13+ Essential (Free) Courses for Freelance Writers

It’s mid-July. You’re probably sitting there, post-4th slump, wondering what to do with the little bit of spare time between projects.

How about learning something new? Right now? For free?

What you’ll find on the list — plenty of free content from some of the top universities. Even podcasts (plenty of those) so you can listen while you work out, cook, walk, commute.

What you won’t find on the list — paid courses, or even free ones, from people who are in it to sell you one more thing. In fact, I purposely left all courses off that are offered by other writers. Not that there aren’t great ones out there. I just don’t want to go down that route, for most free courses offered by writers (and a lot of these writers do know their stuff) lead to paid ones. That’s another post altogether.

For now, we’ll stick with those offered online without the upsell.

Try some of these business-boosting courses:

Advertising and Promotion – Saylor Academy

Branding, Content, and Social Media – Ohio State

Communicating in Cyberspace – MIT

Effective Small Business Marketing – Udemy

Entrepreneurship and Business – Carnegie Mellon

How to Launch a Successful Startup – MIT

Introducing the Art of Negotiation – Alison

Journalism Ethics – UCLA

Nuts & Bolts of Business Plans – MIT

Professional Ethics – Open Culture

Technical Writing – Wikiversity

Writing for Strategic Communication – La Trobe University

Writing for the Web – Open 2 Study

 

Not quite enough? Try this list of over 50 free courses covering specialty areas and topics.

Or browse these catalogs:

Coursera (My personal favorite)

edX

Lynda

Udacity