How much would you pay for a writing workshop?

[NotQuiteTheBard]

This is for non-fiction so not exactly creative- but thought you nice people might help out.

I'm thinking of setting up one-off workshops for non-fiction writers. (I'm an experienced mentor/ teacher, published author, and run an online course as well as mentoring clients privately, but haven't done a workshop yet.)

It would be for half a day and be a self-contained course that covered lots of topics.

I've seen other workshops running where the fee is anything from around £100+ to as little as £25.

If you were a serious potential author, what would you pay? It would be a small group, around 6-8 max.

[ColdFingered]

Where are you based? If you were in London, you could charge a lot more than in the provinces. The £250 Guardian course is a full day but only lasts 6 hours, including the lunch break (10am-4pm), so maybe not really that much longer than a half day in teaching time. Their price includes food/refreshments.

I notice the CityLit ones charge the equivalent of about £10 an hour over the ten-week course. Personally, I'd be more interested in doing evening classes, to give me the motivation to progress.

[LividLaughLove]

Agree that half day is too short.

Full day or series of evenings?

[Zilla1]

If you have a credible offering that will help agents or publishers not reject your customers' proposal outright then I would price this at the higher end.

Would this be along the lines of -
'Ten/however many secrets to having your synopsis accepted and winning a non-fiction publishing deal; and
Ten/however many mistakes to avoid')?

[NotQuiteTheBard]

Thanks so much for the feedback. I'm aware of the Guardian classes and the content is pretty similar to what I'd do.

I've seen quite a few comments on forums etc from people wanting to write non-fiction and they usually make some very basic errors. The downside is they would not have their work annotated, but they would certainly learn the basics which would avoid their synopsis going straight into delete if sent to a publisher.

[Zilla1]

Hi,

Good luck.

If I were serious about being a writer I'd probably spend up to £100+ on a half to one-day course if I was convinced it was worth the money. I see the Guardian charged £249 in 2015 for a one-day non-fiction masterclass with (presumably) a name delivering it and the Guardian branding..

If it were a taster (like a pottery class taster my family have done at a commercial pottery) that was meant to be more fun and an introduction for less-serious/hobbyist writers (family memoir?) rather than a step for a serious writer then perhaps I'd be willing to pay £25-£40 (though I personally wouldn't want to do that).

Trying to be helpful - I thought I'd mention I'd have concerns about a HALF day event - after introductions, housekeeping, logistics, comfort/tea break and so on, I would be sceptical that enough content could be covered in a group setting with other delegates contributing to make it worthwhile - off the top of my head, I'm not sure more depth would be covered than could be found on websites, blogs or Youtube (but you'll have given this some thought so happy to be wrong). You might want to emphasise the added value of your offering over on-line resources in your marketing (face to face contact, friendly setting, answer personal questions and so on).

If this event is a leader onto more in-depth/longer/pricier events (one day, weekend?) rather than your only offering in this 'space' then you might want to price at the lower end of your range to encourage 'up-selling'?

You'll have done your market research and presumably are focusing on non-fiction because of your strengths/background but what does your market research say about the relative demand for a non-fiction compared with a fiction-based event? It might be just the searches I've done but fiction training/workshops seem possibly more popular? That said, it could be there's unmet demand for non-fiction?