So I received an email the other day for a training webinar, Jerry Jenkins, New York Times Bestseller is offering a ninety-minute training for how to write non-fiction novels. Well, I am interested in writing nonfiction so I decided to tune in and see what I thought about his training. I’ve done his training a couple times before, it’s actually about a fifteen-minute, maybe ten-minute, or even five-minute training, and then the rest of the time is spent attempting to sell attendees on his “Novel Blueprint” or in this case it’s “Nonfiction Blueprint”, a course for writing nonfiction books, and there are some huge red flags:
Jerry Jenkins in his training program suggests that to write non-fiction successfully sometimes you need to change names or details to avoid lawsuits. The example he gave was if you are writing about a male coach in Cincinnati who was abusive, change it to a female teacher in another city. At the same time, he advises to “tell the truth” making his credibility questionable.
Then he goes on to try to convince someone who claims to be 11 that she should go ahead and invest $197 in his course, just pay for it for the month, Jenkins says, and see if it is going to work for you.
Is the Jenkins course a scam? Well, there isn’t a lot of information out there to determine whether Jenkins is scamming individuals. There is one complaint with the BBB about him charging and not refunding, an individual complained to the BBB claiming that Jenkins’ team kicked him out of the training program but continued to bill him for access to the program. Then there is the advice that I shared above, just what I heard Jenkins say in his free-to-all training. Children are not allowed to buy training programs or anything else online. Jenkins should have advised the child that she needed to speak to her parents about it or simply said that children under 18 aren’t allowed to make online purchases such as that one rather than telling her to spend $197 on his program.
What About Other Training Programs
There are a lot of writing courses out there. AWAI has a copywriting course (well actually they have several), then if you google any type of writing there is a litany of other websites from all walks of life. YouTube videos and different writing experts are all selling a course on how to write your next novel, and how to become a freelance writer, so are they scams?
Become a Millionaire Overnight Without Doing Anything At All…
So some of them are obvious, and perhaps that is why AWAI gets a lot of flack for its claims that anyone can be a successful Copywriter. In fact, if you google is AWAI a scam you will find more people saying yes than no. However, and this may surprise you, I don’t think AWAI is a scam. I do question the veracity of most of the other so-called training programs.
Essentially, anyone who claims that you can make six figures by doing nothing is scamming you. Anyone who says that you can freelance write two hours a week and make thousands of dollars is also scamming you. Freelance writing is not a get-rich-quick scheme, and there are a lot of people who will offer to teach you how to get rich quick in freelance writing, all you have to do is send them $1997 or $97 or whatever arbitrary amount they set, and they will train you on how to make a ton of money without having to do any work at all.
You Can’t Get Rich Without Working
I am sorry to burst your bubble, but there isn’t any way to make thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars by not doing anything. If you pay for these courses you are getting scammed.
There are a lot of good courses out there, and even the AWAI has some great training opportunities, but when you get done with the training you are still going to have to work real hours and really hard to make the kind of money you want.
The Big Take Away
You can gain a lot of information from the AWAI training, and I personally signed up for one of their paid training courses and I don’t regret it at all, however, I don’t think most of the paid training programs out there are anything more than scams. You should do your due diligence before paying for training in writing. You can get a lot of excellent training for free through YouTube and your public library.
If you’ve signed up for any of the paid training and found it was less than what it was billed please feel free to reach out I am always looking to share information with my readers and help them avoid scams.
