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Looking for advice about writing lessons to sell and the pit falls

18 replies

Princesspigeon · 12/12/2024 22:13

I’m considering a side hustle of writing printable lessons (quite specific for those with communication challenges) and just selling on Etsy as an easy platform.

To flesh them out I need photos etc and I’m worried I could infringe copyrights? I’m clueless and very non business minded unfortunately!

For example if I did a lesson on Michael Jackson I would want to include a photo of him. Where can I get something like this if I’m selling the lessons? I don’t want to be paying much for them as I’m unsure if this will yield much income.

Also can I include things like YouTube links?

OP posts:
ImTheOnlyUpsyOne · 12/12/2024 22:14

Try Getty images for stock photos that aren't too pricey...although it's years since I've been on there

JollyHollyMe · 12/12/2024 22:18

Who are the audience for these lessons?

Princesspigeon · 12/12/2024 22:19

JollyHollyMe · 12/12/2024 22:18

Who are the audience for these lessons?

Educators and parents

OP posts:
DogInATent · 12/12/2024 22:20

You're not going to get a photo of the real Michael Jackson to use for commercial purposes cheaply. It's worth money to the Jackson estate. You'd also have to be careful how you used such an image if you did find one to ensure you weren't implying your product was endorsed by MJ. But you might get a likeness/cartoon image that's recognisably him from iStock or one of the other stock libraries much more reasonably.

Maybe start the other way around. Find the resources you can afford and then build lessons around those. Rather than spending a lot of time on an MJ themed lesson to find you couldn't afford/weren't allowed to use the image.

What's Etsy like for the overheads? and is it used by your target market to search for these types of product?

Princesspigeon · 12/12/2024 22:25

DogInATent · 12/12/2024 22:20

You're not going to get a photo of the real Michael Jackson to use for commercial purposes cheaply. It's worth money to the Jackson estate. You'd also have to be careful how you used such an image if you did find one to ensure you weren't implying your product was endorsed by MJ. But you might get a likeness/cartoon image that's recognisably him from iStock or one of the other stock libraries much more reasonably.

Maybe start the other way around. Find the resources you can afford and then build lessons around those. Rather than spending a lot of time on an MJ themed lesson to find you couldn't afford/weren't allowed to use the image.

What's Etsy like for the overheads? and is it used by your target market to search for these types of product?

This was my worry, but it would just be a little hobby side thing really and I didn’t want to be restricted so much as I need to find interesting topics that offer something that’s not core curriculum type stuff.

I noticed someone else selling similar on Etsy so thought it was a good international platform but I haven’t research it.

OP posts:
ShadowsOfTheDays · 12/12/2024 22:35

Use a site like Unsplash for free images. Or create your docs in Canva, all stock images on there will be of good quality.

healthybychristmas · 12/12/2024 22:44

I was a teacher for many years and don't do it now but somebody on here mentioned using AI for lesson plans. I put in one of the topics that I would normally cover in a 90 minute session and the lesson plan was absolutely incredible. I don't know whether anyone would be paying for lessons to be planned when AI will do it for them.

Also, pitfall is one word! You'd have to make sure your spelling was absolute perfect if you were going to even hope to sell anything to a teacher.

Princesspigeon · 12/12/2024 23:04

healthybychristmas · 12/12/2024 22:44

I was a teacher for many years and don't do it now but somebody on here mentioned using AI for lesson plans. I put in one of the topics that I would normally cover in a 90 minute session and the lesson plan was absolutely incredible. I don't know whether anyone would be paying for lessons to be planned when AI will do it for them.

Also, pitfall is one word! You'd have to make sure your spelling was absolute perfect if you were going to even hope to sell anything to a teacher.

Point taken.

AI is definitely not there yet for this sort of lesson, many have tried but they are simply not good enough and often quite dry in comparison. It’s a niche area.
AI will probably get there but I’m not sure that there’s enough demand for developers.

OP posts:
healthybychristmas · 12/12/2024 23:09

Try putting your lesson plan title through ChatGPT. You might be very very surprised at what it comes up with.

JollyHollyMe · 12/12/2024 23:17

Educators? That is very vague
In England the curriculum is very tightly planned and sequenced these days- you don't teach 1 off lessons.
If the lessons are about grooming and child sexual exploitation then plenty of charities provide similar.
Lots of schools dont allow YouTube access

Princesspigeon · 12/12/2024 23:19

healthybychristmas · 12/12/2024 23:09

Try putting your lesson plan title through ChatGPT. You might be very very surprised at what it comes up with.

I have, and others have too but it doesn’t work well unfortunately

OP posts:
Princesspigeon · 12/12/2024 23:20

JollyHollyMe · 12/12/2024 23:17

Educators? That is very vague
In England the curriculum is very tightly planned and sequenced these days- you don't teach 1 off lessons.
If the lessons are about grooming and child sexual exploitation then plenty of charities provide similar.
Lots of schools dont allow YouTube access

Edited

It would be educators for non speaking children and adults who use a particular form of communication

OP posts:
Hurdlin · 12/12/2024 23:22

Use something like Shutterstock for images.

JollyHollyMe · 12/12/2024 23:23

Princesspigeon · 12/12/2024 23:20

It would be educators for non speaking children and adults who use a particular form of communication

And about avoiding being sexual abused or groomed?

Princesspigeon · 13/12/2024 07:32

JollyHollyMe · 12/12/2024 23:23

And about avoiding being sexual abused or groomed?

No
All sorts of topics, it’s not so much the topic (but I try to make it interesting and informative) it’s more about the process. Hence the lessons being wrote a particular style.

OP posts:
Macaroni46 · 13/12/2024 08:01

As an educator with more than 30 years experience it would never occur to me to look on Etsy for learning materials. I use long established published materials or create my own.
I'd also advise checking your English. There are grammatical errors in your posts which would put me off.

JoBrodie · 13/12/2024 19:39

Photography
For photos you need to check the licence restrictions. Photographers automatically own the copyright of their photos and can license them for limited use (in some cases they may pass / sell ownership on to someone else or their estate).

Wikipedia has a photograph of Michael Jackson which I believe you can use in a commercial setting but you must (a) credit the photographer (b) include a link to the licence and (c) not imply the photographer is endorsing your use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Michael_Jackson_in_1988.jpg

"This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license."

"You are free to:
• Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially.
• Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially."

You can find out more about what that licence allows you to do here https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en (note that you may not sell the image itself, but can use it in other commercial works).

There are other photos of Michael Jackson on his Wikipedia page, you'd need to click on any that you like the look of and check the licence for each (as they may all be different) and you won't be able to use all of them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jackson

Pixabay also has a couple of relevant images - you can use these freely in commercial settings and you don't have to give credit but it's generally a nice thing to do if you can.

Wax figure: https://pixabay.com/photos/michael-jackson-wax-dummy-738410/
Cartoon portrait: https://pixabay.com/vectors/singer-portrait-jackson-musician-7022384/

If there's Michael Jackson memorabilia in a museum near you then if you can take a photograph of that you can use it (you own the copyright), but obviously check if the venue permits photography first. Or find a cartoon of a sparkly glove (that you can use) to make people think of Michael Jackson ;)

Some of the photos on Flickr can also be used commercially (but check the licence of each first) https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=Michael+Jackson&license=4%2C5%2C9%2C10

Venues to sell
Like others Etsy wouldn't have been my first thought, but TES Teaching Resources would be. You can sell stuff there (I don't know what their fees are like though). See also https://www.tes.com/author-academy/getting-started/share-or-sell-your-teaching-resources-tes

Etsy is very international but the fee structure is a bit yikes.

The Council for Subject Associations might be useful too: https://www.subjectassociations.org.uk/our-members/

YouTube links
Yes you can add links to YouTube videos. In your document / PDF you can make sure that these are clickable (copy the address, make sure the same address is selected and Ctrl+K should bring up a box to let you paste the link in to hyperlink, some programs will automatically convert something that looks link-like into a clickable thing).

If teachers are more likely to be only dealing with the thing printed out then you can change the font of the link to Trebuchet MS / Andale Mono or Courier - something that helps make the number 1, lowercase L or capital i a bit clearer so it's easier to type the link in,

It's even better if you create a free Bitly account, create a new short link which points to the YouTube video and change the editable bit of text after bit.ly to be something human readable. Another advantage of Bitly is that you can see how often people have typed in or clicked your link. I would always recommend including the original YouTube link as well though, just in case of problems.

Suggestions
Create a Google Form mailing list
That's free with a Google account and it will automatically capture the information into a Google spreadsheet for you. You could a short Bitly link that points to the form on all your marketing material to encourage people to sign up to hear about your new resources.

Adapt stuff for different printers
I'd also recommend making your items in A4 for the UK audience and then opening a blank document sized for US Letter (8.5 inches by 11 inches) and pasting in the text and tweaking to fit. Up to you if you want to adapt spelling and language for American audiences too.

If possible save your files as PDFs as they tend to open a bit more easily on a variety of platforms. Stuff also needs to be visually appealing to stand out.

Jo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Michael_Jackson_in_1988.jpg

JoBrodie · 14/12/2024 11:15

Hello @Princesspigeon - I realised you might not have seen the text of my post above (even if you received a notification of a new post on the thread) as it was hidden for a while.

I included a Bitly link and I think the system rejected my post for that reason so it was unavailable for a couple of hours. I asked for it to be looked at and it was first withdrawn in error (noooo!) and then published (yes!) and so now it's there, exactly as I wrote it I think, although the Bitly link points to the TES resources - please just google bitly instead. Glad I didn't have to retype all that :)

Jo

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