The Institute of Children's Literature: Writing Career Opportunity

When I first started out wanting to write, I researched extensively places where I could learn. I wasn't opposed to taking a class at a local college, but I wanted something that I could do that didn't require very strict deadlines. I wanted to take a class at my own leisurely pace. I stumbled upon the Institute of Children's Literature (ICL) and checked it out. The first thing I noticed about their website was that it looked fake. To me, it looked like a scam. It didn't seem that professional, and I remember over the years receiving mailings from them about becoming a writer and to take their 'writer's test' to see how well I would do.

I never responded to those ads, often throwing them in the garbage regarding them as junk mail. When reading online, they also never gave a price for the course, which was also a big deciding factor for me. So I ended up searching online for things people had said about them and found a lot of information, just about all of it good.

I decided to do the writer's test online, and soon after I received the results in the mail, telling me that I had the potential to be a great writer. Again, more bad marketing. I came to the conclusion though, that I needed to start somehow and decided to fill out the card and send it back. A few days later, I had someone call me from ICL to discuss signing up.

I was told that the course would be $600 and that I could pay in installments or pay all of it upfront and receive a discount. I decided to pay it all upfront and gave them all of my contact information. A week or so later I received a big package in the mail that included the course binder with some of the lessons included, and a few books. I was very excited and decided to get started at it right away. That first package included all the materials to get started, and had 1/3 of the assignments in it. I would receive two more packages throughout the course that contained the rest of the assignments and also more course books.

It also included a letter from my personal instructor, who had formerly worked at Highlights for Children magazine, which was good for me because that was one of the markets that I had wanted to break into.