As a writer of mystery games, I am expected to hone my writing skills on a consistent basis. Otherwise, the games we offer will be dry, predictable, and uninteresting.
One of those ways I work on my writing skills is writing actual books. I am on my third of a 7 book series, but have not even attempted to publish any of them yet. I have young children, and do not feel that now is the time for me to be on the road promoting my manuscript. So, right now, I am in the learning and writing stage.
I write every chance I get, as evidenced by my oodles of blogs. Whodunnit Mysteries is only one of eight blogs I participate in , 6 of which I am the sole contributor to.
As I plan to finish my third book this summer and my fourth by the end of the year, I have finally given myself a deadline to do all the steps necessary to prepare for publishing.
When I was given a chance to try out a video training series called Full Speed Ahead, I was excited - giddy actually. This series was exactly what I was looking for and I wanted to be able to tell my fellow writer-friends about it.
The first of three videos opened with a lady giving an introductory speech about what to expect in the video series. The problem was that her mouth never synched up with the voice over the speaker. I shrugged it off, thinking it might be my internet connection and my computer didn't buffer correctly. Her accent was so strong, that I couldn't understand what she was saying and often had to refer to any writing on the screen, if available, to understand. Regardless, I pushed forward with the program. The further I got in to the video, the more upset I became. The pictures were fuzzy, even though I didn't have the video in full-screen mode, and the instructions were generalized. For instance, we were told that in children's story books, you want to write a story that is a child's age level. Yes, that is good information. However, It would have been nice to give a specific example of what is appropriate and what is not by giving one page of appropriate text and one page of inappropriate text. This issue was recourrant throughout the video, and I was often being told things I already knew, or would be considered common sense.
I muscled through the first video, determined to give this program an honest effort. The second video didn't have the lady. Instead, the speaker was computer generated. In theory, this might be a nice alternative. However, it appears the creator didn't take the time to listen to the finished product because I ultimately had to shut off the second video after five minutes because the computer-generated voice was untilligible. The voice would try to read domain names instead of spell them out, or there would be glitches were coherent sentences weren't formed.
The third video had the same problem with the computer-generated voice, many of the same fuzzy, pictures, and even gave marketing SEO advice that would be detrimental to a website or marketer if they opted to use the suggested marketing advice.
After reviewing this product, I contacted the company telling them of the problems I had. But I never received a response back.
The problem with giving reviews, is that I must eventually meet a deadline. So here I am, on the absolute last possible day until I'm penalized for not giving a review for a product I received for free, and forced to give a crummy review to a product because I was never able to get through to the company.
To sum it up, I would grade this product as a D-
There were a few small redeeming qualities, but they were so small, few, and far between, that it wasn't worth wading through the rest of the junk to get to the tidbits of insight.
I was unable to talk to someone from the company who made this product, which means that anyone else who tried to contact them would probably get the same response.
This is the worst review I've ever given a company. And it pains me to give it, because I know what it takes to put a video program together ( I used to do instructional videos in my prior 'life').
I would never suggest this product to another writer or friend. And for that reason, I am not even going to give you a link to their company site. I hope you understand.
~Susan
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