Screencasting for a Living?- Yes You Can
For about Five years I worked for AT&T as a full time Instructional Designer and my worked involved the creation of training videos for the employees at AT&T. I loved it. It was creative, challenging and not stressful at all.
After I left there I freelanced off-line as an Instructional Designer, creating Instructional videos for all types of businesses for many years before getting a Website and promoting myself exclusively to the on-line community. Now, I help Internet businesses create all types of videos, both training and marketing but all using the same basic tools. The point is, you can make a really good living just making training videos for others if you want to and it is really enjoyable. These videos did not require any sort of real moviemaking knowledge. I didn’t have to know anything about lighting or hiring talent or any sort of Hollywood stuff. They were all done using 
PowerPoint and video captures of my computer screen (called Screencasts) combined and imported into Camtasia software where I edited them and produced the videos.
All from my desktop. Lots of my friends are still with companies or freelancing doing this kind of work and they average around $50-75 hour. They call themselves Instructional Designers, Instructional Technologists or E-Learning Specialists. Some have advanced degrees, like myself, but many do not and have just learned how to do it through training classes. My graduate degree, basically, taught me how to design training for adult learners, so I understand how people learn but they never taught us how to use the software tools necessary. That training I had to take on my own after I graduated. Many Instructional Designers are hired for two to six month projects working for large and medium sized businesses and schools so there is some stability in that, but you never get bored being with the same company for a very long time. Recently, I have been approached to start teaching what I know about on-line learning and Camtasia software at an on on-line university. They want their professors to start creating their own Web based training.
If you have ever thought about creating training videos, whether for your own business or to work for an outside company as a freelancer, may I suggest you take a look a the course I am teaching on Camtasia 6 which starts next Thursday, Oct 22. We (Lon Naylor and I) filled it to capacity when we ran it last April. but we still do have a few seats left this time as we haven’t promoted it quite as much. It is a fast track way to break into the field and we fill it to the brim with content and templates!
http://screencastprofits.com/camtasia6/
Hope you’ll join us!
Sincerely,
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