In
this episode of Your Best Writing Life, Linda Goldfarb and Thomas Umstattd Jr. discuss why and where authors should start Creating Online Courses. Plus common mistakes writers easily make.
Learn the first steps an author should take before creating a course, the common mistakes course creators make, how to attract students to your course, how to help your students benefit the most from your course.
LInks:
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Author Websites Course
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Book Launch Blueprint Course
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Obscure No More Beta Course
Here is the blog version:
Welcome to Your Best Writing Life, an extension of the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference held in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. I’m your host, Linda Goldfarb. Each week, I bring you tips and strategies from experts in the writing and publishing industry to help you excel in your craft.
Today, we’re discussing creating online courses. My industry expert is Thomas Umstattd, Jr. Thomas, the founder of Author Media and the host of the
Novel Marketing Podcast. Thomas helps authors build their platforms, sell more books, and change the world with writing worth talking about. He has also been creating online courses for ten years, making him the perfect fit for today’s topic.
Why are online courses so popular now?
Linda: Online courses have recently taken off in popularity. Why is that?
Thomas: Learning online has been a part of the internet from the beginning. But online courses grew as people got faster internet connections and could listen to audio and watch videos. The real explosion came during the pandemic in 2020. People were locked down, conferences were canceled, and a lot of people tried online courses for the first time in 2020. That’s when the market took a massive step forward in terms of people’s acceptance of online courses. Their children were going to school online, and online learning became almost normalized.
Online learning is here in a big way, and it’s here to stay.
Linda: I agree it’s here to stay. It’s a new normal that has infiltrated families and homes. Everyone has a device to learn from online courses. Zoomers make this a popular new process for everyone.
Why would an author want to create a course?
Thomas: In short, the money is a lot better, and the transformation is better. If someone reads a book on dieting, they may or may not implement what they learn. However, if they take a course that includes interactive elements like coaching and community, they are much more likely to apply what they’re learning and finish the course. People buy books on various topics all the time but never finish them. Sometimes, they don’t even start reading, and if they do, they rarely put the information into practice.
That’s one of the main reasons I became interested in creating courses. I wasn’t seeing much transformation from people who only read books,
