Bill Stacy
1st February 2009, 10:15 AM
$250,000 selling CDs and DVDS based on public domain book
***************************************
This is an example of how you can create valuable CD and DVD content for a large market using a public domain book as the starting point.
My brother recently purchased a motorhome via eBay, and I agreed to help him drive it the 1,500 miles from the sellers location in Dallas Texas, to my brother's home base in Miami.
While talking with the seller at his home in Dallas, he casually mentioned that his son sold DVDs on the internet, and was having a very good year.
So I asked him to tell me more.
And he did.
He showed me some of the DVDs, and he showed me his son's web site, and told me all the details - as only a proud father of a successful son would.
Here's what I learned.
$250,000 a year
The son lives in Little Rock Arkansas, and had recently graduated from a divinity school with a degree in Theology.
While looking for a job, he found that not many churches were hiring - at least in jobs that paid.
He did discover that many churches (and in fact almost all churches) were looking for volunteer Sunday School teachers.
But almost all the churches said that the first thing potential volunteers asked was, 'what will I teach? Are there any lesson plans?'.
And that was the inspiration for the DVD series he started producing.
Public Domain Source material
Using the Bible as a starting point, he began developing a list of lessons suitable for Sunday School classes.
Each lesson would be based on a specific principle in a Biblical story, and the lesson would be presented as a power point presentation.
10 Lessons would be compiled onto a CD or DVD, and then offered from his sales page on the internet.
If purchased on a CD, the CD would run in a computer using a self running power point display.
If purchased on a DVD, the lessons could be played through any DVD player, and the lesson could be selected from the DVD menu, and it would be self running.
The Sunday School teacher could use the power point lesson as a starting point, or as the entire class lesson.
Each power point lesson presentation would have a starting point, a story, a question and answer section, and a suggested reading or activity section.
The cost of the lessons were $50 for a single CD with 6 weekly lessons, or $400 for a CD or DVD library with 52 lessons (a full year of lessons).
In less than one year, the son had created an entire library of Sunday School lessons, created the web site, and started selling the CDs and DVDs.
Sales History
Most potential customers find the lesson plan CD and DVD products by either word of mouth recommendation from church to church, or by doing a google search for 'sunday school curriculum'.
Customers generally start out by purchasing a 6 week lesson plan CD for $50, and then usually follow by purchasing a full year lesson CD collection for $400.
Sales growth has been quite rapid, and the seller is keeping busy developing new lesson CDs and DVDs - especially since class teachers don't want to repeat the same lessons year to year.
Since the lessons available from this seller only cover a limited class age group, there is a growing demand for lessons aimed at teen age and adult class groups, and other specific niche groups that comprise Sunday School classes.
Creation Process
When first getting started, the lesson plans on CD consisted of power point presentations which included text, simple Power Point slide animation, background music, photos, and voice narration.
As the developer gained experience, he began added some additional features to each lesson plan, including short videos, games, skits, and object lessons.
The developer works from his home, and creates almost the content using power-point and public domain photos, videos and games.
The Market & Competition
According to the US Churches Database, there are more than 65,000 individual churches in the US, and most offer some type of Sunday School classes.
Some of the larger churches offer more than 50 classes a week, segmented by age group, marital status, and other factors.
Since almost all classes are taught by volunteers and since most churches have no defined Sunday School class curriculum, a demand exists for ready-to-use lesson plans on DVDs.
It is possible that there would be as many as 250,000 potential individual customers for these kinds of Sunday School Lesson plans.
There is some competition in this market, but most of it is from smaller producers who offer products of varying quality.
Even with the competition, it wasn't difficult for this seller to earn $250,000 a year in CD sales. Especially since his main product sells for $400 a copy. (625 * $400 = $250,000).
Other Opportunities
As mentioned above, there are more than 65,000 churches in the US, and most offer some kind of Sunday School classes taught by volunteers.
This creates a demand for lesson plans targeting different age groups, marital statuses, and other Sunday School class organization groups.
Within each of these age groups, there will be a need for new material each week and each year.
There is also opportunity for further segmentation by offering lessons for specific religious denominations.
Of course, just because an opportunity exists, it doesn't mean this is the kind of project you should take on.
I would think this would be a good fit for someone already heavily involved in church activities - with personal experience teaching Sunday School classes and maybe even a degree in theology.
This is definitely not something that those in it for 'just the money' should pursue.
Resource Material
If you are interested in seeing Power Point resource material related to this subject, check out the PowerPoint presentations found by this search - sunday school filetype:ppt.
To see who else might be in this market, check out this google search - sunday school curriculum.
To see the site this article is based on, check out http://www.shop.highvoltage-kids.com/main.sc.
***************************************
For more stories and tips like this visit Bill Myers Online (http://www.bmyers.com/index.cfm?affID=1daywealth)
***************************************
This is an example of how you can create valuable CD and DVD content for a large market using a public domain book as the starting point.
My brother recently purchased a motorhome via eBay, and I agreed to help him drive it the 1,500 miles from the sellers location in Dallas Texas, to my brother's home base in Miami.
While talking with the seller at his home in Dallas, he casually mentioned that his son sold DVDs on the internet, and was having a very good year.
So I asked him to tell me more.
And he did.
He showed me some of the DVDs, and he showed me his son's web site, and told me all the details - as only a proud father of a successful son would.
Here's what I learned.
$250,000 a year
The son lives in Little Rock Arkansas, and had recently graduated from a divinity school with a degree in Theology.
While looking for a job, he found that not many churches were hiring - at least in jobs that paid.
He did discover that many churches (and in fact almost all churches) were looking for volunteer Sunday School teachers.
But almost all the churches said that the first thing potential volunteers asked was, 'what will I teach? Are there any lesson plans?'.
And that was the inspiration for the DVD series he started producing.
Public Domain Source material
Using the Bible as a starting point, he began developing a list of lessons suitable for Sunday School classes.
Each lesson would be based on a specific principle in a Biblical story, and the lesson would be presented as a power point presentation.
10 Lessons would be compiled onto a CD or DVD, and then offered from his sales page on the internet.
If purchased on a CD, the CD would run in a computer using a self running power point display.
If purchased on a DVD, the lessons could be played through any DVD player, and the lesson could be selected from the DVD menu, and it would be self running.
The Sunday School teacher could use the power point lesson as a starting point, or as the entire class lesson.
Each power point lesson presentation would have a starting point, a story, a question and answer section, and a suggested reading or activity section.
The cost of the lessons were $50 for a single CD with 6 weekly lessons, or $400 for a CD or DVD library with 52 lessons (a full year of lessons).
In less than one year, the son had created an entire library of Sunday School lessons, created the web site, and started selling the CDs and DVDs.
Sales History
Most potential customers find the lesson plan CD and DVD products by either word of mouth recommendation from church to church, or by doing a google search for 'sunday school curriculum'.
Customers generally start out by purchasing a 6 week lesson plan CD for $50, and then usually follow by purchasing a full year lesson CD collection for $400.
Sales growth has been quite rapid, and the seller is keeping busy developing new lesson CDs and DVDs - especially since class teachers don't want to repeat the same lessons year to year.
Since the lessons available from this seller only cover a limited class age group, there is a growing demand for lessons aimed at teen age and adult class groups, and other specific niche groups that comprise Sunday School classes.
Creation Process
When first getting started, the lesson plans on CD consisted of power point presentations which included text, simple Power Point slide animation, background music, photos, and voice narration.
As the developer gained experience, he began added some additional features to each lesson plan, including short videos, games, skits, and object lessons.
The developer works from his home, and creates almost the content using power-point and public domain photos, videos and games.
The Market & Competition
According to the US Churches Database, there are more than 65,000 individual churches in the US, and most offer some type of Sunday School classes.
Some of the larger churches offer more than 50 classes a week, segmented by age group, marital status, and other factors.
Since almost all classes are taught by volunteers and since most churches have no defined Sunday School class curriculum, a demand exists for ready-to-use lesson plans on DVDs.
It is possible that there would be as many as 250,000 potential individual customers for these kinds of Sunday School Lesson plans.
There is some competition in this market, but most of it is from smaller producers who offer products of varying quality.
Even with the competition, it wasn't difficult for this seller to earn $250,000 a year in CD sales. Especially since his main product sells for $400 a copy. (625 * $400 = $250,000).
Other Opportunities
As mentioned above, there are more than 65,000 churches in the US, and most offer some kind of Sunday School classes taught by volunteers.
This creates a demand for lesson plans targeting different age groups, marital statuses, and other Sunday School class organization groups.
Within each of these age groups, there will be a need for new material each week and each year.
There is also opportunity for further segmentation by offering lessons for specific religious denominations.
Of course, just because an opportunity exists, it doesn't mean this is the kind of project you should take on.
I would think this would be a good fit for someone already heavily involved in church activities - with personal experience teaching Sunday School classes and maybe even a degree in theology.
This is definitely not something that those in it for 'just the money' should pursue.
Resource Material
If you are interested in seeing Power Point resource material related to this subject, check out the PowerPoint presentations found by this search - sunday school filetype:ppt.
To see who else might be in this market, check out this google search - sunday school curriculum.
To see the site this article is based on, check out http://www.shop.highvoltage-kids.com/main.sc.
***************************************
For more stories and tips like this visit Bill Myers Online (http://www.bmyers.com/index.cfm?affID=1daywealth)