Q. Do I need to type or word process?

A. Not necessarily. However, in this day and age no publisher will even look at a handwritten manuscript. Your own personal tutor will correct a handwritten submission –but it is better if you can submit typed work. If you don’t type or word process –and you wish to be published –you should probably make arrangements for someone to prepare your work for you.

Q. As there are no entry qualifications to get onto this course –how do I know if I will be able to write?

A. It is often said that there is a book in everyone. The purpose of the Erotic Writing Course is to bring out the best of your talent. We know –from over fifty years as a distance-learning educational institution –that you don’t have to have academic qualifications to succeed at something. What is needed for this course is an ability to read, a desire to write, determination and a passion for the topic. You have probably thought to yourself at some time or another when reading someone else’s work ‘I could write as well as that.’You almost certainly can. What holds most people back is not lack of ability but fear of the unknown, lack of confidence or not knowing quite where to begin. This course will help you reach your full potential.

Q. How long will the course take me to complete?

A. Each lecture or tutorial takes between an hour and two hours to read –depending on how thorough you are and how quickly you read. The self-test exercises take from half an hour upwards. Preparing work to submit for assessment will take as much or as little time as you want. In general, most of our students complete the course over the space of two to three months. Some finish it in a week, however. Others take a year. The decision is yours.

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Q. Will this course really help me to get published?

A. Yes! It will definitely help you to get published. In fact, the whole purpose of the course is to help authors get their work published. This is achieved in two ways:

1) By helping you to produce the best possible writing that is of a sufficiently high standard to interest and excite publishers.

2) By providing you with all the practical information you need to sell your work successfully.

We won’t go and sell your work for you, but we will certainly provide you with the wherewithal to do so yourself. Remember, the key outcome of this course is that by the time you have completed it you will have at least one finished piece of publishable writing.

Q. How much money can I earn as a writer? How difficult is it?

A. The honest answer to both questions is: it all depends. Publishers of erotic fiction pay vastly differing sums for material from, say, £100 for a very short story in a small-circulation magazine to £100,000 or more for what they hope will be a best-selling book. It is definitely possible to earn a good living as a writer specialising in erotica. There is a special section of this website entitled How to make money writing erotic literature which includes lots of information and specific examples. One former student explains how he makes around £750 a week from his erotic writing – another author explains how she makes $20,000 a month. The course itself is focussed on the goal of getting published and – if this is your goal – your personal tutor will be of enormous assistance, too. The demand for erotic fiction is growing rapidly. Book publishers are printing more erotic literature than ever before – check out Amazon.com or visit any large High Street bookshop for proof. Magazine publishers are also desperate for good short stories (and writers to produce things like their so-called readers’ letters) as are website owners. If you self-publish or create your own website, you could definitely make writing erotica a very lucrative activity. How difficult you will find it depends very much on how you approach the opportunity. If you write one story and submit it to one magazine, your chances are probably not that high. But, if you are writing all the time, and submitting work all the time, the odds are stacked much more in your favour. As we make it clear in How to make money writing erotic literature – there is definitely a shortage of writers specialising in erotic literature. Remember, editors have terrible trouble finding reliable writers.

Q. How much help will my personal tutor actually provide?

A. When you enrol on this course, we appoint a personal tutor to assess you work and to provide you with additional support. For nine out of ten students we recommend our Standard Course. This includes one-to-one personal tuition, marking of set exercises and general advice. For a modest additional fee we also offer a Personal Mentor Service. If you choose this option you receive a range of additional benefits the most important of which is the fact that your personal tutor will offer you unlimited support for up to 12 months after you enrol. This is ideal if you want to become a professional author, produce a body of work – a collection of short stories, for instance, or a novel – or would simply like the extra advice and encouragement. Either way, after you have completed the course, should you have any questions, your personal tutor will do his or her best to furnish you with the answers.

The benefits of the Personal Mentor Service include:

• Unlimited one-to-one mentoring for up to 12 months.
• Regular newsletter packed with inspirational ideas, tips and advice.
• Free mini-library of books including several erotic classics and a range of reference works. The books alone would retail for £49.

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Q. How do I communicate with my personal tutor?

A. All communication is via the college. We recommend email as this is fastest. However, if you wish to communicate by post or fax this is fine.

Q. How will I receive my course material?

A. Via email and through online downloads.

Q. What if I want editorial support?

A. No problem. The college will happily find you an editor. Our editors usually work on a flat, hourly fee of between £25 and £50 an hour – depending on their level of experience and whether they are also authors (published authors tend to charge more for their time than professional editors). The editors can:

•help you prepare work for submission to publishers
•highlight ways to further improve your manuscripts
•make any grammatical or spelling corrections for you
•assess your work and offer constructive criticism and advice

Q. I don’t know what to write about. Can you help?

A. Yes! You’ll find that the course is extremely inspirational and will really galvanise the writer in you to action.

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If your question isn't answered here, please contact us for further information.