Being new to writing, marketing, formatting, querying, pitching. . .  I find myself looking for good sources of information on these topics so I can avoid costly mistakes or even worse, kill a reputation that hasn’t even taken off yet.

Two of my favorite online academies are Coursera and Udemy, both of which attracts lots of very talented people in their field who write and record some pretty amazing courses. Many of these classes offer certificates of completion, which books alone do not. This will help with the credibility department should your expertise ever come into question.

There are a ton of Classes and Books out there, and just trying to search through the mess and find the best ones without wasting a bunch of time and money can be quite daunting. I didn’t even do it right. I bought some books that were worthless and took some classes that were both a waste of time and money. Let’s start here, where to go for good information and where to avoid a time and money suck, neither of which any of us can afford to lose too much of. If you would like to skip through the muck and go straight to what I found most useful, click on the links to the classes I thought enough of to put on my blog and you can save some of the time and money I wasted on my journey.

Udemy

I love Udemy. You can take a lot of courses for much less than you would pay at a university that brings in heavy hitters, yet these people teach here too, and often for much less. Often there are sales and you can take classes at a fraction of what they list for. If a class you would like to take is not on sale, favorite it and wait until it does go on sale.

Once I find an instructor I like, I usually always look for other classes he/she teaches and favorite those.

Strategy: search for topics that interest you, and favorite all the ones you would like to take. Then take a few of them that are on sale. Soon you will have a short list of instructors you like and trust, and you can search for them and favorite more of their classes and purchase them when they go on sale.

Coursera

Coursera is a little different than Udemy in that it is geared more towards university type classes on subjects you would most likely find in higher education like Algebra, history, etc.

Audible

Audible has many great classes taught by leading university professors and published authors.