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Earlier this week, Catapult Story was abruptly shuttered. A number of full-time staffers and excellent teachers were laid off from their amazing course program. Devastating news to the many fans of this prestigious literary magazine and class destination — including me!
It’s also surely prompted some of those amazing teachers to wonder: can I host classes on my own?
The good news is that yes, technically speaking, it’s much easier than it’s ever been. So I wanted to put together a quick guide on how to set up an online writing class for anyone wondering about the absolute minimum buy-in for such an enterprise.
Step 1: Build a List
Most people, when deciding to set up on an online class, jump immediately to the technical concerns of how to charge and how to host the class. Those parts are actually some of the easiest components of online class building.
The hard part? You guessed it. Marketing. You can’t make any money from a class without customers. And in order to sell ten seats to a class, you more than likely need 10x that in prospects. So how do you find those people? You build a list.
List building: the tech specs
To build a list, first you are going to need an email marketing platform. Personally, I am agnostic about these. They all do pretty much the same thing. Many folks want to start with something that has a free tier. Here are some options:
- MailChimp: tried and true, many people use this, and their free tier allows you to have 1,000 subscribers which is pretty sweet.
- ConvertKit: This company has a great, user-friendly interface and their free plan allows you to manage up to 300 subscribers (which is great for a start!)
- Substack: This is a very hot platform which promises writers great fortunes via monetizing their newsletters. While this is a highly unrealistic goal for most folks (and I’ll write more about this in another post), Substack is a great option for list management and they also have a handy web interface which many folks now use as a free or cheap website, which is another good bonus.
The nuts and bolts of list building
It’s fine to start with a small circle of friends and family. You might want to start out with a message to those people telling them what you are up to and letting them know how to opt-out of future communication if they want to (all of the outfits listed above make that easy).
Give it away, give it away, give it away now
The second major component of list building is a truth many fledgling online marketers don’t want to hear.
You need to create something valuable — and then give it away for zero dollars.
But fear not! Actually, you are being paid in email addresses, aka “leads” which can easily be worth more than a few bucks.
What type of content should you make? That’s up to you, but often the best content is a free sample of what you’re ultimately going to be offering.
So if you teach novel-writing, maybe concoct a 30 minute class on how to create a chapter-by-chapter breakdown.
If you teach memoir, perhaps a class on how to write great family stories without your family wanting to kill you.
You get the idea. It’s you, it’s what you’re going to teach. It’s a free sample.
Marketing can get more complicated from here, and include social media, but for most people it’s valuable just to start with something like this — and it’s certainly the fastest way to rack up leads.
Do the above and hopefully you’re on your way to your email list. Shoot for 100 email addresses in the beginning. And always be thinking about attracting more people to your list. Through free webinars, online content, and yes, newsletters!
Step 2: Decide on the tech stack for your course
There are numerous off-the-shelf options for online classes these days. In the simplest terms you need:
- A tech platform where you can teach
- A way of collecting money
Personally, for the sake of simplicity, I would just go with Zoom (premium) for this (which allows more than 45 mins of instruction) and Paypal for the payment. Both require minimal setup costs and especially in the early days, you are building a minimum viable product for your class, and I would steer away from making your life more complicated than it needs to be.
If you can fill 10 or so seats in your Zoom class, you are well on your way to becoming a successful online teacher.
Step 3: Important extras
Probably the most important extra for your class would be a dedicated web address. I’ve previously written about how to do this super simply on the cheap and you can read about that here.
Second, you might want to provide a place for your class to chat, and in that respect, Slack and Discord are both good free options.
That’s it in a nutshell. If you found this post valuable, please share it!
