Just a quick announcement that in about 30 hours, Holly Lisle’s biggest course, How To Think Sideways, will close registration for the rest of the year. She’s been making noises for a while now about moving her big courses to once-a-year-only registration, and that time is here.
The cons: You only get a limited time each year to sign up. The pros: You get to work through the course material with a live cohort in the really active forums. Don’t underestimate how beneficial this is; having other people working through the course at the same time as you are helps ENORMOUSLY because you have people to bounce ideas off, people to clarify parts of the lessons with, and so forth. Hence why Holly’s moving to the once-a-year sign up.
For those who haven’t heard me ramble on about this amazing course before, How To Think Sideways is Holly’s comprehensive how-to-write-a-novel-and-also-make-writing-your-career course. I was in the very first cohort that went through the course, and at the time the course totally revolutionised how I approached my writing, and by extension, how people in my crit group did. I learned so much as a new writer from that course, and due to Holly’s generous refund policy (cancel any time, only pay for the lessons you’ve received, still maintain life-long membership in the forums), I feel confident recommending it to every writer I meet who has the time, interest and money. Although time isn’t such a big factor: once you’re a member, you’re a member for life, and you have permanent access to all the lessons you’ve received (they come out weekly), so you can revisit them whenever you need.
Not only that, but Holly is literally the most amazing person I know for delivering value for money: she is CONSTANTLY upgrading all her courses, offering bonuses and add-ons that often you don’t even have to pay for. Since I went through in the first cohort, an entire extra month of lessons has been added, all the modules have been revised, the bonus workshop “How Not To Write A Series” has been added, and a complete walk-through of the entire process where Holly live-demonstrates every single lesson as she goes through and writes a novel of her own has been added, approximately tripling the volume of content since I first paid for it. It’s some pretty serious value for money, even though the course itself isn’t exactly pocket change ($497 for 7 months, either upfront or in monthly instalments of $77).
Speaking of bonuses, everyone who signs up this week has a chance to pitch their manuscript to Holly, and she will choose 10 people to receive one-on-one mentoring on any 10-page portion of their manuscript. See the details at the top of the sales page here, just under the video.
If you want to see my commentary on the course when I first bought it, it’s tagged over at my old blog. Note that you’ll have to scroll past three or four posts about signing up before the course moves – that was when Holly moved it from the original software to her new site. You’ll also see mention of a 20% rebate; sadly, I am no longer permitted to offer this, although PLEASE NOTE that YES, the links on this page ARE affiliate links. I get paid if you sign up through my links. However, 1) I would promote this course regardless of affiliate status, because I really believe in Holly’s courses, and 2) to demonstrate this, here’s a non-affiliate link if you’d prefer: NON-AFFILIATE LINK. If you use that one, I’ll not see a cent 😉
If you want to know what’s in the course, the sales page here has detailed info on what every single lesson covers. Scroll about one fifth to one quarter of the way down and look for the heading, “How To Start Writing A Book, And Never Fear The Blank Page Again”.
And yes, because this is a CAREER writer’s course, there are even lessons that tackle query writing, proposals, sample chapters, promoting your work before it’s even published, and a fairly comprehensive module on self-publishing. Man, this course has EVERYTHING. (Or your money back, haha.)
If this sounds like something you’re interested in, you have about 30 hours left to sign up this year – until Thursday March 5 at 11:59pm US Eastern Time, to be precise. (There’s a handy count-down in the header on the sales page ;)) Otherwise, you’ll have to wait until the 2016 intake.
Oh, and a tiny bonus as a way for you to try out Holly’s teaching style and see if it works for you: a 3-minute writing workshop :o) Click on the image below.
*Notice: page contains affiliate links.*