FAQs

Our self-paced writing courses start the moment you sign up. Ready when you are!

An hour a day. You can take the courses at your own pace and spend as much time as you like writing after the lesson of course. Writers LOVE the lessons and binge them, but we suggest one lesson a day, which will take from 10–20 minutes. The lesson is given by video and text with downloads online and it’s timed to coincide with where you’re at in your writing process. You’ll need to set aside an hour a day for your writing when you begin to put pen to paper. It’s one hour just for you and you’ll come to love this special time. One hour? You deserve it.

For guidance all the way from coming up with a page-turning idea through to completing your book to publishing standard, our most popular plan is The Finished Novel Course.

It’s our online alternative to a Creative Writing MA or MFA. It offers a structured approach to writing a book with full coaching and editorial support. The lessons are self-paced and will fit into a busy lifestyle. You’ll be able to choose your own tutor from our award-winning and bestselling writing coaches, and schedule working sessions at your convenience. You’ll work with publishing editors, formerly of Penguin Random House, Pan Macmillan and Hachette, to raise your book to publishing standard, with a full manuscript assessment included. When your story is ready we will present it to our literary agency partners who are keen to see our graduates’ work.

As a member, you’ll have access to our regular writing classes on a weekly basis with bestselling authors. You’ll enjoy the worldwide community of writers like you in every time zone. It’s a happy place and you’ll find a warm welcome. 

You can view our courses side-by-side and choose the course that’s right for you here.

The best writers tend to think they’re not very good writers. Even the greats despaired about their writing. This is John Steinbeck writing in his journal at more than halfway through (#entry 52) his 100 day write of The Grapes of Wrath: ‘My many weaknesses are beginning to show their heads. I simply must get this thing out of my system. I’m not a writer. I’ve been fooling myself and other people. I wish I were. The success will ruin me as sure as hell. It probably won’t last and that will be all right. I’ll try to go on with work now. Just a stint every day does it. I keep forgetting.’ (Working Days, John Steinbeck.)

Every writer learns to write! Many writers take courses. To write fiction, you should probably read fiction for pleasure.

There’s never a good time, so the best time is probably now.

And whilst there’s never a good time, now there’s a great place. The Novelry was created to help busy people write novels. We do a lot of the heavy lifting for you when it comes to structure and planning, ideas and inspiration. The Novelry will support you every step of the way. The courses were designed for busy people with day jobs, family life and many calls on their time. We’ll show you our one-hour-a-day writing method. It’s revolutionary! You’ll wish you’d started years ago.

Imagine if you’d been writing a novel a year since you first wanted to write. How many would you have now? Start today!

As Doris Lessing said, ‘Whatever you’re meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.’

Only one writer has ever arrived at The Novelry denying feeling nervous. (Hello, Sean!) There’s a very warm welcome waiting you at The Novelry. We’re a friendly bunch. We know how much this means to you. It means a lot to us too. We were once siting where you are now, and the truth is, we all feel nervous when we start work on a new novel, no matter how many we have written or had published. No writer is ever secure in their work, and we’ll show you why those nerves are important (and help you learn to see them as useful for taste and judgement!) but you’ll soon feel super-supported and at home. We work as equals at The Novelry.

Yes. Each and every one of us at The Novelry is the living proof of it. All writers learn to write and most take courses. The sole qualification is an enjoyment of reading fiction. You can read some of our writers’ stories and reviews of the course here. These were people like you browsing the website as you are now. Now they are people like you with novels they have written. The question is really – do you want to write a novel? If you do, you’ve come to the right place.

We don’t peddle academic literary theory, textbook teaching or coursework created elsewhere. We’ll give you tools, not rules. You’ll get some fancy new equipment for your writer’s toolkit based on insights into the craft techniques of famous and bestselling authors, the greats and contemporary writers too, and a fresh solution for every problem.

You’ll get just the right advice for you and your story with your coaching.

The content of our writing classes was developed by our founder and course director, a Booker Prize-listed award-winning author, Louise Dean, to share more than twenty years of writing experience. You can find out more about why and how Louise decided to create an enriching and supportive experience for writers like herself and read our story here.

Writers often come to us asking: can I write? But the question you should be asking is: have I got a good story? 

Your storyline is very much at the heart of what you can achieve as an author.

Whether your ambition is to finally finish a book to share with friends and family, to self-publish, or all the way to a literary agent and a publishing deal, please, we’ll make a plan to get you there and ensure you’re writing the right story, the right way, to achieve your ambition.

We’ll help you structure it to its best advantage right from the outset. Great ideas (almost) write themselves.

We’ll support you with pain-free plotting, bringing narrative confidence to your writing to shape the direction of your story. Your story starts here. A good story is good writing! It has nothing to do with purple prose, vocabulary, education or experience.

At your very first session with your writing coach, the first question we ask you is – what do you want? That’s your brief to us so that we can support you in your chosen direction. If you’re planning to self-publish we will ensure the work you produce is to industry standards. In The Big Edit course, you will be guided not only to prepare a story that readers love, a book that sells, but also how to work to the highest worldwide publishing standards. You’ll be among friends in our worldwide online community of authors, many of whom have self-published before. 

But self-publishing is hard, and most writers want to write! So we’ll have an eye on taking that burden away from you with a traditional publishing contract with a major publisher secured via our literary agency partners.

We don’t believe that you should share and expose your work to others who are also writing their very first novels whilst you’re writing your first draft of your novel. It’s not fair on anyone and it’s a little bit cheeky for a course provider to ask students to teach students!

At The Novelry, you’ll be kept nice and safe within the one-to-one relationship with an experienced writing coach who cares about you and your story, and wants the very best for you. Feel free to ask any questions you wish, no question is too silly!

Please, don’t show your first draft to anyone else. Especially not your parents. There will be blood on the floor.

You’ll work with a writing coach writing in your genre.

You’ll meet when you begin The Ninety Day Novel Course. We’ll guide you on how to create an outline for a novel, and your coach or mentor will look at your planned storyline before you put pen to paper to ensure it’s as strong as it can be before you start writing, so that you can write with confidence.

If you’re unsure who to choose, we’ll advise who would be the best writing coach for you once we see your first plan (it’s all guided inside the course, don’t worry!) You’ll be able to book your coaching sessions at times to suit you. The sessions are 30–45 minutes by Zoom, and you’ll have time to get help with story development and troubleshoot any problems in your story to stay on track. All sessions are recorded for you to keep and we keep abreast of your story progress with our interactive process.

Our coaching begins by ensuring you are writing a great story so that you can write with confidence towards achieving your ambition. Your writing mentor will give you ideas and suggestions for development from your very first session. During your writing, your coaching will ensure the story gets stronger. We keep track of your progress and help troubleshoot any pitfalls and fill plot holes in the coaching sessions.

We’ll give you guidance on how to choose within the first lessons of The Ninety Day Novel Course before your first coaching session. Once we have shown you how to scope out your story, and you have considered the genre you’re writing in, it will be fairly obvious who your writing coach should be as they’ll be an author successfully published in the same genre. You can browse our writing coaches and find the match when the time comes, then book your coaching session at a time that suits you in your Membership Area.

Consider who you want to write with – take a peek inside the first pages of their published books on Amazon and see whose writing style appeals to you most strongly. The wonderful thing about The Novelry, unlike any other writing course, is that you can work with the writing coach of your choice but also book sessions with any other writing coach working within your genre. So if things change for your story, say you swap genre, or need more help on specialist technical matters from another coach, we’ve got you covered.

The feedback sessions offer forensic and detailed feedback on your writing in a report and live Zoom session with one of our editors. They are included in your package on The Complete Book in a Year Plan or The Finished Novel Course. We suggest you leave getting feedback until you have a second draft where it’s most helpful.

If you need or would like more feedback on your writing, we’d suggest you choose The Finished Novel Course which includes a full read of your book when it’s ready through our Ultimate Manuscript Assessment service.

The courses are self-paced so you can take the lessons in your own time, your way. You can schedule your coaching sessions to suit you too.

You can pause and resume when you like. You have access for a year but can easily and cheaply extend membership, course access and even your coaching calls from as little as $29.99 or £19.99 a month. Most of our members do because they love writing with The Novelry.

Don’t worry if you need to stop writing for a while during your year. It happens. We have a safety plan for this. You’ll have a writing plan all signed off by our team which acts as a map for you to find your way home to your novel. You’ll have your writing coach ready to get you back on track with a working session to re-boot you and get you back on track too.

We’re here to support you. We’ve got you covered!

We offer weekly writing classes for all writers at any stage, including genre workshops and our Story Clinic hosted by a writing mentor. Come and meet your fellow writers. We offer live sessions with bestselling authors and industry professionals every other week, and the monthly Team Chat with our founder.

Don’t worry if you miss a special guest event class. They are available recorded as part of our Catch Up TV at our community. You’ll love the Box Set including classes with world-famous writers like Val McDermid, Paula Hawkins, David Nicholls and many more.

Our writing community is online worldwide 24/7. Wherever you are you’ll find writing buddies online when you’re seeking good company. It’s a hive of friendly writerly encouragement, full of advice, tips and news, and you can get feedback on your work when you’re editing your novel too at our workshop. You’ll be invited to join the closed secure community when you join us on the courses that include membership. Guest events are available to you recorded to watch at a time to suit you as part of our Catch Up TV. Find out more about our community here.

We can’t promise to get you published, but what we do is give you all the tools you need to write and edit your novel or memoir to the best possible standard, with help, support and feedback from industry professionals and successfully published authors to aid you in writing a brilliant book. We’ll pull out all the stops because your success means the world to us.

Our close relationships with leading literary agencies mean agents read our submissions quickly and with great interest. They know we’ll send them good work. We will only submit your work when it’s ready, but we’ll show you how to reach the required standard every step of the way. You are eligible for our submission service at any time during your membership with us after you have completed The Big Edit phase of your program.

We have a strong track record of getting our members literary agency representation. Read our reviews here. The Novelry has an ‘Excellent’ rating on the independent review site, Trustpilot, and we’re highly regarded and recommended by publishing professionals.

No. We neither ask nor receive any commission from the literary agencies to whom we submit your work with your full prior agreement. Our relationship with our literary agency partners is based on excellent, reputation and trust. Other companies may ask for a commission (check the small print.) We wouldn’t dream of it!

We have many Australian writers at The Novelry and make sure to offer classes in your time zone, including a special weekly Story Clinic for Australian and New Zealand writers. We ensure our diaries offer times for coaching that work for you.

Preparation for literary agent representation should begin before you put pen to paper so that your novel is story-shaped and structured in a way agents, publishers and readers would expect from your market genre. We work on this before you start writing so that you can write with confidence and not waste that writing time and effort.

Our agents represent writers globally, as it's a global marketplace. You’d be best to choose a big-name agent in the USA or the UK as the major publishing contracts happen with the Big 5 publishers in the USA and UK territories. We recommend and present our Australian writers' work to the leading agents worldwide as the best route to seeing your book published in Australia, and to book deals, foreign rights and even TV and movie options worldwide. Agents that work locally won’t be as well placed to secure contracts with the likes of Netflix and so on, though they may be well placed with smaller independent local publishers.

We’re well connected and have our finger on the pulse of publishing worldwide.

We have writers from all over the world, some of whom are writing in their second language. We offer language support on the courses, with a spoken and text translation tool which you can find out more about here.

The software is designed to help those who are sight- or hearing-impaired or dyslexic too.

We’re comfortable working with all writers at any stage of their writing – and we warmly welcome beginners  as well as non-native English writers. Of course, you can give us a try and see what you think, secure in the knowledge you have a full 7-day money-back guarantee.

We’re proud of all the writers in our diverse community.

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All courses are valid for one year, after which it’s easy to extend access on a monthly or annual basis.

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We operate a people before profit policy as a way of maintaining a happy and supportive community for all of our writers. You’ll find The Novelry a safe place. See our terms and conditions here. 

Happy Writing Guarantee. We offer a 7-day refund policy on all courses. 

You can email us at [email protected] and we’ll respond quickly to your question. You can also book a free chat with the button at the top of this page or book into a group webinar to meet our team.