Create courses and books to maximize your sales
Here I was going to give you a little tip in case you are also interested in creating content more or less following the same paradigm as me, that is, I create both courses and books. I have been creating online courses for at least 6 years, at least five, I think I have reached 6 years, as I told you, I always started from Udem and from there I gradually climbed and I hope to get higher and two or three years ago or maybe a little less than 3 years ago I also started with books. As you can see, I have a large number of development books. Here you can see the number of books I have. I think that to date I have more than 20, including their translation into English. That is, I present them in Spanish and English and in books, sorry, and in courses I have, well, the ones mentioned. Here I also have a little less because there are some that I did not translate, for example, those of Master in codeigniter 3, I never wrote a book and also some somewhat crazy combinations that say between how to govern, I have not published a book, nor have I published its corresponding chapter in a book. So what I mean is that I usually publish a book, but I also do not publish a chapter in a book. course and a book that's what I've been doing at least since the last few courses or so-called books that I've also released then You might ask yourself how do I do this combination how do I organize myself It's really very simple and also that as I tell you you can take it as a tip in case you are also interested in generating content that does not have to be on the same topic, that is to say the same the same technologies that I am dealing with can be others or directly also another topic for example I don't know massages to continue talking about massages here So it's really very simple and I really don't understand why more people or content creators don't do the same sometimes I see that some release a book but they don't release their reference in the course and most of them love to make online videos and upload them to emia or whatever and they stay there I really don't understand very well why they don't also release their version of the book since it is not only another source of income apart from the fact that in personal terms it is inferior to that of the videos since people really like to consume audiovisual resources and they don't like to read unfortunately it's a bit like that's how society works But still, there are many people who also like to read that content, as I told you, I am a little selfish or quite a lot in this sense because I generate this content for myself, it is useful to me as a log so that I know exactly how many technologies are, so obviously things happen to you over time, for example right now I am working with Laravel, therefore I have some in CodeIgniter.
So when I want to come back here to work quickly, I review my book, that is, my personal notes, that is really what I mean, and I catch up in a simpler way, and there the same with the rest of the fros that I work with, so going back to the same thing, how do I create all this, it is really simple, even the trick, I have already shown it live in all the courses that I have recorded, in which I always or almost always, especially at the beginning, I start by showing you here a little bit how the exercise is that we are going to do to finish the class, that is.
Very easy to record videos using books as a source
You could say at least for modern courses the book is a copy of the course and vice versa. And what use is this practice to us, which is the point that I want to comment to you about what was commented on, that when you want to create a course, you understand in the videos, you already have it very easy, you already have, like who says, 50 or more percent of the work done because the only thing you have to do is what is reflected in the book, then obviously you have an advantage or there is a huge advantage since the material exists, the material is already prepared and this helps us a lot, especially for frameworks like Laravel in which they release versions from time to time, making small changes.
The book is getting better with each revision, and this benefits the course.
so we are updating the book here, which is what I do, for example, this was like a total revision, I think it would be the third total revision that I did to the Laravel book and each time, according to my judgment, it is becoming better, better organized, with fewer errors, with more content and I am improving certain aspects that I am leaving around in the book since obviously in each revision I am reading the book again from scratch and as the revisions are like who says every year, then one loses the thread of the book a little, so when one reads it again, there may have been something incorrect that one had not seen before precisely because of the monotony at the time of writing it, it is not the same, as who says, reading the book just when you finish writing it, that is to say, you finish writing it, you review it again, it is not the same. If you do that or if you read it a year later, you will have a different perspective, surely because you learned other things. And surely because you will not remember even 80% of what you wrote there. So it is almost like reading a book by another person, that happens a lot and you can take advantage of that to having, as they say, another point of view that you surely didn't see at the time when you are writing the book and improving the material and with this, by improving this material, you will automatically also improve the quality of the next review that you go here to record for your courses, in this case again focusing a little on Laravel, which is the framework that is updated and is the one that I am always most aware of making certain updates to both the course and the book.
So as I told you it's a win win. On the one hand you have again a lot of the material here in advance at the level of what you have to record and on the other hand Here you also have a book You already have another way of presenting your content So that's basically it's obviously a lot of work especially when you're starting it's very difficult the first book that I took out I think it was the one by ner el cuatro and well it took me several months to do it but from there as they are similar frameworks in my case they are web frameworks so it has more as I have told you in other videos they have more similarities than differences and therefore it's very easy to go as who says copying Or at least referencing certain key contents to be able to bring them to other frameworks and make the pertinent modifications for example the crud part You can bring it complete and from for example codin nader 4 to the book of arabel and obviously you make the pertinent changes you change the wording a little you change the codes again obviously you do that type of things and obviously also adapting to what would be the technology with which you are working, that is to say it's as if it were a chatgtp but quite personalized and with the answer there you simply take it as the guidelines and you already know what you have to write since again the most complicated thing is always to analyze what content you have to create but when you already have it, whether in book format or directly in the videos, it is much easier to work with, so that is the little trick that I tell you again.
Making a book and course is complicated and time consuming
It's a little complicated to start, especially when you're recording the course and the book. You know, literally, like three or four times the time that it's going to take you extra because obviously to create a book here, at least the first time, it's a lot more time than the time you would spend creating the video. At least, that's how it is for me, in my case, and I think it makes all the sense in the world because it's not the same as you're seeing me here as me recording this video and the voice is automatically projected. Well, it's saved in the resource. What I mean is that you have to write it manually. You have to put the periods, the delimiters, the commas, the titles, the subtitles, copy the code, format it. Obviously, this is a lot more time, but I think it's time that's worth it and having it separately.
As I told you in another video, the book is my favorite format. I already know, I talked about that in another video, so you can check it out in the playlist, and in the future, as you've been able to see in my last courses, you can take it as a reference for the creation of your videos.
That is to say, online courses, both at the level of when you want to present something, then it is much easier to present it here. I obviously prefer it a thousand times and I think it is better to directly present the terms in this way than to create a damn slide that doesn't tell you anything, it is part of a bunch of titles and you have to listen to the person, so in this way you have double feedback, for example when.
Using the book in courses enhances the explanation
You want to present the evidence, it's much simpler for me to zoom in on this, leave this entire block of text, start talking to you about the important parts of the evidence, and apart from having the spoken reference here that I'm indicating to you, you also have the written reference here, so perfectly, as I've told you many times, you can pause the video, start reading what I'm saying here, and have the two references there. Then you have the best of both worlds, and on the other hand, for me it's practically immediate to do this, that is to say, I don't have to do absolutely anything additional to present this evidence, that is to say, I don't have to do anything, I mean to present this video, that is to say, I don't have to make a PowerPoint or anything like that, because here I have my slide, and for you it's much more beneficial for what was said above. So from any angle you see it, it's a win-win, that is to say, a win-win, as I'm telling you.
the only disadvantage is that it is obviously a lot more work especially at the beginning so well in case you were interested in having this point of view and there you have it and obviously I always start here writing about the books although I have also done the inverse, that is to say sometimes I have the material For example right now I am going to do it for the dango course since I am going to rescue to date the section of the online store that I recorded on its date in Django 3 or 4 I don't remember and now I want to renew it for Django 5 already obviously I already have that material there I already have the code on GitHub I also have the videos in case you need any reference and therefore now I have to write it but I think that the most recommended if you are starting from scratch is that you first start writing here because that also helps you a lot to Ah well lay down certain ideas, lay down certain key resources Eh well key words lay down there What do you have to do What do you have to explain and obviously give it several revisions And from there you have the entire chapter quite advanced or finished but with advanced It would be more than enough there you too can realize a little of that, especially when.
Recording the videos helps me give context to the book.
Well, that's more than all my internal management, but when I'm releasing new content, like the testing part, to date I always have a lot of X's here and it's to help me, look, something is missing here, especially the source code or some idea needs to be finished and polished, which sometimes also comes out much easier for me. When I'm here talking, since there are many times when you're writing the chapter here but again it's like you're not projecting the idea or at least in my case you're not projecting it as I'm doing right now that it's being spoken, everything comes out much more natural when you're writing or when you're watching or rather when you're making the video you realize that look, there are certain key things missing here that I had to say and I go quickly and write them down, that's happened to me a lot. At the time that I'm recording, then there's also a double chat when you're making the video and that you can also take advantage of to improve the material here and obviously you're going to greatly appreciate it.
When you're going to do the content review again, understand that you're recording the course in Laravel 10 next year or the next, depending on whether you want to completely renew the course, as was my case, then you go back here to your book at the beginning and you start to basically narrate or write everything that is here in the book and obviously there you go again improving your content because of what was discussed before, you have a different perspective, surely you found some errors, some little things that you want to finish polishing because you realized that you left it very weak. So that's a win-win because here obviously you're also going to translate at the course level, you're going to leave all that content. So it's basically that in the end it's like you work with another person, one who creates the content here for the video and another who creates the book here. Then you get that kind of fip because each of them has their advantage at the time of creation. Oh well another very important point is that I create all this content so if I could, I work alone on this and I don't dedicate myself to this all day, especially in the morning and from there I dedicate myself to other things, therefore. Well there you can surely take some time for it, then surely you can too, in case you are also interested in creating your own content since I believe that there is nothing more satisfying regardless of whether you do not have so many sales, it is something that goes little by little but you already have your material there and also remember that the enormous advantage that you have in books is their easy updating, that is to say.
Updating a book is easy, a course is not…
I the Laravel book Unless the technology grinds or from one moment to another they decide to eliminate it and make one I don't know that that doesn't happen but suppose that Laravel 14 now is no longer going to use php if it's not going to use python obviously everything will change so unless something like that happens so car rafal the book is very easy to maintain it is very easy to update and you can always take advantage of it as a passive sale that you are going to have there, which well doesn't happen so much here with the videos so well I hope I have clarified several ideas if you think I missed something You want me to clarify something else there don't hesitate to comment So see you in another video.
- Andrés Cruz
Develop with Laravel, Django, Flask, CodeIgniter, HTML5, CSS3, MySQL, JavaScript, Vue, Android, iOS, Flutter