[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I don't think the workshop is actively evil, but I don't much care for it.
They're charging extra from an itemized list for every bit of personal interaction you get with the instructors. The prices are high. But here's my biggest gripe: they're hawking $179 pitch sessions.
Pitch sessions are bloody useless for everything but movies, TV, radio, and some trade nonfiction books. Nobody buys first novels from pitches. Hardly anyone buys second or subsequent novels from pitches, either; and if they do, the person doing the pitching is most likely an agent, not an author. There is no reason for an event called "Novels in Progress" to be offering pitch sessions.
And who do they have doing the pitch sessions? Some woman who used to work for Starlog, sold four historicals to Ace, and is now trying to move into fantasy, and a couple of guys from Mundania Press. Goshwow! I'm overcome by the magnitude of the sophisticated expertise they have on tap there. I can't imagine paying to talk to any of those people, much less paying $179 for a quarter-hour of gabbling with them when they haven't seen my work.
I'm more and more inclined to the view that pitch sessions are a scam. They pull in business at pricey "writers' weekends" and the like, and I'm sure they do wonders for the convention organizers' bottom line; but they're useless for most writers.
Moving on:
The writers they've got are real writers. Check and see whether they're writing the kind of books you're trying to write. If not, they may or may not be useful to you.
The utility of workshopping sessions with your fellow students plus one faculty member depends on which fellow students and faculty member you draw. I've seen some excellent critique sessions that followed that format; but again, it depends on the others in your group.
I'm amused that they're charging separately for workshopping events where the value is provided by the people doing the paying.
Zizban, I apologize for contradicting you, but they do not have a high-powered list of editors, publishers, and agents there. They're mostly respectable, but they're not top of the line.
Adina Kahn works at Jane Dystel's agency. Laurie McClean is a former publicist who's gone to work at Larson Pomada. Uwe Stender is a sports coach who went into agenting a few years ago. (He's had a string of respectable sales, so good for him.) Paul Levine is outside my area of expertise, but he looks real enough.
Daniel Reitz and Bob Sanders are both affiliated with Mundania Press. I suspect they're most of Mundania Press.
As far as I know, Mundania isn't a scam operation, but it's middling clueless. Three less than promising features: 1. Mundania is a POD house, though they say they'll do offset print runs if they think there's a market for more copies than POD can provide. 2. They have authors send in marketing plans along with their submissions. 3. They refer to themselves as a "traditional press."
Most of Mundania's books fall into two categories: original titles that couldn't get published elsewhere, and reprint titles that were once published by a conventional publishing house, but have gone out of print and can't get a nibble from any other houses. In the latter category they've got some bad old Piers Anthony (and a little new stuff), Robert Adams' Horseclans books, and a Louise Cooper fantasy series that tanked in the late 80s.
Mundania never sees a manuscript that lots of other houses haven't seen first.
Karen Syed's with Echelon Press -- all e-books, with a lot of erotica in the mix.[/FONT] She's also helped run the kind of writers' conventions that are big on pitch sessions.
I'm sure they're all very nice people, but I wouldn't pay hundreds of dollars to talk to them.
So, is the workshop worth your time and money? You'll have to decide that for yourself. If you think these are the right people to go to for advice, and you can afford the cost, and you're at a point in your novel where this is the kind of help you need, then maybe it's a good idea. On the other hand, for that much money you could hire a nice cleaning lady, and use the freed-up time to work on your novel.
