Last month, the Medium Academy wrapped up its last session. For nine weeks, I’d revealed everything I knew about one of the world’s most popular writing platforms to a cohort of aspiring content creators.
That cohort still exists, and has turned into a bustling little community on Discord. We have check-ins scheduled soon, and I cannot wait to see how each member’s writing journey develops.
But for me, it wasn’t enough. This was, after all, the first live training course I’d ever developed and I knew right from the start that future courses would need tweaking.
I just didn’t realise quite how much.
Running an online, live, cohort-based course is much harder than I thought it would be. Getting the curriculum right, pacing it correctly, and, most importantly, drawing in a big enough list of members to make it profitable was one of my biggest challenges since starting this business. Despite this, I’ve loved every minute of it and, thanks to those lovely cohort members and their reaction to the Medium Academy, I’m even more excited about what’s to come.
I’ve often said in these newsletters that I work within an industry that doesn’t really feature any competition. I have friends within it who do the exact same thing as me and who target the exact same audience. Yet, we share ideas, reveal our plans (not all of them, but a good chunk), and keep our ears close to the ground for intelligence that might benefit us all.
This is partly why I created the Medium Academy. I wanted to share how I’ve managed to consistently earn over $2,000 per month on its Partner Program; I wanted others to achieve that incredible feeling of being paid handsomely for doing stuff you actually love doing.
What has struck me over the last three years is how much interest people take in the way my business is run, how I make money and the myriad of components from which it is built. Medium is just one of those components. This is why the next Academy won’t be called the Medium Academy - it’ll be called the Mark Ellis Academy, and it will cover everything I know about the business of content creation.
I’ve mapped it out already. There will be four stages covered: mindset, platforms, planning and creation, and growth. Within those four stages, 11 modules of learning will cover everything from nailing down your niche to building your influence across the platforms that matter, engaging an audience via the art of storytelling, and how to make sense of your metrics. It is, basically, Mark Ellis Reviews, unscrewed, ripped apart, and torn into.
As you’d guess, there’s a fair bit of work required to put this all together, which is why the Mark Ellis Academy will be launching later this year. It’ll be worth it though, I promise. This new Academy will become one of the most exciting and community-centric elements of Solo Club and I can’t wait to share it with you. It’s the epitome of what Solo Club is all about; if I can do it, trust me - you definitely can.
To stay up-to-date on what’s happening with the Mark Ellis Academy, you can sign up to the waiting list here.