TeachersPayTeachers is this fantastic website with nearly TWO MILLION resources made by teachers*, for teachers. Prices for materials range from free to $1,800, although the average price is $5.
(*Actually a lot of people that sell aren't educators although they still make some awesome stuff.)
I used TPT a lot when I was an elementary school librarian, particularly after having my first child. I knew what I wanted to do in class, but all of the resources I had were old and unattractive. While I know it's about the content and not about what it looks like, I just couldn't stand to look at the yellowing transparencies. However, I didn't have the time to recreate everything. Many a time I would hop on TPT and find this amazing ^free (because I have yet to buy something on there) resource and use it the next day.
Well, during that time I had heard how first-grade teacher Deanna Jump made $1,000,000 (yep, 6 zeros) by selling on TPT. Now, there are over 12 teachers that have earned over a million dollars and over 300 have earned more than $100,000.
I was (and still am) totally broke and was spending hours creating what I thought to be awesome teaching resources. TeachersPayTeachers seemed like a perfect option for me. So, I listed a few things. One of my resources (free) was downloaded over 20,000 times! Awesome, right? So I began putting a price of some of my things. I had bookmarks, a call number game, etc. I never marketed my products and I never bought the premium version of TPT, so I got about 20 cents on the dollar for anything I sold. But whatever - when you're that broke, an extra $10 a month is awesome!
But then, it just started feeling yucky. I'm a librarian for crying out loud! Sharing is what I'm all about! And despite the fact that my mother raised me to be a coupon clipping, never-buy-anything-unless-its-on-sale kinda gal, this just felt wrong. I couldn't help but picture the new teacher scrambling for resources on TPT and whipping out their pre-paid credit card that their grandmother got them for Christmas to purchase my dumb worksheet.
...Okay, so maybe I'm being a bit dramatic.
...And maybe I'm just seeing myself. Anyway.
So yesterday I made all of my "products" free. I still think TPT is a great place to go for resources and I will probably continue to list items I create on that site (for free), but I will also list them on my blog (stay tuned!) as well as other resource sharing sites.
Til next time.
