Hey Guys,
I am starting to wonder about something....
As you know, I built my own electric motorcycle and then my own electric car. After that, I made
instructional DVDs on the two subjects to teach how anyone could build their own.
That also lead me to be a presenter at some pretty major events, such as the
Midwest Renewable Energy Association Fair and
Mother Earth News Fairs.
I put enough time and work into these DVDs, online videos, and blogging that I really need to earn at least PART of my living working on this kind of thing.
I have sold enough of the DVDs that it paid for both the car and motorcycle (granted that they were both budget projects!) I also earn a small amount monthly from the ads on my transportation blog,
300MPG.org, and on my YouTube videos.
However, sales of the instructional DVDs have been steeply declining. I think there are two reasons for that. One is that I'm not actively building either project anymore. They are both done and work fine. When I was continuously working on them, I had a constant stream of updates that got the audience to watch, and eventually to order a DVD.
The other thing that is hurting orders is that you can simply run out and BUY a nice new off-the-shelf electric car from a dealership! It's hard to beat the power, speed, and warranty of a nice new Leaf!
My real goal is to teach as many people as possible, while being able to earn just enough money to keep doing it.
At one point I offered to GIVE AWAY free instructional DVDs to teachers, with the idea that they would use them in the classroom to maximize student exposure to some of these DIY Clean Transportation concepts. I simply asked that the teachers make a donation in ANY amount or let me know how it gets used in their classroom. Unfortunately, I shipped out quite a few DVDs (with me paying shipping and materials costs!) with minimal donations collected, or follow-up from instructors. (I did get quite a few thank-yous!)
So, hmmmmmmm.... In that case, it looked like being generous only hurt me, as I was loosing money physically making and shipping DVDs. Unfortunately, it feels like people never value anything when it's "free".
So, I guess here's what I'm wondering.... Should I put the entirety of both instructional DVDs on YouTube?
I already have about 300 videos on there, which my audience seems to dig. I have nearly 5,000 subscribers and over 2.5 million total views.
On YouTube, I can collect a little ad revenue, and if the YouTube version of the instructional DVDs is popular (which I can't help but think it would be) it might be enough ad revenue for it to be worth my effort.
I haven't really had any issues with anyone pirating my DVDs, but if ANYONE is going to pirate them, shouldn't it be me?
At the same time, I'm wondering if there is some way that I could also do a massive social media marketing campaign. One possibility would be to launch a
Kickstarter. Maybe I could do a kickstarter campaign about maximizing access to information about DIY electric vehicles, taking it open source, or adding new content to the discs. I would offer the DVDs as the rewards for pledging to the campaign. I'd have to read through all the fine print on Kickstarter for what they do and don't allow and the right way to approach it.
So, what do you think? Do you have ideas?
Once again, I'm not trying to get rich off of this and I really do want to get as much good info out to as many people as possible, but if I can't earn a little money off of it, it means my projects have to stop as I'm too busy earning money to pay for rent and groceries. By the way, cash
IS a limiting factor on projects like the
Hybrid Pickup and repairing the flood-damaged Mitsubishi i-MIEV. Frankly, any money from any of this HAS gone right back into projects, presentations, and promoting clean energy and transportation.
Your thoughts?