How to Sell Curriculum You Wrote Yourself¶

If you wrote the material yourself, you can sell it as a file, or as a course a child works through step by step. On NavEd Network, one teacher builds one self-paced course in a free workspace, and families buy it. NavEd keeps 3% of each sale. Stripe's card fee, 2.9% plus 30 cents, also comes out of the sale.

A search for "how to sell homeschool curriculum online" mostly turns up advice about used books and workbooks your kids are done with. If that is what you have, that advice is what you want. If what you have is a twelve-week history unit you wrote for your Tuesday co-op class, and other families keep asking if they can use it, keep reading.

Who this is for¶

A teacher or parent in a co-op, a microschool, a hybrid school, a university-model school, a Classical Conversations community, a small private academy, or a family teaching at home. You built a class. It worked on the kids in front of you. Now someone outside your group wants it.

What you can sell¶

There are two shapes, and they are different products.

A file. A document, a set of worksheets, a reading list with answer keys. The family downloads it and uses it however they like. You could sell this on your own website. It suits material that is finished the moment someone has it. The tradeoff is that you never see how a child does with it, and nothing stops it from being copied around.

A course a child works through. The material is laid out in order, with a due date on each step, and the child turns work in. You read it and respond. This suits a unit that runs over weeks, where the teaching is in the feedback as much as the content. The tradeoff is that you are now answerable for responding to the work, so it takes more of your time per family.

Pick by asking what the family is really buying. If it is a set of materials, sell a file. If it is a place in your class, sell a course.

How it works on NavEd Network¶

You build the course in NavEd Lessons, the same tool any NavEd school already uses to run a class. A course is made of sections and steps. A step can hold text, links, videos, files, a rubric and a due date. A step can ask the student to turn in a photo, a video, a document or written text, and you can leave feedback and let the student resubmit.

Here is the rest of the path:

1. You sign up for a free seller workspace. Building the course costs nothing.
2. A person at NavEd approves you as a seller, and approves your course before it goes live.
3. You set a one-time price, either per child or per family.
4. A family pays by card. The buyer is not charged extra for NavEd's share or Stripe's.
5. The child becomes a student in your workspace. You see the work they turn in and respond to it.
6. Stripe pays you out on a rolling delay of about 7 days.

The family does not need a NavEd account to buy.

A few details worth knowing before you start. Each seller builds one course. The email you sign up with has to be one that has never had a NavEd account, so use a fresh address if you have already tried NavEd with your usual one.

What the money looks like¶

NavEd keeps 3% of each sale. Stripe's card fee, 2.9% plus 30 cents, comes out of the same sale. What reaches you is the sale price minus both. Nothing is owed on a course that does not sell, and building it is free.

We are leaving out example earnings on purpose. What families will pay depends on your subject, your grade range and how much of your time is in the course, and no number from us would be honest. Our post on pricing a course for families works through the fee math if you want to try figures of your own.

What it is not¶

A course on the Network is self-paced. It is not a live class, and your part is reading the work and responding.

It is also new. The catalogue at network.nav.education/courses/ has no courses in it yet, so there is nothing to browse today. If you list one, you would be among the first, and nobody has bought through it yet to tell you how it goes.

Before you list anything: a short check¶

• Did you teach it to real students at least once? A unit that has only ever lived in your head will have gaps you find on the first run.
• Can a child do most of it without you in the room? Reading, written responses and problem sets travel well. A discussion that depends on you being there does not.
• Is it written down in order, week by week? If you can lay it out that way, you can build it.
• Do you have time to respond to submitted work? If not, a file may suit you better.

If your answers are mostly yes, you have something to sell. If you want to see how a unit gets built before deciding, How to Sell a Course You Already Teach walks through it step by step.

When you are ready, you can start a seller workspace.