About the Comprehensive Copywriting Academy
By Paul 31/05/21
The Comprehensive Copywriting Academy (let’s call it the CCA from here on in) is a course designed to teach copywriting skills. In other words, writing with an aim to selling something. Think of the emails you receive from ethical travel companies, or your favourite green tea shipper (um, for example). Think of the banner ads that pop up on a website, or the full page ads in glossy magazines and billboards. The written part of those is copywriting.
If you’re an author trying to make it either independently or traditionally, you’ll know how hard it can be to turn a buck from your writing. For a lot of writers, putting great copy together for a client or clients can be the solution to using your creative talents for financial return.
So what’s our relationship with the CCA and its founder Nicki Krawczyk?
We have two connections: one, Nicki very kindly offered to sponsor our latest charity writing competition and two, I’m currently working through the CCA course myself.
About the first point: that sponsorship afforded Nicki the short audio advert you’ll hear at the beginning of the winning story, Off Course by Maria Burke and narrated by Katie Leung. We haven’t received any money ourselves for the ad, nor will we ever receive any for our charity ventures (we kind of hope that goes without saying).
As for point two: speaking of money, as most of you are aware we don’t receive money for anything we do. BIBLIOPHONE is run by a small team of volunteers who do what they do purely for the love of listening to a great story.
In future we’re very keen to source clients on a pay-per-play basis. That means they’d have an ad play at the start of your audio story, and every time someone listened to it, they’d pay an agreed amount. Our thoughts on this are an equal split between you, us, and a charity cause. In theory, we could then pay to maintain our platform and ensure it makes use of the latest technology, we could pay our lovely volunteers to work full time, and you the author could earn a revenue from your amazing writing talents. It’s a hugely exciting prospect and one I’m very keen to nurture – but realistically we’re a little way off from that goal yet.
For now that means our little team here has some kind of side hustle. And for me, that entails running around after various forms of contractor work (and believe me, it can be anything) and generally not getting much in the way of down-time. Between BIBLIOPHONE and making ends meet, there’s not much of a window for anything beyond eating and sleeping. I have a nice roof over my head and an amazing family so don’t worry, you can put the violins away. But I could do with a little more time for them - and for BIBLIOPHONE.
I was looking for a course that might allow me to focus my time a bit better, and to some extent dictate my own hours. A better rate of pay would be helpful of course: then I could spend less hours making ends meet and more doing things like this.
I spotted one of Nicki’s ads on Instagram and decided to investigate the CCA. I also looked into a lot of other copywriting courses available. There are some free options out there, and you should definitely look into those, but for my mind, spending some cash on learning a new skill felt like the right way to go.
So how much is it?
I paid just under £400. At the time it was a little bit more if you didn’t sign up for the course within a given period, so if you’re going to do it, make up your mind sooner rather than later.
But in any case, you get a lot for your money. Actually, you get so much that if you go through all the module titles you’ll wonder if you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. But that’s what I like about the CCA: you’re guided step by step through it, and you’re given regular encouragement. It’s a course that you have life-time access to, and you can complete it at your own pace (I got about half way through within a month, then stopped while we managed our latest competition here – I’m nearly ready to pick it up again though). You’re also given a lot of reassurance over whatever time pressures you might be labouring under. It’s not one of those boot camp training regimes that demands 100% or die. It’s a very human course, with a face and a personality behind it – and constant support. You can ask questions (and you won’t be ignored). It teaches you not only how to write effective copy, but how to pitch to clients, and how to find them in the first place. It teaches you what the copywriting process looks like and how to handle the meetings from kick off to sign off.
Which, in my opinion, makes it good value. Like I said, I researched a lot of other courses and there are some great options out there. But even if I’d wanted to splash out more than £1000 and do a classroom based course, most of those take place over a single weekend. I couldn’t see how I’d get as much content for my money studying that way.
You’ll find a lot of reviews on the CCA. And you’ll find that they’re mostly all very, very positive. If you’re like me, that might make you a bit suspicious. Here’s the thing: when you start the course, you’ll be told about an affiliate program. That means if you write about your experiences (and you’re under no obligation to make them positive by the way) and use a couple of given keywords (just so that everyone finds the right content – not ‘this course is the best thing ever’ or anything like that!) you can get a percentage of the sign-up fee. If you don’t know about affiliate marketing, it means that if a user clicks a link for a product or service, the website that hosts that link (e.g. your website) earns a commission from any subsequent sale. If you spent any of your youth outside a nightclub in Tenerife offering tickets to entice people in – well affiliate marketing is the online equivalent. You don’t own the nightclub and you don’t sell the drinks, but they will give you a bit of cash for sending some new clients their way.
Okay, so what you’re reading now is not that. I suppose we could have generated some cash for charity or for our platform’s development, but I wanted to make sure I put a completely unbiased review together. I don’t think any of the positive reviews that come from the CCA’s affiliate program are skewed in any way, because the course is great. But it’s important you know that I’m not being paid in any way, shape or form, to write this. Nicki has made her donation to our charity and for that, her company has an audio ad in place. I’m only writing about it here because it’s important to us that we maintain a high level of integrity at all times – if you’re wondering what we have in common with the CCA, well this is the size of it.
Oh and as I said to Nicki, I didn’t sign up for the CCA course with an aim to one day approaching her for sponsorship. Honestly, I’m just not that forward-thinking. Or sneaky. Although I suppose it might have been a clever approach.
Anyway, in my opinion the course is good. Really good. If you’re looking to develop your skills as a copywriter, or if you’ve never heard of copywriting before, this is a great way to go. You can and should look around and explore all the options, and you should never part with any money without doing all the necessary checks first (and if you can’t afford it, which applies to a lot of people right now, don’t do it). As I said, there are a lot of options available to you including some very good free ones. But the CCA, in my experience, ticks every box. Not for nothing is it called the Comprehensive Copywriting Academy.
You’ll learn the skills, but you’ll learn how to bring in the business too. Because let’s face it, you could be the most talented writer in the world, but if you don’t know how to sell that talent? Well, if you’re an indie author, that’s a concept you’ll be very familiar with.
Obviously I have to point out that in line with our terms and conditions, we’re not responsible for external links and organisations. I’m just giving you my experiences so that you can make your own decisions if this is something you’ve ever considered doing. And it does have to be your decision. I’m not being paid to say any of this stuff, it’s just my thoughts and independent input.
But: we’re hugely grateful to Nicki and her team for sponsoring our competition. I personally think the CCA course is great, but regarding their generosity alone: we love these guys. Does that mean I’d be comfortable saying so if the course was flawed in some way? Probably not. I mean, they make a donation and by way of thanks I write a review of the things I don’t like about them? Let’s be realistic, I’m not going to do that. But the point is this: I didn’t have to write any of the above. I could have just said: Hey, these guys made a big donation to our charity writing competition so thanks to them. And left it at that. But I like everything they do, so it's easy to sing their praises. And I feel it’s important that you know how we’re connected to them.
Again, please make your own choices, but if you want to watch a free video and learn more about copywriting and the CCA, you can do so at https://freecopywritingtraining.com
And if you do that, or if you take up any other course – let us know how you get on. In fact, drop us an email or chat to us over on Twitter any time about anything. We love writers and narrators. We find that the level of kindness among creative types is high, and we get all our inspiration from people like you.
Stay safe, stay positive, stay creative.