Creating pluralsight courses for extra income

Pluralsight is extremely strategic with their content. They will not let you develop content for their platform unless they know there is an appetite for it. They have two payment models: first is a predetermined large lump sum completion payment (~10k) with smaller percentage royalty payments calculated off views. Second is a smaller predetermined lump sum completion payment (~3k) with higher percentage royalty payments based on views. The first option is usually used for niche content that is hard to find experts for and also won’t get a lot of views. The second option is usually for more common subjects that will be popular in the platform. You get your very own production editor and peer reviewer while doing a course for Pluralsight, so you get to learn a lot about course quality and have extra help during the process. I’ve worked with quite a few authors who were able to earn enough to quit their daytime jobs because of the royalty payments. The most popular authors make over 100k a year from royalties, some make ~40k a year, and the average makes 20k a year. If you’re going to be making content anyway, shoot for getting it published through Pluralsight first. You can tactfully promote your YouTube content using your Pluralsight course and drive traffic that way. Two birds with one stone. Another benefit to creating through Pluralsight is the content management after the course is published. The content team at Pluralsight typically tries to keep an eye on outdated content, so they will reach out to you when it’s time to redo a stale course. There’s a lot more hand holding and guidance when partnering with them for a course. On the flip side, you do have to abide by their quality standards and design standards. They aren’t too harsh, but it takes some getting use to.