After spending almost 8 years at home with my children, I decided to take art classes at our local university.

One day a teacher approached me to see if I wanted to take over one of her classes at a local art center. That’s how my book arts teaching career began!

My specialty is making handmade books using salvage papers. I’d been teaching live in-person classes, as well as virtual classes via Zoom, for many years, and I love it.

But I needed to find a way to avoid having to teach the same classes over and over. Like many people who work with their hands, I’m prone to overuse injuries, and I wanted to give my hands a rest. I discovered Amy’s podcast, and it gave me the idea of turning my workshops into pre-recorded classes. That way, I could teach a class ONCE and then offer it online all the time.

Even so, I hesitated because it seemed very few of Amy’s students were artists. I worried her framework wouldn’t apply to the world of art classes.

But then I discovered a fellow artist, Miriam Schulman (one of Amy’s students), promoting DCA on Instagram. I knew that Miriam had a very successful art class business, so I decided to take the plunge, and I’m glad I did!

I had already built a website and started an email list after listening to advice from Amy’s podcast. But once I joined Digital Course Academy, I used Amy’s list building and lead magnet framework to double my email subscribers in about 1 month, from about 700 to roughly 1,400.

I decided my first course: Scrap Paper Circus, would be an affordable, introductory class that lots of people could participate in. I also made my pre-sale discount available to my entire email list.

I learned from selling handmade books on Etsy that it’s much easier to bring customers back than to get them in the door. I knew if I could give students a great first experience at an irresistible price, they would be more likely to take more classes in the future.

Over 130 students signed up for the presale (meaning I hadn’t created my course yet, just an outline), and I made almost $6,000!

Amy gave me the knowledge and the courage to try things I wouldn’t have otherwise. I would NEVER have thought a presale would work if it weren’t for DCA.

That initial success has given me the confidence to continue pursuing my dream of being a successful online course creator.

With just the presale, I’ve already accomplished so much more than I thought was possible for online art classes. It’s been life-changing for me, and now I truly believe I can make a sustainable living as an artist with the tools I gained from DCA. I’m so excited to see where this leads!