Any experiences of Writers Bureau?

mrsyardbroom

I've been looking at the prospectus for Writers Bureau and they do claim that you get your money back if you don't earn the fees. Has anyone completed the course and earned an income or received their money back?

SailorSam

I don't think i'd be paying it, check with a local college to see do they do any Creative Writing courses. Or if you look at the Amazon free Ebooks they always have that type of book with links to forums with other hopefulls, that give tips to each other.
Start a blog to get some practise then write your own ebook on Amazon. If you're any good people may start to buy your work.

tattycath

mrsyardbroom wrote: »

I've been looking at the prospectus for Writers Bureau and they do claim that you get your money back if you don't earn the fees. Has anyone completed the course and earned an income or received their money back?

I sent away for and looked at their prospectus. They then wrote to me sending me a prospectus very frequently. It all sounded too good to be true-so I didn't bother.
I would be very dubious about parting with my money to them. IMO

mrsyardbroom

I'm not quite sure what the problem is with paying for a course. If it's a good course then you would expect to pay for it.
Let me just explain. The Writers Bureau has been established for 23 years and is a very well known correspondence course in creative writing. I have had lots of experience as a writer. I write for my own website and I used to write a lot of articles for in house magazines and look after a website at work. I used to get paid a salary for writing but I'm retired now and I miss it. (Both the salary and the writing.) What I don't have experience of is getting someone to buy my work or getting a literary agent.
I know there are lots of tips and ebooks on the internet but it isn't the same as having a tutor and you don't get the contacts or the help with marketing. This is where I thought the Writers Bureau would help. I'm really looking for people who have actually done the course to share their expereinces.
With a bit of research through Google I'm finding some interesting reading about the Writers Bureau. The article below is excellent and tells me a lot about them.
http:/www.ideas4writers.co.uk/public/articles/best_writing_course.htm

SailorSam

Maybe i'm just to cautious but i always feel these sort of places, not just writing schools but any that are trying to get money out of you are just to good to be true. As i said i'd look for a local night school or what about the OU which isn't there just to make money.
Have a read of this blog if you haven't already done so, particularly the comments at the end.
If you do decide the WB is the way to go, good luck hope it works for you and i look forward to reading your first best seller.
http://spencro.blogspot.co.uk/2007/11/writing-for-profit-revisited.html

GavB79

I signed up to these about ten years ago. Got their booklets, assignments etc. Did a few of them and then it fell by the wayside.
That's how they are able to offer their money back guarantee - they rely on people just not following through. The proportion of those that actually finish the whole thing, don't earn anything, and make a claim, must be relatively few. I'm not saying most earn their fees back in payments; I suspect the majority are like myself, they lose interest or enthusiasm.
The quality of the materials was ok but I would like to think they've revamped everything anyway since the time I had it all.
If you are the type of person who is determined to stick with it to the bitter end, I don't see what you have to lose (financially, at least).

NeverEnough

Writers Bureau has been around a long time and their courses are decent value for money, in my opinion. Just recently purchased the Creative Writing Course for my partner, having done one of their courses myself many years ago and the course material arrived quickly, good comms, decent selection of courses to cover a lot of areas within writing - also, the prices are very very good - compared to variable local college type leisure courses which can cost 2 or 3 times what they are charging.

Just a personal opinion, and of course, you do need to make an effort, not just buy the course, to derive benefit from it!

sillysid

I bought it years ago, it was quite good, but a lot of personal research required - I had written a novel, wanted to write articles, I hoped to get something published to add credence to my book when I was trying to get an agent. However, I fell by the wayside and abandoned it after the first 2 assignments.

Writing is a very, very competitive market. You need a lot of stamina to cope with rejection. As human beings we are wired to equate working hard at something with positive results. When writing you invest a lot of time and see little reward. Then you have to do this over and over, trying to generate a body of work, that may or may not succeed.

I went to an evening class for 4 years - it was much more valuable than a correspondence course.

I really enjoyed writing, but my book was not good enough, I spent years, writing it, editing it, trying to get an agent...but end of day I failed. I couldn't bear the thought of spending another 4 years trying again, only too very likely face another rejection. I hoped for a long time, then the dreamstealer took over and I gave up.

Agents like names. How are you going to stand out from everyone else, what makes your article/book/story stand out from the pile?

mrsyardbroom

Thanks for your replies. The reason I looked at the Writers Bureau was for the marketing and the publishing contacts.
I have looked at the OU course but it is very expensive and from what I can see the course concentrates on teaching you to write rather than teaching you to sell.
We don't have local evening classes in creative writing unless you want to write for the radio. I would suspect that they teach you to write rather than to sell. From what I've read, the Writers Bureau concentrates quite heavily on markets and selling your work and some people don't like this.
I know there have been lots of people who have complained that they didn't finish the course because they didn't like bits of it or it wasn't the sort of writing that they wanted to do, however, if you do any home study course that will nearly always be the case.
I did an OU degree and like everyone else I made one or two bad choices but I stuck with them. When you're spending that sort of money you have to keep ploughing on to the end! The OU isn't cheap and I had to travel a long way to get to tutorials. I'm not sure I'd do another course with them.
The London School of Journalism also does a lot of creative writing courses that look interesting but expensive. I may look into that.

sketchingkari

I signed up two years ago, the course its self if very well written and I have enjoyed working through it.

I haven't had a lot of contact with my tutor yet, but am working on getting my second assignment back soon.

Downside is that it does require you to buy quite a few books in addition to the course materials, and some of the sections are incomplete, requiring you to go do your own research to fill the holes.

That said, for the price, I was happy with it :money: