Updated: Jan 5, 2022
What is passive income and what is active income
The world was hit by a never seen before global pandemic in 2020 and we all saw some real dark times. Many people lost their jobs, many lost their business and many businesses were closed down forever. Even those who retained jobs suffered from not getting paid because the work was halted. In all those things, the people who were not dependent on active income and were having sources of passive income not only survived but thrived. So what is active income and passive Income?
Active income is the kind of income for which you work. for example the job one is doing. One is getting paid for 8 hours a day in a work place. Its like trading our time for money. If you don't make the trade, you don't get money.
Passive Income is as the name says "passive". Passive income is that kind of money which comes to you without you being actively working for it. Sounds crazy and fun isn't it? but there's nothing new in passive income really and we all know the sources of passive income already. We'll talk about that in a moment.
But first, let me state the purpose of this post. Am writing this post, because I myself, not only survived but thrived financially during pandemic even without having a job and even after losing some business because I was already having a source of passive income, and when I paid some attention to it, it gave me results like nothing else. My source of passive income was my online courses on Udemy and all I did in pandemic was to create more courses to earn more of passive income. The purpose of this post is to show you how you can also create an online course and publish it on udemy and earn passive income. And to do this you don't have to study anything additional than what you know
No need to learn digital marketing / sales process
No need to Conduct those high pressure webinars and try to pitch in the end like a high tech beggar
No need to learn technical skills
No need to learn sales funnels and all that things you don't understand and don't want to understand
No need to use lot of different costly tools
What are the sources of passive income?
Now, the real question is, can someone really earn a passive income?
off-course yes, and you know some sources already
The rent you get from the property you own
Renting car / bike
Investing in Stock Market and getting returns
Writing a book
Creating a software / app
Selling photos
Above are few of the sources of passive income and you must have heard about some of them already. now the problem is, for most us, almost all sources of passive income requires you to put lot of money upfront on the table and then you can start or expect generating revenues. Sounds like not suitable for me and am pretty sure not for you as well.
So does it mean we can't earn passive income? definitely not, we can earn passive but not by investing money but investing our brain and little of our time. Mind well its not a job like time vs money trade. You have to put your time just once and you'll earn money for rest of your life for that time spent on creating Online Courses
What are online courses and how they generate passive income?
Online course is a series of videos explaining about a particular subject, skill or topic. Everyone is good and expert at some skill and the same expertise can be utilized to create an online course. Its a series of videos which gives curated information about the particular subject. An online course can be recorded with or without a camera. Just go to Udemy.com and see what are different online courses are there and enroll in at least one of them to get a clear idea about online course.
Primarily, an online course is created as
In-person or Camera Recording
Here, you record the videos of yourself talking to the camera and explaining the topic you want to teach. For many people, this is not a good starting point because of lots of things. We need a good camera or at least a good phone to do the recording. Next we need is a good background, and lights. So you can leave this option if you're just starting out and use the next mode of online class recording
Computer Screen Recording
Here, you don't need to be appearing on the camera. Instead what we do is we record our computer screen. While doing so, what we do is we show different presentations, we can write on screen to explain a topic or we can simply show videos / info graphics to make a point. For most of technical and non technical stuffs, computer screen recording is the preferred mode of online course creation
while its good, its always better to follow a mixed method of recording where you can record your computer screen and also show your face in one of the corners of the screen. This can be achieved using any cheap webcam
What is Udemy?
Udemy is an online market place where students and professional from all across the world come and enroll to any of the courses listed there. There are over 10 million active visitors everyday on udemy website and mobile app. Consider this as amazon of online courses. Anyone from the world can create their own online course and publish it on udemy to make it available for their entire audience. This gives your courses a very good visibility and a very large market opens up for you to sell your online courses. All you have to do is record your course and publish it on udemy to start making money out of it.
How to record videos for online course
Now that we've got the basics, lets see how to actually create an online course. First thing you'll be doing is selecting the topic you want to create course on. For your first course, it really doesn't matter what topic you chose because once you create your first course, udemy has all tools to show you which topic you should chose and do the analytics.
Tools Required for Creating Online Courses
Online Course is perhaps the only kind of business you can do which requires very low investment. Although very low, there is some investment and you need to buy few things to make your course good and saleable. Here's a list of tools you need to have, some you may already have, some you may need to purchase
A Computer, Desktop or Laptop doesn't matter, but specifications should be good enough
A microphone to record your audio, you can go for the collar lapel mic available on amazon to have a crisp audio without any background noise
Webcam, any webcam will do, it also has a mic but I suggest having a separate mic for recording your audio
Mobile Phone Camera (In case you need some in-person video's)
Tripod for Mobile Phone ( In case above :) )
Well, that's all about it, am pretty sure you're already having computer and mobile and you may need to purchase microphone and webcam. But that's about it, these are the hardware tools you're going to need.
There are some real important software's also which are required. But with software's, there's always an option to use free one's. Primarily, we need software for 2 purposes, first is screen recording and second one is video editing. For any documentation and presentation purpose, the free version of google slides or Microsoft Office Online is more than enough.
There are literally hundreds of software available for screen recording and video editing and believe me, I have tried most of them. So you have 2 options, either float on internet for hours reading about software's or use my recommended one's. These are best suitable for non-technical guys, easy to learn within 5-10 minutes and either free or very low priced.
Screen Recording Software
Ice-Cream Recorder, very affordable and very easy to setup and use, also it comes with a lifetime license, so once you buy it, you can use it forever
Active-presenter, free, and does the job perfectly well.
Filmora video editor, has a built in screen recorder.
Video Editing Software
Filmora, affordable, best for online courses, all features included and very easy to use
Movavi Video Editor, very affordable, provides best noise removal from audio, all features included and very easy to use
Active-presenter, free and limited features, but does the job
Apart from above mentioned tools, I personally don't use anything else. If you prefer free tools to start with, I'd still recommend going for a paid or premium software for video editing. Because we all make mistakes while recording and we want it to be edited perfectly. And consider video editor software as the attractive packaging to your product. Without a good package (look) your product (course) won't look good, so even if it requires some money to buy, its worth it.
I personally use Ice-cream recorder for screen recording and Movavi Video Editor because of the best audio noise removal feature it has. I also use filmora for the effects it provides and very nice editing features
If you're unsure, best option would be to buy Filmora, because apart from being a very good video editor, it also comes with a built-in screen recorder so single tool does job for both the tasks.
Screen Recording
Let's assume am going to teach how to do accounting with Microsoft excel. In this case, my screen is mostly showing microsoft excel spread sheets and am doing number of operations on it. What we do in screen recording is just that, record what's happening on your computer screen along with you audio so whatever you teach is easily understood by everyone. Screen recording may consist of one or all of below mentioned topics
Showing a power point presentations
reading from document file
Writing on screen or Paint to explain a point, requires a touch tablet
Using and demonstrating a software like ms-excel or photoshop
If its your first online course, I'd recommend simply going for power point presentations and demonstrating the software thing. Its better to keep it simple
Camera face recording
if you're going for recording yourself in front of camera, then make sure you've a little makeup on, I know its teaching and looks doesn't matter, but it won't hurt being more presentable and looking fresh in your videos. For this reason, always use some kind of ring light to illuminate your face with ample amount of light. Ring lights are cheaper than the commercial photography lights. You can use your own mobile phone camera to do the recording. It works best, don't underestimate the little powerful electronic device in your hands :)
Things to remember about recording videos
There are some very important points to remember while creating videos for your online course, these are like the biggest secrets to creating a successful online course and I want you to write it down somewhere and always keep it handy when recording videos for your online course
Your presentation should have more images / illustration than text
If only text, make sure its at minimum (max 25 words in total)
Better to write script to begin with a video as we stumble only in start
Don't Try to Script every video completely in advance, that just takes lot of time and makes things robotics.
Its okay to say or stumble at ummmmmm, in your video, it makes it natural
Max length of a video should not exceed 10 minutes unless required.
Speak energetically in the video, do a very short 2 min voice warm up before you start recording
If you fumble at some point, never stop, continue recording, always know that you can remove that part in editing.
Record daily, it'll create your online course in just a matter of 2-3 weeks
Keep total length of your course as short as possible. (Total hours < 10 )
Be excessively genuine in teaching, don't hold anything behind, give your full knowledge to the person listening to you and you're mathematically certain to become successful
Video Editing
When you're starting out with online courses, there are only 2 things you'll do in video editing and those are
Removing noise from background
Trimming unwanted part of video
so don't bother much these things are very simple to do. Just remember to export your videos in Full HD format (1920 x 1080) resolutions.
Creating an outstanding Introduction Video of your online course
Before we say anything, just look at video below.
This is an introduction video for your online course. In a nutshell it should tell the visitors of your course landing page about your course. It should convey your message and out comes of your course in a very simple way in a short period of time. Course landing page description is definitely important but this video is most important. People prefer video over reading texts all the time. Just head over to udemy right now and open any course and look for introduction video. This is something you'll also have to create and it'll require some creativity to do.
You can off-course do it, but you can also contact me for any help if you need. For introduction video, you need to write an entire script in advance and keep it recorded. Then in video editing software, you'll insert some clips of your online course, some free video clips from internet to make a point and add some text effects. This is the most video editing that you'll be doing in your online course and it'd be much better to take a professional help here if you're unsure about what you're doing or not feeling it right.
What is Udemy?
I'd simply put demy as "amazon" of online courses. Yes, anyone can publish their courses (products) on the Udemy (marketplace) and sell it and earn money. (See, just like amazon). The good thing is, you don't have to worry about the video hosting charges or simply about anything. You don't have to pay anything to Udemy in order to use it to sell your courses. Whenever your course is sold from udemy, Udemy charges a fraction amount of your course price. Means, just like amazon, udemy also makes money when you sell your online course. This amount is from 3% of your course fee upto 70% of your course price depending on who brought the customer to the platforrm.
With over 35 million students across the globe Udemy is bigger than any other such platform. Udemy has more than 100,000 video courses. Some courses are free, but all are relatively inexpensive. Students receive guidance from an experienced instructor and have lifetime access to any course. Courses are available in 65 languages. Topics include business, finance, development, information technology, design, music and fitness
Udemy helps organizations of all kinds prepare for the ever-evolving future of work. their curated collection of top-rated business and technical courses gives companies, governments, and non-profits the power to develop in-house expertise and satisfy employees’ hunger for learning and development.
So now we know some brief about Udemy now let's see how to teach on Udemy
As said before, anyone can create a course and publish it on udemy. If you have got a skill, you can create course and publish it on udemy too. Lets see the process in Detail
Creating Instructor Account on Udemy: sign up for a free account. By signing up for the account, you will have access to millions of free and paid courses available on Udemy. You can either create a course or learn anything you want based on your interests. Signing up is easy, and Udemy is simple to use.
Creating an Instructor Account on Udemy
Once you sign up and create your account now you can become an instructor on udemy, to become an instructor you need to fill some steps
Step1:
Creating an account on udemy for Instructor profile.
Click on the Teach on udemy menu on the top right side or on the button "Become an Instructor on the left side of header.
If you haven't sign up your account then sign up your account along with Full Name, Email and Password.
Step 2:
Following the instructions and filling requisites to create an online course.
Based on your experience of teaching specially online teaching (formal or in formal) choose the category which you fits in.
If you have a set of students from your community, region, then do not forget to mention based on your current scenario, this helps you to grow your audience on udemy as you can send those audience to enroll your course and you will grab attention of organic audience from udemy to show your followers and numbers of students you have reached so far in a short period of time, choose the option and click on the continue button.
Step 3:
Get to know Udemy dashboard: Once you finish the basic Q&A now you have entered in the giant market of global teaching, you can start building your course but before directly jumping into course creation let's finish some few steps here. The best way to learn a tool is to explore more and learn minuscule things about the tool/platform. So before uploading your videos and other files on course section let's start a tour of Udemy dashboard. On the left side of dashboard you can add or see list of menu
Courses: You can add or remove n number of courses from this section, If you haven't created any course then you can create one by simply clicking on Create Your Course.
Communication: This communication sections allows you to built a
Q&A session: with students, sessions give audiences the opportunity to find out more about certain topics covered in course and other courses as well.
Featured Questions: Featured Questions helps to save your time, energy to answer every single queries and it also help students get quick answers, featured questions are most likely the highlighted query or FAQ ( in this example) so do not forget to add some featured questions.
Assignments: The types of assignment that you could be set depend on the course you are going to teach. The most common written assignments that students are asked to produce are essays or reports. However, it is also possible that you will be set other kinds of assignment such as a group project or an oral presentation in your subject area, which may also be assessed.
Announcements: You can use announcements to remind students about assignments or new launch of course, and notify students of course changes or course cancellations. They can also be used for promotional activities which any way helps you to build audience and increase the sales funnels.
Performance: This tab includes extensive tools and analytics to help instructors track their course performance, learn about their students, and understand the overall impact they’re having on Udemy.
Overview: instructor can review their performance overview includes course revenue, student enrolments and course ratings.
Students: this helps you to know more about the students enrolled in the courses, you can see your students location languages and their interest areas or your most popular course statics
Reviews: instructor can see the real reviews of their performance in respective courses includes course ratings, comments, and you can sort them by category as newest first or oldest firsts.
Course engagement: Shows the analytics to help you understand how students are consuming and engaging with your courses
Traffic & Conversion: includes traffic and conversion analytics that can provide instructors with key insights on how students are discovering their courses and their market demand, will see these terms in details let's just brush up information and move ahead :)
Step 4:
Now the time comes when you can create your first online course, click on the Create your Course button and select course tab.
Pick a catchy title and subtitle for your course: Your profile is set, you are about to create an online course, and you are ready to start selling. But, wait, what about your course’s title? Make it easy to remember, use keywords your students will recognize make it interesting and straight to the point. just make sure your ideal customer knows what it’s all about by reading the title of your course
example:
Define how much time you can spend through out the week, based on your availability. calculate the time in such a way for instance, you spend 30 to 40 min in a day and total number of hours in 6-7 day. if you are not sure how much time you will spend to create this course then choose the last option
I haven't yet decided if I have time, and click on Create course.
Nevertheless, this option is just for information and there's nothing right/wrong here, even if you chose I'll work daily and still take an year to finish your course, no problems ;)
What will you learn?: The descriptions you write to target your audience it will help students to decide if your course is the right one for them, are they are looking forward to learn the topic you covered? Enter as many points you think are good here.
example:
Course Requirements: Fill all details which are applicable. You have to list all things, Whatever the student must have in order to take your course. It may include a specific book or a software or a particular computer system.
Target Audience: Put all those who can benefit from your course in this section. It can be number of different people and your job is to cover as many plates as you can. For example, if you're teaching about photoshop software then target audience can be like
Aspiring Designers
Students
Design Professionals