This page was updated 27 August 2007 by Stacey Apeitos
If you have taken eclasses elsewhere, you will have an idea of how they work. Most craft eclasses are delivered as PDF documents offering step by step instructions. The steps are illustrated with photographs or diagrams.
If you are accepted as an eclass instructor here, you don't have to provide the finished PDF. Instructors should email me the instructions in a Word document and you can email the images separately. I will put them together using In Design and convert the document to PDF format. Each lesson will be contained in a single PDF. A lesson can be supported by video clips.
By way of illustration, download this article by Darren Scott which featured in our first issue of Astarte's Mega-Zine and watch the video below.
Windows users: Download and save your printable PDF file on your hard drive. IT IS IMPORTANT THAT YOU RIGHT-CLICK on the link and then click the "Save Target As" or other "save" command on the drop-down menu.
Mac users: To download your printable PDF to a Mac, click and hold on the link and Save the files to a directory you're familiar with.
Download Darren Scott's Flexagon Instructions (665KB)
We have the capacity to run both audio and video on the Go-Make-Art.com site. While you can see how useful it is, I do not expect you to produce it if it is beyond your capabilities! I just want you to see the potential in case it is achievable and would enhance your project. I believe this is the future of eclasses and we should operate with this as our goal.
Go-Make-Art has a substantial email list of women (primarily) hungry for arts and crafts. When we promote eclasses to the list they will find a class description with one or two photos of the samples and information about the instructor. If they decide to purchase the class they can use a credit card or PayPal which is processed through ClickBank, a payment gateway service. After paying, students arrive at a class sign-up web page which enrolls them in an autoresponder series. An autoresponder is a computer program that generates emails automatically. The first email is issued immediately and directs the student to a download page for the first lesson. The second email will follow seven days later with a download page for the second lesson, and so on. We can schedule extra emails. Perhaps in between formal lessons you would like to add some special tips or encouraging words. We can do this.
You may have previously enrolled in eclasses that start and finish on designated days so that all students take the class simultaneously. I think people will like the fact that they can begin their Go-Make-Art eClass as soon as they purchase it.
We will set up an email address or a forum for each instructor. You would need to check this daily in case any students have questions. Because our students will be starting at staggered times I am leaving it up to tutors as to whether you use a forum or not.
The text and images you supply to Go-Make-Art.com are always your property. We can promote the class for 3 months, review how it is going and either keep it there or take it down, at which point you are free to turn the material into a magazine article or normal class, or sell it as a class from your own website. If you want to simply use the pdf document created by Go-Make-Art.com, I’m happy to negotiate this and can even make minor alterations, as long as the document continues to promote a live link back to Go-Make-Art.com.
Instructors earn a minimum 50% of all student fees after Clickbank and affiliate payouts are deducted from the equation. ClickBankateway service and deducts $1 plus 7.5 percent of every transaction. If a class costs each student $50, the net price is calculated this way: $50 x .925 - $1 = $45.25. This net amount is split 50-50 between Go-Make-Art.com and you, provided an affiliate has not directed the customer to our site. If the customer came to us via an affiliate link, the affiliate commission percentage is subtracted from this net sale price before you and I get paid. Affiliates earn 50%. We do not have many affiliate referred people on our list at this point in time but you need to understand that occasionally the net amount shared between GMA and instructors is reduced by an affiliate's influence.
At some point please take the time to learn more about the affiliate opportunity at Go-Make-Art.com. I urge all contributors, including eclass instructors, to consider becoming affiliates and promoting the site (and your eclasses) to your own customers and contacts. If you are the affiliate who directed the student here and they enroll in your class, you will earn a bigger percentage of that student's fee. If another affiliate directed the student to us, they get the benefit. Of course, you earn affiliate commisions if your referrals book other eclasses, too.
THIS IS IMPORTANT: The text and images you develop for your class are always your property. You retain the copyright. We can promote the class for 3 months and then we will review how it is selling and decide whether to keep promoting it or take it down from the site. At this point you are free to turn it into a magazine article or normal class or sell it as an eclass from your own website. If you wanted to use the pdf document I laid out it must always retain Go-Make-Art branding with a live link back to us.
I am very much into WIN-WIN relationships and I am so excited about developing new opportunities for artists to earn money. The more students who book your class, the more money you earn. As I write this, there are 3,000 people on the Go-Make-Art.com email list and it is growing rapidly. If you develop a class that attracts 100 students and your takings average out at $10 each, you could make $1000 . . . and still be left with a product afterwards which could earn money again if recycled or revamped.
How do you know how much you are entitled to? I am prepared to send screen images of ClickBank takings. I will pay direct into instructors’ PayPal accounts once a month.
At this point in time I expect to charge students $40 for a four-lesson eclass, $24 for two lessons, $12 for a single lesson class. We will see how this price works out and may tinker with it later.
Now it's over to you to design a class (or two). If you can send me a course outline and a couple of project photos I could tell you if you are on the right track. Then send me the first lesson you put together and we’ll review it before you do the rest of the work. I am anxious to start promoting classes asap!
A word on ebooks
An ebook is not all that different from an eclass. Both will be delivered as PDFs. Some material presents itself more readily to promotion as a book, especially if there is more editorial style writing rather than step by step "how to" instructions. I am interested in seeing workbook formats, too.
The PDF lessons for eclasses will be branded "Go-Make-Art.com" but if you have an existing ebook with your own branding that is perfect for our customers, I will consider promoting it as is.
The unique selling features of Go-Make-Art.com
As you develop products with our site in mind, remember that Go-Make-Art.com is different to most other commercial craft web sites. We encourage customers to examine the transformative side of art and craft. How does art transform us? Art teaches us things about ourselves and our relationship to the world. Art can be a powerful tool for self-development.
If your eclass includes elements of the transformative nature of art and craft, it will be more likely to find a home here.
Another unique feature of Go-Make-Art.com is that we are not product driven. We don't advertise or sell stuff for other businesses.
When you write a materials list, products should be listed by their generic names. You may state a personal preference in parenthesis. Example: one 2oz block of black polymer clay (I prefer Sculpey Premo)
Please refer to the writers guidelines web page for more information about our audience. Other clues about what might work here - the fact that we advertise in Cloth Paper Scissors and Somerset Studio, and the art genres practiced by our Panel of Experts.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
-Stacey
stacey@go-make-art.com
