My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts
Day 135: AWAI Online
One of my pet peeves are people trying to take advantage of other people: Nigerian princes who want to share their millions, financially strapped mothers who can’t provide for their children and ask for support, and writing sites making unrealistic promises to aspiring writers. One such writing site is AWAI Online.
It’s understandable why freelance writing has become so popular. Men and women of all ages get to work from home, get to be creative, and some of them manage to earn a decent income.
AWAI Online recognized that freelance writing has taken off faster than a car on nitro and zoomed in to lift unsuspecting people of their hard-earned money. The plan is simple, get people’s attention with the line
““The Accelerated Program for Six-Figure Copywriting salary”
When I see a line like that I immediately know that I’m dealing with a scam. No copywriter, amateur or professional earns a six-figure salary. If they did, everyone and his uncle would choose that profession.
Generally, freelance writers work for pennies, they are among the most underpaid people in the world. Some of them get paid 3, 5 or 10 cents per word and gradually work themselves up to a better payout.
A friend of mine is such a writer. She started out working for pennies, build up a portfolio and a reputation and today she is one of the most successful and respected writers in the business. Save to say, she makes a very nice income but she earns nowhere near $100,000 a year. However, she is one of the few, the rest of us take what we can get where it comes to writing.
But let’s get back to AWAI Online. As always I did some digging and found this article:
At Writers Beware I found the following:
At the time of publication, there were 127 comments pertaining to AWAI Online. Let’s have a look at some of them:
The head honcho of AWAI, calls herself "Katie Yeakle" That happens to be a fake name, as are the names of many of those who run or write for AWAI. Hmm...
Check Elance or oDesk if you want to find out what freelance writers really earn. Those sites are chock full of very capable writers charging $10-$20 per hour.
If AWA has accomplished anything aside from making "Yeakle" and her insiders fabulously wealthy, it has flooded the market with pipe-dreaming wannabe $500-an-hour writers, which by their sheer volume have eliminated the chance that many will earn a reasonable living off writing.
I just found out they are taking $49 out my credit card account every year, and I have not authorized this repeated charge. Also, I cannot find anything in "My Account" on their website that shows I will be or have been charged or how I can stop the charges. This qualifies as a scam. I've never gotten anything worthwhile from them either. Stay away.
Thanks for this post! I've been wondering about these AWAI people. I signed up for their mailing list at some point but I've never spent money on them. I just get emails from them every few days that always sound about the same and never give me any actual info. Like you said, it's just all fluff that reads like one of those get rich quick scam pages. Sure it sounds glamorous and beautiful and who wouldn't want that... but it's got way too many red flags.
If I call in the next 30 minutes, I will receive two, that's right, TWO subscriptions for the price of ONE! They'll even throw in a free shower head valued at $19.95! But wait--that's not all. As a special introductory offer, they will provide me with a 1,000-page email list that I can use to spam unsuspecting people with the hypnotic power of my newly-acquired copywriting genius! If that's not a deal, I don't know what is.
On second thought, it might be easier to just take a blunt blow to the head.
There is only ONE way to be a profitable writer--have talent, wow a publisher. Get your education in the field of writing from reliable educators, work, work at it until you have a WOW piece. Now go out there and WOW one.
There is no way, as I see it, that some snake oil salesman on the internet can make you a writer.
What I want to know is, "who are all these people writing the testimonials?"
AWAI is pretty much of a joke.
Unfortunately, the naïve, and the ones who don't do their homework on AWAI get sucked in.
I have lost count the number of business owners I have written for who got burned after hiring "copywriters" through AWAI.
The stories I could tell you about this place. Just the way AWAI advertises themselves should tell anyone with a half a brain that they are not good at copywriting. Their lame articles alone should tell you plenty. Buyers beware.
I guess this just about sums it up. If you go searching for AWAI Online, you’ll no doubt find favorable reviews, but the question is … who wrote those reviews, even if the writer states that he/she is unbiased.
Take it from me, anyone who believes that earning a six-figure salary (meaning in access of $100,000 a year) with copywriting is possible is dreaming.
The only ones who make money from the six-figure writing course are AWAI Online and you can be sure that they’ll be smirking … we caught another sucker.
You want to learn how to write? There are two ways of doing that: 1) go to school, an actual school where a teacher/professor will explain the process and the finer points; 2) go online and read everything you can get your hands on. Don’t just read through, study the material. Next, you practice, practice, and practice some more. You’ll get the hang of it soon enough and it won’t cost you a dime.
