The 5 Biggest Mistakes People Make When Committing to a Writing Course

Before you dive into a writing course, discover the top mistakes that could hold you back!

2 min read
writing

You are a technical writer 🤔 if ship30for30 will make you a prolific writer!

Let me help you with insights I have after freshly finishing Jan'22 course.

I was convinced that writing is an amazing life skill to have. It has compounding rewards. I jumped into ship30for30 after reading some of the essays a friend wrote when he did it. My goal was: Publish an essay a day for 30 days on topics around data platform and product management.

Here are my insights that will help you make a decision:

If you think there is some hidden knowledge you are paying for, you are mistaken.

They are passionately sharing free resources to become better writers.

Course material is laid out in a nice fashion and drips out slowly so you are not overwhelmed but 90% of it is out there for free. Here are the links:

  1. Text Version of Course

  2. How to write headlines

  3. How to get good at Twitter threads

  4. How to find your niche audience

  5. How to find your writing constraints

What I think I paid for are the cohort and commitment

The community of aspiring digital creators in ship30for30 is amazing.

If you think about it, it makes sense. They have made a commitment to themselves or others publicly, they have paid a huge sum of money to write for 30 days, and have a chance of having an explosion in their writing engagement/followers if things go right.

I did it for social accountability and $$ is a commitment to myself.

After the 30 days, I ain't an exceptional writer with a huge following already!

It is not all rosy; even after the course, I struggle with my writing.

I am struggling to get high engagement on my niche technical essays, which is not fun. The course did not teach me how to specifically improve technical writing but rather equipped me with general writing prowess. I struggle with writing data engineering and machine learning topics succinctly and without the use of much jargon.

Ultimate recommendation:

If you are internally motivated, try writing the free stuff before paying.

I love team environment and external motivation to get things done so it was worth it for me. If that resonates with you then I highly recommend doing it.