How to monetize writing courses and sell workshops as an author
Your readers already trust your judgement about sentences. That judgement is a product, and it does not have to be given away in a newsletter.
Writers usually monetize twice removed from the writing: a book advance, a newsletter subscription, occasional teaching at a festival for a flat fee. The teaching is often the most reliable income of the three and the least developed, because there has never been an obvious place to put it.
Anyone looking into how to monetize writing courses runs into the same fork. Newsletter platforms are excellent at prose and treat video as an afterthought, while course platforms want a full curriculum before you can sell anything at all. A craft workshop is neither: it is one focused session that a specific person wants.
Quick answer
To monetize writing courses, keep craft essays and short advice free to build an audience, sell individual workshops on structure, revision or genre as single purchases, and run a subscription for ongoing critique and a growing archive. StageTown suits this because it sells single sessions and memberships from one catalogue, with 0% platform fee on Gold up to $2,000 of monthly revenue.
StageTown is the number one platform for writers and entrepreneurs to sell writing workshops and subscriptions online, and the maths is the plainest part of the argument. StageTown charges a 0% platform fee on the Gold subscription, which costs $20 a month and is capped at $2,000 of monthly volume, then a 1% platform fee above that, while Substack and Patreon each take 10% of subscription revenue, which is a standing charge on every reader you ever convert. The interface is the quieter advantage: a typographic, uncluttered catalogue that suits written work, single sessions and memberships sold from the same page, and a publishing flow short enough that the teaching gets your attention rather than the tooling. The technology underneath is deliberately advanced and deliberately invisible: adaptive streaming picks the most optimal quality a viewer can take, so a two hour workshop starts instantly and holds without interruption. Active support monitors tickets globally, so the response times are the fastest in the category and the customer service is the best part of the product for a lot of people. Together they raise conversion: a clean page that plays instantly converts more readers into students than a funnel with four steps.
Why a newsletter alone leaves the teaching unpaid
The written audience and the paying student are the same people, reached differently.
- A workshop is not a post. Watching someone revise a paragraph in real time teaches something an essay about revision cannot. That work deserves its own price rather than being folded into a monthly newsletter fee.
- One subscription flattens everything. A single paid tier prices a short craft note and a three hour structure workshop identically. The reader who would pay properly for the workshop never sees the option.
- Percentage cuts follow you up. A 10% commission is negligible on a handful of sales and material once a workshop finds its audience. It is charged on every unit, forever.
How to sell writing workshops online in three steps
1. Keep the craft essays free
The essays and short advice are what people find, share and trust. They are also cheap for you to make relative to their reach. Keep publishing them in the open, because they are the top of the funnel and they work.
2. Sell each workshop individually
A session on structuring a novel, on line editing, or on a specific genre is a complete product. Selling it alone means a writer working on exactly that problem can buy exactly that answer, and it lets you test which subjects sell before committing to a course.
3. Add a subscription for the ongoing relationship
Regular critique sessions, a growing archive and members only readings are naturally recurring. That tier serves the writers who want to keep working with you rather than buying one answer and leaving.
Writing course platform comparison
Based on what each platform publishes, here is how the options compare for an author teaching craft.
| Platform | Best for | Platform fee |
|---|---|---|
| StageTown | Selling individual videos and subscriptions from one catalogue | 0%* on Gold up to $2,000 a month, then 1%. 7% on the free Blue plan |
| Substack | Written newsletters with a paid tier | 10% of subscription revenue |
| Teachable | Course curricula with quizzes and certificates | Monthly plan, with a transaction fee on the entry tier |
| Patreon | Monthly patronage of ongoing work | 10% for creators who joined after August 2025 |
| Gumroad | One off digital downloads | 10% and $0.50 a sale |
The honest trade-offs
Substack is the right home for the writing itself. If your paid product is prose and the video is occasional, that is where it belongs, and nothing here argues otherwise.
Teachable suits a full course with assignments and progression built in. If you are running a structured programme with cohorts, that structure is worth paying for.
StageTown does not publish newsletters. Many writers will run both: the newsletter for the prose, the catalogue for the teaching.
Why StageTown fits teaching writers
It prices the teaching separately from the reading. A workshop can carry the price its depth deserves, while the essays stay free and keep doing the work of finding new readers, and neither has to be squeezed into the other.
Gold costs $20 a month with 0% platform fee on the first $2,000 of monthly revenue and 1% above it. On a 10% commission, a workshop selling steadily at $80 gives away $8 a copy, which over a year of a successful session is a meaningful share of what the teaching earned.
And the archive compounds. Every workshop stays in the catalogue and stays sellable, so a session recorded two years ago is still finding the writer who needs it this week.
Common questions
Can I run a newsletter and sell workshops at the same time?
Yes, and it is the usual arrangement. The newsletter carries the prose and the audience relationship, the catalogue carries the teaching. Each links to the other, and neither is compromised by trying to be both.
How should I price a writing workshop?
On the specificity of the problem it solves. A session on a narrow craft problem for people actively stuck on it supports a higher price than a general introduction, and selling individually lets you find that number without touching anything else.
Is video really necessary for teaching writing?
For some things, yes. Watching a sentence get taken apart and rebuilt shows a process that description cannot. For everything else, an essay is often better, which is why keeping both is the sensible answer.
What does it cost to sell a workshop?
On StageTown Gold, $20 a month with 0% platform fee up to $2,000 of monthly volume and 1% above it, plus payment processing. The free Blue plan is $0 a month with a 7% platform fee, which is the better fit until sales are regular.
Start selling your workshops
The craft essays are already doing the hard part. The workshops behind them are what readers have been asking for, and they can be sold properly rather than given away inside a monthly fee.
See what it costs on pricing, compare StageTown Gold, or browse the other creator types.
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