I’ve done quite nicely so far out of the two series of A-level sociology revision webinars I’ve run this April- June.
The first offering was a series of 12*60 minutes Webinars for £49.99 running from April 1st (unfortunate date I know) to mid-June, shortly before the final exam. This came with all my ‘revision bundles’ (notes, mind maps, essay plans and a few other bits), which together would normally retail at around £25.
The second offering was a series of 3*90 minutes Webinars for £29.99, running on three Sundays before the three exams, basically briefer versions of the above and more exam, but less content focused, this time only coming with short answer questions and essay plans.
I’ll probably get a few more takers for the later yet as people do tend to panic before exams 2 and 3, and there’s overlap between what’s in Paper 1 and Paper 3, and I’m including recordings of said Webinars into the mix.
Webinar income to date:
- Series 1 – 49 sign ups * £49.99 = £2450
- Series 2 – 27 sign ups *£29.99 = £810
- Total = £3260
Costs
- £93 for three months of web conference hosting.
- Total = £193
Profit = £3067
Interim analysis
Income
This £3000 income came in gradually over March, April and May so this has meant a tidy £1K additional income over these months, which has come in VERY HANDY!
What I especially like about this income is how little additional work I’ve had to do for it: I had all the material already prepped, all I had to do was put it together in a ppt and format it so it looked pretty. This did take quite a lot of time, but it was easy work. Also, I managed to get a number of additional sociology blog posts done in the process (doubling up!)
On top of this, walking up the stairs and talking over a PowerPoint for an hour every Monday evening has hardly been stressful, except for the last week when I did three in a week because the first exam was imminent.
But come on, a peak of three hours ‘live work’ a week for £1K a month, and an average of about 1hr 20 mins a week, I can hardly complain!
The costs break down as follows, which I’m pretty happy with:
- £93 for three months of web conference hosting. I went with clickmeeting - the £31/ month option allows me up to 50 attendees per room, and 6 hours of ‘live storage’ (lots more archived). Fortunately, because I’ve also got a pro WP blog I’ve been able to download and transfer the older recordings there.
Final thoughts...
I suppose if I’m being mean on myself, I have to reduce these figures by 10% to take account of tax (tax is 20% but only over £10K, and I’m trying my damnedest to earn no more than £20K in a year!), and reduce them further because I would have sold some of those ‘free’ bundles I offered anyway, but even so, this is good money!
I’m still undecided whether I want to offer some kind of sociology support webinars running from September to March next academic year….I’m not convinced I’ll get the numbers to make it worthwhile.