May Classes For Writers

You’ve probably noticed that we really upped our design game at WMG Publishing in the past year. Some of that is due to the new designers we’ve brought on board, but some of it is because Stephanie Writt has a lot of design experience using modern tools like Canva.

In combination with Dean, whose done more book covers than anyone I know, they’re working together to come up with really pretty books.

Every Friday, they do a seminar together called Writer Direct, which helps writers go directly to the readers, through indie publishing and marketing. (It’s open to anyone for a monthly fee.) For the past six months, the writers who attend have asked Dean and Steph to do a workshop on covers.

Once they started brainstorming, they realized they could do workshops on covers and interiors and Kickstarter.

These courses are designed to take a writer who has never designed anything and have them making gorgeous books by the end of the class. I’m their guinea pig. (Dyslexic girl. If they can get me to do it, anyone can do it.)

The nice thing about these, though, is that there are design tricks in the new programs that long-time designers don’t know. So there’s an entire section for people who have been making covers and designing books for years.

The classes won’t start for a few weeks, but we’re offering an early bird sale on these, which is buy two and get the third free. (In other words, save $500.) Or just buy one and save $100 off the price. Find out more information here.

When you follow that link, you’ll see another class from me. I’m doing short classes on techniques that I can teach quickly. After finishing the difficult senses—smell and taste (which I taught together)—those who came to the webinar asked for similar classes on the remaining three senses.

So, I’m going from hardest to easiest. The next one is on touch. It starts right after I finish the in-person Gothic workshop next week.

Finally, Dean and I are finishing up the next installment in The Kris & Dean Show Goes To the Movies. We’re doing Ocean’s 11 (the 2001 version). I’m the one who picked that because I’ve been meaning to examine that film very closely.

Turns out it’s even more useful than I thought it would be. This class will teach you all about how to feed information to a reader so that they don’t notice the important stuff until you want them to. It’ll also show you how to establish characters quickly, and how to handle an extremely complicated storyline with verve and clarity.

We’re having a great time doing this one, and it’ll go live next week.

So take a look and see if there’s a class for you.