What Creators Getting Paid IS NOT

Greed is Not Good

Announcements:

• Coaching hours-I have decreased my coaching hours and now have 7 coaching hours a month. You can book a coaching session here. Once you book that session I will reach out to schedule the time. Cost: $300

  • Available-Monday, September 25, 2023-Wednesday, September 27, 2023

  • Available-Tuesday, October 3, 2023-Wednesday, October 4, 2023

  • I won’t be available for coaching in November or December.

Upcoming Workshops

I’m hosting 2 in-person workshops the first weekend in October.

• How to Create a Newsletter that Pays-Everyone should be actively growing an email list/newsletter for their business. I’ve made thousands of dollars with my different lists. In this workshop I will walk through how to design an impactful newsletter, monetization strategies and more. Date: TBA

• How to Make Money Affiliate Marketing-Sunday, October 9, 2023 at 1:00 pm MTN: Cost: $37 I absolutely love affiliate marketing but most people are doing it wrong. In this workshop I’m going to walk through how to make money affiliate marketing, strategies to focus on and what to consider before you start.

Right now I’m in the process of reaching out to other creators doing incredible work that I would like to share with this community. Typically this is a pretty straightforward and ridiculously easy process because I’m usually reaching out to people that I’ve met or I’m pretty sure would likely say “yes.”

Except this time I had someone hedge at my request. Now, let’s be clear, I’m 100% ok with people telling me “no” to a guest request because people have stuff going on. They might be too busy or right now is the wrong time to get in front of an audience that doesn’t fit what they’re working on right now.

This was different.

The following potential guest has a non-profit and I had reached out because I’ve noticed that sometimes content creators design and create non-profit spaces as a way to expand and further lean into their personal missions. Or, to serve communities in a way that they aren’t being served now.

I left that interaction feeling very misunderstood.

I’m even a Board Member of a large non-profit here in Colorado and have a Masters Degree in Public Administration with an emphasis in Non-profit Management. No one is getting rich working at non-profits…but, they do need to be profitable in order to serve. The conversation left me confused and a little angry. What was this person’s perception of me and this project? Then I realized that this was an important conversation because I needed to do the following:

• Provide further clarity around the mission and purpose of Creators Getting Paid

• Not take the conversation as a critique but an opportunity

Be grateful-what if I hadn’t realized that some people were confused by the mission of this project and didn’t figure it out until a year later.

What Creators Getting Paid IS and IS NOT

It’s time to be very clear about what this project is and is not.

• It is not about “greed is good”

• Creators Getting Paid is focused on helping online content creators continue to build and design impactful online brands that can sustain themselves financially.

• It is not about sharing weird get rich gimmicks.

• Creators Getting Paid is about sharing helpful and thoughtful case studies highlighting the successes and challenges experienced by other online creators so that you can learn from them.

• It is not a place that’s going to tell you that it’s easy to make money online

  • If it was no one would need a tool or resource like this

• Creators Getting Paid also is not a place where I’m going to try to convince people that they should get paid for their work. That’s their own personal decision.

• It is a place to learn how to sell, share and talk about your goods, products and services. It’s a skillset and it can feel scary. I even shared workshops that I’m running in a couple of weeks in this post.

What If You DON’T Want to Get Paid?

I have a couple of friends who run a large online project (I hope to interview them for Creators Getting Paid) they are independently wealthy-seriously, they are freaking rich. They don’t need to get paid from their project. They are rich LOL! But the various initiatives related to the project that they are working on do need money to help serve their community.

Their project has to earn money in order to better serve their community. They are not focused on personal financial gain and that is not an influencing factor of the work that they do. But they do earn money in order to offer grants, pay for their community administrators’ time and other projects that come up.

My friend Amanda decided to film a documentary about her hometown Portsmouth, Ohio called “Peerless City.” No one else had created a project like this about her small town. That documentary is now on PBS, she has won awards for this work and she now runs a non-profit. She applies for grants and other funding in order to do this work. The funding also pays her and her team members for the time to film her documentaries, market them, etc.

I share these two stories to give a further context into what I’m thinking about as I design and lean into who I’m serving with this project and the type of creatives that are looking to get paid and how that can take place in many forms.

What if You DO Want to Get Paid?

I’m an online creative who does want to get paid. However I spent years, literally years, agonizing over what that looks like online.

I worried about the following:

• The ethics of online monetization-How could I thoughtfully serve and get paid at the same time? I believe I’ve figured that out and am sharing that messaging, strategies and content design to consider via this resource.

• Designing products that made sense for my audience-What if I created things and they did or did not sell? Then what?

• What would people think about my monetization efforts? Would it piss off my audience?

What I’ve Realized People Don’t Share Enough

• There are so many ways to monetize that don’t need to directly connect to the online brand you are building. Example: I make money writing romance novels under a pen name. I love the money that lands in my bank account every month from that project.

• You absolutely can and absolutely should leverage your skills in different ways to get paid. Many of them don’t have to be front facing to your brand.

Some examples:

• Affiliate marketing on a website that you’re quietly growing (I’m doing this)

• Ad revenue on a website that you’re quietly growing (I’m doing this)

• Working with a brand partner to record a white label video series (licensed) that people pay for access to. (I’ve done this)

• Selling a course on a platform such as Udemy or something similar.

• Selling a course direct to your audience.

• Ghostwriting

• Building a newsletter and monetizing it (I’m doing this)

• Sell workshops or courses on-demand (I do this)

Why I Created Creators Getting Paid

There are several reasons why I created this project and I think it’s important to share before I begin sharing guest case studies again.

• I had the experience creating an online brand that made money but didn’t have consistent cash flow jeopardizing the work that I was doing in the spaces that I create content in. For my personal finance brand I share impactful and nuanced financial conversations that I noticed weren’t being had-if I was broke how could I sustain that work? There are so many creators especially creators from marginalized communities doing incredible work that would otherwise not be done who were struggling with building cash flow in their businesses.

• Creators Getting Paid is free or $5 a month on purpose-It is intentionally designed to be affordable and accessible so that content creators can learn online business building strategies where they currently are at in their business (financially or if the business is really new)

I’m Selfish

I want to continue to enjoy and shout out the projects that people are creating that otherwise wouldn’t be created by folks who aren’t invested in the communities that you’re serving.

Want some examples?

• Projects talking about what it’s like to be a Blerd (Black Nerd)

• Projects empowering women.

• Projects helping Girl Dads

• Projects focused on grief shared from a different perspective

• Projects focused on uplifting conversations that normally aren’t shared.

• Projects uplifting a comedic take about something

I want you to make money so that you can design the lives you want with the work that you’re doing while serving your unique communities.

• It is not easy

• It’s worth doing

• You should and can get compensated for it.

• Helping you thoughtfully grow predictable cashflow even if it’s $100 a month that goes towards covering the cost of hosting your website, podcast or both.

But, that $100 can and will grow overtime. And it can become your bill money, savings, investing money or how you support yourself.

Creators Getting Paid

Ultimately has been designed for the online creator who would like to get paid. Whether they are a for profit business or a non-profit-I want you to earn money that helps you continue your work and your lifestyle.

Why Do You Want to Get Paid?

• To live the life you want from where you want (this is me)

• To sustain the important work that you’re doing (this is me)

• To pay my bills, etc (this is me)

• Because my time costs money (this is me)

Why do YOU Want to Get Paid? Share in the comments! I wan to validate and support your aspirations and your projects.

Thanks for letting me get this off my chest.

Sending Good Vibes,

Michelle