Updated 8th January 2017. I initially wrote this post in May 2016 full of excitement about Amazon’s venture into educational video. I was contacted by Amazon and encouraged to take part. How could this not be good? Well, it isn’t. I wouldn’t advise educational video content creators, courses creators, or any self-publishing entrepreneur to get involved with Amazon Video Direct. Sure, I get my content viewed but there is hardly any payout! But if you really want, I’ll explain how to get started on the platform and how to sell video courses on Amazon Video Direct.
This is Amazon entering the user-generated video market. Creators can upload their own videos to Amazon’s Prime Video and generate royalties based on the hours streamed. Video-makers have several options to monetize: videos can be rented, owned, or they can be free and ad-supported. Videos can also be packaged together and offered as an add-on subscription to Amazon Prime Video.
What do I think about it?
I thought the opportunity to sell my video courses and tutorials on the Amazon platform is simply too good to pass. I was even personally contacted by the Seattle-based company about Amazon Video Direct. I spoke at length to three Amazon employees who all seemed excited and committed to the platform.
However, after I experience teething troubles on the platform, the Amazon people disappeared. I ended up spending a lot of money getting videos transcribed and wasting a lot of time uploading some of my material. For nothing! Thanks, guys.
The platform will be linked to Amazon’s hugely successful Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) – both in essence and literally. At some stage we’ll be able to link our video products to our textual products (Kindles). The full details of this are not yet available. The platform is new and still in its testing phase. So far nothing.
So, at the moment, I would avoid this platform.
Remember, there are very few online video platforms that require exclusivity. So you can have the same videos on YouTube, Udemy and, now, Amazon Video Direct.
OK. How do we sign up?
Remember, this isn’t YouTube where a 13-year-old can set up an account and upload a video from their phone in seconds. Amazon wants serious video creators and, maybe for this reason, the signing up process takes 10 minutes or so. A small barrier to entry to dissuade the amateurs.
Here is a video I made of the account creation process at Amazon Video Direct.
Here’s what you do:
- Log in at videodirect.amazon.com using the credentials (email and password) associated with your Kindle Direct Publishing account, your existing Amazon account or create a new one.
- Review and electronically accept the Contractual Agreement.
- Set up the Company Information (can be just your name), banking, and tax information to get your profile created. As mentioned in the above video, if you are a non-US citizen, you can forego the 30% sales tax that American citizens have to pay. Here is a video of me getting an EIN tax identifcation number from the IRS.
Once you’ve done all the above, you will be directed to the portal and will be able to upload new titles to Amazon Video. Woohoo!
Adding additional members and VAs to the account
Another amazing thing you can do on the Amazon platform (that you can’t do on Udemy, Skillshare, or, for that matter, YouTube) is to connect other Amazon users to your Amazon Video Direct account.
If you want to add additional members to the account:
- Click the company name in the top right corner (next to the language and help buttons)
- Click “Your Account”
- Click Users & Roles
- Add your VA’s Amazon email address
Here are the settings I used for my VA’s access to my Amazon Video Direct account:
Why would you want other people to have access to your videos? So you can get a VA (Virtual Assistant) to do a lot of the leg-work for you which frees up more of your time for content creation.
Selling video courses on Amazon Video Direct
Now comes the exciting bit – getting your videos on the platform so that they can be sold to the 244 million active users on Amazon.com (and that doesn’t include the audience on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de and Amazon.jp).
If you click on the “Videos” link in the top navigation at Video Direct you are confronted with 3 options:
Click “Standalone” for your single YouTube-type movies and tutorials. But choose “Episodic” for your long form, multi-video, Udemy-type courses.
The above video walks you through the whole process of how to upload and sell video courses on Amazon Video Direct.
There are many, many technical and publishing specifications for you to bear in mind. Remember, this isn’t as simple as putting up video on YouTube. Here is a very useful main support document from Amazon Video Direct. But here are the main takeaways and pain points I’ve had so far:
Video: I would supply 1920×1080 (16:9 aspect ratio) HD MP4s exported from any good video editor (Screenflow, Camtasia, etc.) – although 1280×720 is also OK, I would go for the bigger format to be on the safe side.
Audio: As ever, good quality audio from a high quality microphone is important. Audio duration and video duration must match. 1-Channel Mono embedded audio is OK.
Captions (timed-text/subtitle files): This is a new one for me. Amazon is a “customer-obsessed company and captions help ensure a consistent viewing experience for all customers, including those who may be hearing-impaired, are non-native English speakers, or prefer to view videos without sound”. Here are Amazon’s specs and list of providers for captions. So far I’ve used Rev.com who charge $1/minute and provide an excellent service. Or you could download a caption file at YouTube and edit it. I’ve had mixed results doing this.
Key Art: you need 3 images for each Standalone video and Episodic video series. Image specs and sizes here. Standalone titles need a 1200×1600 (3:4) image, episodic titles need a 1600×1200 (4:3) image; Both standalone and episodic titles need a main 1920 x 1080 (16:9) as well as a background images of the same size. JPGs or PNGs file formats.
Got it? Good. Apart from the above it’s just adding good, keyword-rich titles and synopses. Remember, all these are barriers to entry that some people won’t bother with, leaving less competition in this exciting new platform for you – and me!
Uploading videos at Amazon Video Direct
I’ve made over 16 courses that add up to 30GB worth of video files. That’s a hell of a lot to upload! Fortunately, I’ve devised a way to do this without having to upload any videos at all.
Just before I decided to run my business from the Land of the Smiles, I got myself a Dropbox Pro account (around about $100/year for 1TB of backup). So all the files on my laptop are permanently backed up to the cloud (we hope).
Amazon Video Direct allow a direct upload from Amazon’s cloud storage service Amazon S3. So all I had to do is find an inexpensive way to move files from one cloud service to another. There are many companies that do this. I found that Zapier provided the most simple and cost-effective solution. See above my video on how to move video files from Dropbox to Amazon s3 for use on Amazon Video Direct. Here is the zap: Copy files from a Dropbox folder to an Amazon S3 bucket. You can also move files from Drive to Amazon S3 in a similar way. You can get Zapier free for 14 days.
So, this plus the ability to add my VA as an additional member to the Amazon Video Direct account (see above), means I can get all my courses uploaded to this new and exciting platform without me having to do too much work! That’s something I like very much.
For free, rent or sale? What price to sell video courses on Amazon Video Direct?
Now there’s a question.
Here’s what I’m doing. For Standalone videos (and, remember, my Standalone videos are all between 5 minutes to 15 minutes in length), I’m supplying free with pre-roll ads.
For Episodic videos (Udemy-type courses) customers will, interestingly, have to ability to buy single episodes or whole series. I’ll be experimenting with a number of price points. The lowest price for an episode seems to be $0.99. Here’s my pricing for a short (2.5 hour) course
Amazon recommend using custom pricing so that you can ensure courses are competitively priced for customers. It will be fascinating how this plays out. I could price a course quite low initially ($9.99), sell it to my list to get sales on Amazon’s platform early on (Amazon’s A9 algo loves that) and then raise the price to something more like $26.99. Just a thought. But, there will be many interesting pricing strategies emerging. Maybe Amazon will enable us to do countdown deals and free days as they do on KDP Direct. And there’s Prime Day and Black Friday. Oh my!
Selling on Amazon Video Direct – You Can Do It!
For education, this platform is still in its pilot phase so there are some known hiccups, such as the inability for bulk upload and rearranging of courses once a listing is created. We still don’t really know how to link to supplementary materials in the courses.
This looked like a great opportunity but so far it seems Amazon isn’t taking it seriously. Proceed with caution, you could end up like me, having a lot of your material viewed for next to nothing.
absolutely brilliant information. thanks rob. i’m setup on videodirect and i’m looking forward to playing there. hope you’ll share some stats with us after a month how your doing?
Sure will share everything going forward. 🙂
Great post Rob!
Thanks, Phil.
Great article on video direct. Can I use the same account as KDP? Are they as strict as Udemy? Overall I am excited about this.
Yes, use the same account as the one you use for KDP, Shalu. So far not strict but really it’s too early to tell.
This is a very informative and exciting post Ron. Thanks for sharing. This will prove to be interesting and very lucrative if it takes off.
Thank you.
Great info Rob! SO comprehensively presented. Saved this in my important blog file!
Thanks, Heather.
Fantastic stuff Rob! Do you have anything ready to sell on Amazon yet?
Yes, busy uploading as we speak, Sergio. No sales yet! It’s taking time to get individual videos approved.
Great post Rob! Lots of great actionable info.
Question for you – do you think that it will be a race to the bottom after a while? Like if individual classes are priced at $.99 and entire courses for $9.99 (example). Do you think we’ll see the same challenges as with Udemy in rock bottom pricing? (I know Udemy is trying to change that with their new pricing strategy)
I mean, we could even compare it to Kindle right? We all know that to make the most on every book, we need to price it at $2.99 but not more than $9.99. Do you think this might follow the same pattern?
Don’t get me wrong. I think this could be a fantastic opportunity! I just want us to be able to leverage it in the right way.
Perhaps using Amazon as a place to do a good but short intro course and then lead people over to our own platform/course? Perhaps tap into Amazon’s 240 M users and siphon them off to our own list? Like Udemy, Amazon is pretty protective of it’s users and doesn’t want us getting their emails. Just a thought.
Sidenote – I’m in love with Teachable for course creation lately!
Long comment I know – Thanks Rob!!
Hi Sean, well, it’s basically up to you how you price the course on Amazon at the moment. As it is on Kindle. You can price a Kindle at $99 if you really want to! So I don’t think you can say it will be a race to the bottom just because Amazon’s involved.
At this moment in time, it’s unclear how Amazon are going to react to attempts to pull customers off their platform onto yours. If initial indications are anything to go by they are pretty relaxed about it. But Udemy was pretty relaxed about it until they started seeing some success and then they reacted against it and changed the rules several times.
“Using Amazon as a place to do a good but short intro course and then lead people over to our own platform/course?” That’s the plan at the moment.
We just don’t know as yet. Too early to tell.
Thanks Rob
Thanks, Kim
Wow Rob, this is an amazing resource. Thank you. As always you have made the complex easy to understand.
I’ve only just started to cut my teeth on You Tube so I guess I’ll be a while before jumping on this one.
I’m a right in thinking you can upload the content you added to both YT and Udemy here too?
Thank you, David, yes, you are right in thinking you can upload the content you added to both YT and Udemy at Amazon Video Direct too. I have added this to the article to make it clear. Lots of people asking this. 🙂
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Been looking for a viable solution to replace Udemy (other then my own hosting of course). Udemy has left a bad taste in my mouth lately. This is exactly what I was looking for !!! Down with Udemy. Sorry, get carried away sometimes. 🙂
Hey Chris, lol. I get carried away myself sometimes too. However, I’m not quite ready to give up on Udemy just yet! The beauty of selling video courses online, of course, is that you can sell the same or similar products on multiple platforms. I know what you mean by Udemy leaving a bad taste in the mouth sometimes. Maybe they have made some mistakes but no one company is ever perfect!
Hey Rob – This is great info (as always!) how can I see your videos on Amazon? Thanks 🙂
There are only a few up there at the moment, Megan. If you search Amazon. for “Rob Cubbon” you can now see the videos if you scroll down past the Kindles! No courses have been published as yet.
Hi Rob, Fantastic article – making this new area clear as possible. Quick question, I used your EIN number guide video to get an EIN number from the states today (Yay! and Thanks) – but was informed on the phone due to work load it could be a couple of weeks before their systems catch up. Can I still sign up for Amazon Direct Video and skip the tax bit for now and do it later when my EIN number is in the IRS system?
Hey Steve, thank you. If I were you I would attempt to sign up, you can always add info later.
Had no idea this was even an option. Very curious to see how this plays out in terms of audience exposure and income. I know you’ll keep us posted!
This is brand new, Nick, watch this space, as they say. This could be huge.
Really bummed, Rob. Apparently this is only works for first world people who have first world bank accounts that Amazon can do electronic transfers to. KDP and Createspace will at least send us third world people cheques. I hope they will work this out.
I didn’t know about this, Karen. I’ll look into this and get back to you about it if I may.
No need, Rob. I emailed them and I’m afraid they really can only include videos from people who live in countries on their EFT payment list. They may deal with it in time but I am not holding my breath. Thanks for offering though. Perhaps if you have a live meeting with someone over there some time, you could mention it.
Rob, thank you so much for sharing this! I will definitely upload some short videos just to test this out, but I want to think about the long-term strategy before putting too much out just yet.
There can be such great potential here, and it’s exciting to see Amazon getting into the video selling game. Thanks for the detailed post!
Yeah, I’m still deciding my long term strategy as well, Lisa. But it’ll definitely be interesting to put a few videos up there and see what happens 🙂
HI Rob,
when trying to upload videos on Amazon Vid Direct I get trouble.
Uploading would stop after a few minutes without Amazon indicating what the problem might be.
Do you or anybody have any solution for that available?
The last video in this article shows you a solution, Kurt. Upload from Amazon S3.
Well, the problem here is that
1. this is a paid service (at least if you have more than 1 courses you are above the free allowance)
and 2. no one can guarantee that the same issue does not apply with S3 as well. I ve seen a youtube video with a guy indicating that he had problems uploading to S3 due to some poor frames in the videos. No other platform had those issues.
I suspect that Amazon has some bugs in their video content management system.
Kurt
Hi Kurt, 1. you obviously haven’t checked the S3 pricing. It’s extremely cheap. 2. All platforms have issues with video storage and delivery. I had no reason to doubt that Amazon will do this extremely well. However, if it’s too much trouble to do it, don’t do it! 🙂
HI Rob,
your point 2 is simply wrong: there are several platforms that have figured out how to handle video content (which of course has larger sizes).
Youtube can do that quite well, and even Udemy (while they have problems quite often) is able to do it quite “ok”.
Seeing your last income report, and those issues, I doubt that this Amazon Video service will be a viable income source in the next 6 months or so. Amazon needs to work a lot on that!
Hi Kurt, Yes, as I say, YouTube and Udemy have problems with video storage and delivery – only the other day Udemy disappeared – but they work it out and improve. Amazon will do as well.
And, as I say, Kurt, if you don’t want to do AVD, don’t do it. I will continue to provide concrete and free info on my findings – people are free to make their own judgments on that. And, believe me, people have very different opinions.
Hi Rob, With my Udemy courses I have supporting documents. I can’t see on Amazon that you can add anything other than video and can’t seem to get an answer form Amazon – do you know? thanks
Hello Sarah, unbelievably, this is what Amazon said to me: “we still recommend that if you have supplemental materials that are needed for the course, that you host them on your own website and add video footage to your content informing customers on how to access it”. So I have recorded a generic second video showing a page on my site where they can click on the relevant course and access the downloadable materials. In their T&Cs they say that they don’t like customers going off Amazon’s site and when they go to my site I’ll be trying to get their email address… so it’s kind of crazy that they’re suggesting this but, hey!
Great info!
I’m getting onto it as we speak.
Any results coming through yet?
Results aren’t looking great atm. Not having many sales so just getting views through Prime users. Will update you asap. 🙂
Rob, way to shine a light on this issue. I searched out the topic because I was wondering if it would be better to do the 99 cent/course thing, or edit all the videos into 1 longer video and sell as a single movie.
Kyle, at the moment we are only getting free views from Prime members and no sales of the courses. I’m pricing courses at $10-30 with the individual 5 minute lessons at $0.99 which is faintly ridiculous but it doesn’t matter because, as I say, no one is buying them but we do get views which we’re paid very little for. It’s early days for the platform. We’ll have to see if it’s worth our time in the next few months.
Hi Rob – Great info!
I tried to view the videos. It was a little weird – the videos do not play. Not sure if it is my browser issue (tried both chrome and IE). I do not see paid course now. Did you remove it?
Hi rob i get little guide line from your videos, is it complete course.
Nice article about video direct. Can this account be used as KDP?
Yes, Anirudh, I use the same account.
Hey Rob
Just checking to see if you think it’s worth it or not? I know it’s still in early stages but just curious
Thanks!
Probably not, Tasha. It depends on your niche, but I’m getting 100-200 minutes viewed a day free for Amazon Prime visitors but they’re not making me more than $20/month. It’s not right for an educational video course platform at the moment.
Great videos and info thanks, have set my videos up now on amazon vid services, skillshare, tucon, teachable and few others, see how sales com in , let you know in 2017
Thanks! Best of luck for 2017, Nick! 🙂
So, Nick. How did it go for you?
Does this Amazon platform allow the instructor to create quizzes?
No, it’s a very poor platform in terms of features like that.
HI Rob.
Great article, thanks!
Any worries about hooking a bank account up to it directly.
I’ve kind of liked how Udemy does Paypal.
With all of Amazon’s properties (I use quite a few): Kindle publishing, Amazon Video Direct, Amazon FBA, Amazon MBA, etc.) they pay into your bank account. But it’s not difficult to set up.
Thanks Rob!
Thanks for creating this, Rob! I have a few of my own online courses on my own sites and on Udemy, I thought for sure putting them on Amazon would be great for extra income. I’m not surprised to hear about the low payout. I used to sell via Amazon FBA pretty heavily, but their astronomical fee increase has me seeking greener pastures. Cheers, Sarah
Hello Sarah. The motto is “you never know with Amazon”. They are a huge company and they’re innovating in so many areas, it’s hard to keep up. There are some people saying that Merch is the new FBA. However, I’m sticking with Amazon. I’m involved in Merch, FBA, Kindle, and video. LOL
Freaking awesome mate…. Link to your Amizon video store?
I’ve got to say it’s not that freaking awesome. I make like $40 a month there! I don’t have a store as the author link goes through to a page on Amazon with mostly my books and a few videos. However, here’s one of my movies: Starting, Managing, and Scaling a Successful Online Business.
That was very useful – thank you!
Why do you think your income has been so low? Is it because the cut you’re getting from Prime is much lower than direct (non-Prime episode or season) sales? Is it because Amazon is taking too large a slice from your direct sales? Or is it because users are gravitating just to the free standalone movies and not buying your multi-movie courses? Your insight is much appreciated.
Hello Chris. Most of them a viewing through Prime and I’m getting virtually zero sales of the courses or even of individual videos. So it’s because the prime revenue is so low. I don’t think I have much video there for free. In the last 3 months I had 10,000 and I’ve got 3 courses up there, I think. It’s still not looking good. I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.
That is helpful – thank you. I was looking at the Amazon Prime rates, and they looked ridiculously low, especially for higher-dollar-per-minute content like video training. Maybe those creating entertainment can make it up in quantity, but I don’t think trainers can; I’ll stick to a straight pay-to-own model if I use them. Thank you again.