we can bundle our classes into discounted groupings by topic, we can offer “drip” content that sends monthly content to new subscribers (something we have yet to implement, but plan to), and integrate coupons for discounts for each class. Really, we love Teachable.

You should check it out, with the special type of information you can teach in mind. Whether it’s tips for recruiters, ways to improve your parenting, how to set up and run a blog, if you know it, chances are someone else wants that information. While you’re there, we humbly request you check out our classes, especially our bundles, which give you deep dives into almost everything we know, accessible 24/7, with unlimited playback, at great prices.

And remember, sharing is caring. If you’d like to earn 10% affiliate fees by linking to our classes on your blog/website/social media/newsletter, email [email protected] and we’ll set you up. Note: you must join our SkipJack School first for this to be possible, which is free, and you can do it here: http://skipjackpublishing.teachable.com.

Finally, here’s a snapshot of our most popular bundle/best price per class, Be a Writing, Publishing, Marketing Rock Star, which includes ALL our classes, just to give you a quick idea of what we offer, with more coming every month:

See you on Teachable, whether you’re creating your own content or accessing ours.

Eric