Why Most Writing Courses Aren’t Worth the Money (and How to Create One That Is)

Because wordsmiths are getting hit with so many storms at once (e.g., AI slop, publishers cutting staff due to losses of ad revenue, etc.), the golden piece of advice in the writing industry has become that writers should be selling courses of some kind. By offering classes, they reportedly can make more money and not be so reliant on book sales for income.

But the idea that everybody should develop a course is fraught with problems.

In the video below, I explain why most writing courses out there don’t leave participants any better off.

Curious where courses are falling short and want to make something better? Are you a writer who wants to be sure they’re not wasting the little cash they’ve got when they sign up? The slides below outline what most writing courses offer — and what writers actually need instead.

[Transcript summary]

Hello, everybody. Wanda Thibodeaux of takingdictation.com here.

One of the things that I have noticed a lot as I’ve been looking online is that there are more and more advertisements coming across my feed for writing courses. And as a writer, in a way, that kind of gets me excited. But as a writer, in a way, it kind of scares me, because in my experience, the majority of those courses that I have reviewed and looked at, they are not worth the money.

Now, part of the reason for that is because writing and teaching are two completely different skill sets. You can be an awesome writer and not be able to teach. But everybody is trying to teach because they know that teaching the courses [is] more scalable, and they’re likely gonna bring in more money than just the writing alone. So, you really have to be careful there if you are evaluating a course and you’re about to pay some money for that.

So, the other thing is, if you are a writer and you’re saying, I want to share my insights, but I’m not sure how to make the course good. There’s so much noise, how do I make mine stand out? How do I make it effective? So, I have some slides at takingdictation.com that answers this question, and I identify exactly where most courses go wrong, and what you can do better.

So, whether you are the writer who’s trying to make the course, or the writer who is looking for a course and trying to discern which one is a good one, those slides will give you some direction. Take care. Bye.