The Absolute Write global writing resource site has a newsletter, job listings, an ebook store, software for writers, courses and forums. So what’s good, what’s bad, what’s updated and what’s not? We review all this and more, from the unique perspective of the Indian freelance writer.
The Absolute Write site has a number of micro sites/sub sections targeting writers. It is a little confusing to understand all that they have to offer at first glance.
The registration boxes and newsletter subscription boxes dominate the homepage. Ignore this to navigate to the inner page content. There are a lot of ads and banners of different colors, shapes and sizes on the pages – very distracting – focus on the top navigation bar and the central text panel and you’ll be ok.
The editorial section was closed at the time of this review and seems like the site may have discontinued that service.
# Don’t miss the funny postscript on the footer.
Writing Software
This was something a little different that the site had to offer. The low priced writing software that is easily downloadable covers a range of genres. The software contains a format and basic guidelines for different styles of writing and prompts the writer to fill in relevant information and populates it at the right places in the article/report/thesis/essay/whatever you are writing.
The average price of the software seems to be $70. Useful for people churning our huge volumes of work with no time to research templates. For the rest of us, it may be easier to just put the format down on a word doc and use that for future articles instead of forking out about Rs 3000 for the spoon feeding.
Books on Writing
The site offers a handful of books on writing and epublishing. Books are priced at around $10 to $15 each. The trouble here is not the type of books, but the limited choice. They have a section on Amazon that covers general interest books.
Classes
Use the classes tab on the top to access the Absolute Classes section. A number of ‘classes’ for writers are on offer. The site offers links to other sites offering niche courses. The new courses on offer when the site was reviewed by us had prices ranging from $100 to $400. At current exchange rates this works out to between Rs 4000 and
Rs 16,000.
Newsletters
The premier service of this site is their free newsletter which carries job listings.
There are 2 newsletters you could subscribe to – a free one with listings of jobs and contests and a paid newsletter with more job listings. The newsletter comes alternate weeks so you can safely subscribe to both with no overlap of content. You are routed to the zinester ezine directory where you will have to login to view archives.
# While the newsletter is supposed to be biweekly, the latest newsletters on the free archives were nearly 4 months old. The solo mailings are more frequent. Whether they haven’t had any new mailings or whether the archives aren’t updated isn’t clear.
Writer Listings
The Writer listings are short but carry links to the writers’ websites and are categorized by genre. Writers are charged $10 per listing and are allowed a maximum of 15 words to describe themselves.
Miscellaneous
Forums, novel writing and non-fiction writing resources, specialty writing resources are all accessible via the diminutive red sub menu bar on the top of the page. These pages contain links to articles, web sites of interest to writers as well as interviews and reviews. The forums are active and a good place to find answers to some questions that may have been bothering you as a writer.
Overall, this is an interesting site but underutilized. Seems largely static but has some useful resources if you dig deeper. The weekly newsletters seem interesting if they keep the listings updated.
VITAL STATS
Site: Absolute Write
URL: http://www.absolutewrite.com/
Features: Jobs Newsletter, Software for writers, writing related books
Summary: Resource site for writers carrying job listings and writing software.
Check out the complete list of our website profiles for Indian Freelance writers and editors
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