Topic: The value of online courses

I've just joined a rl writer's group and we spend most of our time talking about resources for improving our writing, the publishing process (indie and traditional), and marketing. Often online courses come up and we share our thoughts. So I thought I'd throw this out here to see what courses you might have found that have been worth the money?

For myself, I've paid for a number of course (and I've shelled out a lot of money for some). Here are my thoughts on a couple:
James Patterson's Master Class ($97) - this was an interesting course. I can't really say I "learn" a lot of concrete information about writing or publishing, but I still think it was worth the money. I ended up getting some great ideas on how I could change my habits and my writing process to suit my needs.
Mark Dawson's Self-publishing 101 (somewhere around $375) - For me it wasn't worth the money. But it's a beginning self-publishing course and by the time I enrolled, I had already published 6 books. I have however, recommended it to my sister and other new indie-authors. This really was one where it the '101' part of the title should have warned me before I invested the money. It did however get me a discount on his Ads course (FB, Twitter, etc) and my Instafreebie membership which helped offset this so my 'wasted' money was more like ($275).

Any recommended (or not) courses that I could check out?

Quote Post 1

Re: The value of online courses

penang wrote:

I've just joined a rl writer's group and we spend most of our time talking about resources for improving our writing, the publishing process (indie and traditional), and marketing. Often online courses come up and we share our thoughts. So I thought I'd throw this out here to see what courses you might have found that have been worth the money?

For myself, I've paid for a number of course (and I've shelled out a lot of money for some). Here are my thoughts on a couple:
James Patterson's Master Class ($97) - this was an interesting course. I can't really say I "learn" a lot of concrete information about writing or publishing, but I still think it was worth the money. I ended up getting some great ideas on how I could change my habits and my writing process to suit my needs.
Mark Dawson's Self-publishing 101 (somewhere around $375) - For me it wasn't worth the money. But it's a beginning self-publishing course and by the time I enrolled, I had already published 6 books. I have however, recommended it to my sister and other new indie-authors. This really was one where it the '101' part of the title should have warned me before I invested the money. It did however get me a discount on his Ads course (FB, Twitter, etc) and my Instafreebie membership which helped offset this so my 'wasted' money was more like ($275).

Any recommended (or not) courses that I could check out?

Do you have a link for those?
smile

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3 Reply by j p lundstrom (edited by j p lundstrom 2017-09-16 16:29:00)

Re: The value of online courses

I've learned a lot from Larry Brooks, author and screenwriter. Though he covers a lot in his blog, Storyfix, there are also workshops, as well as a personalized consultation service (at different prices, depending on the depth of analysis). He also has published several books on writing a novel.
I liked his approach -- very market-minded, with practical advice regarding putting it all together.
http://storyfix.com/about

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Re: The value of online courses

Thanks, j.p. for this information.

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Re: The value of online courses

j p lundstrom wrote:

I've learned a lot from Larry Brooks, author and screenwriter. Though he covers a lot in his blog, Storyfix, there are also workshops, as well as a personalized consultation service (at different prices, depending on the depth of analysis). He also has published several books on writing a novel.
I liked his approach -- very market-minded, with practical advice regarding putting it all together.
http://storyfix.com/about

Thanks for sharing! I've never heard of storyfix, so I'll definitely check it out.

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Re: The value of online courses

dagnee wrote:

Do you have a link for those?
smile

The James Patterson Master Class should be: https://www.masterclass.com/classes/jam … es-writing
Mark Dawson's courses can be found at: https://selfpublishingformula.com/
I should note that Mark Dawson's podcast is free and is amazing. He does a lot of work with other authors (and marketing masters) like Bryan Cohen, Chris Fox, and Nick Stephensen.

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