A Writer's Retreat: Starting from Scratch to Success! Paperback – February 22, 2011

I was hoping this book would be one of those amazing short books that's densely-packed with useful information. Unfortunately, it was more like a booklet of fluff. It also wasn't exactly what I expected, given the title and description. The book seemed to be more aimed at someone who wants to locate or buy a specific property and host an ongoing B&B-style retreat. I was imagining it would be about something more like the 5-10 day retreats in different locations around the world.Even if you're looking for that kind of information, I'm not sure this it the book you'll want. It says its 100 pages long, but in reality it's less than 80 pages of real content. Quite a few pages at the end are completely blank, and a number of pages are empty between sections or filled with images (like sample letterhead) that take up the entire page. Add in a fluffy intro and conclusion plus a couple pages of testimonials and you're not even at 80 pages.What's provided is extremely vague and not terribly useful. Some is outdated, or just unnecessary - like letterhead. When picking a location, the author encourages you to find a good real estate agent who is ethical and listens to you. This takes up half a page, yet it should really be common sense. If you're looking for advice on the "rules" you have to follow to run a retreat, this is not the book. Although I understand why, the only answer you will get is the generic "talk to the relevant professionals" sort of advice.Marketing is another section that's really weak. Instead of talking about HOW to build an audience and following on social media, there's just a short snippet that says something to the effect of "use social media like Twitter, Facebook, etc for lots of free traffic". Anyone who's ever used these services for promotion will know there's a lot more to it than that. It would be much better if she talked about how to build up your audience online, where to find the people, how to set up great targeting for Facebook ads, how to create an opt-in email list, etc. instead of talking about stuff like letterhead and business cards that's only minimally useful in this day and age.Interested in figuring out how to price your retreat? You won't get a good answer here. Basically, she tells you to price it so that you make money after all your expenses, if making money is your goal. Everything is just extremely generalized and vague.There really isn't any one section of this book that stood out as being useful. If you're genuinely serious about starting a writing retreat (of either type), I'd recommend that you get a decent "How to Start a Business" book, read some guides on social media marketing (especially Facebook, considering you're probably not going to be marketing to the super-young audiences), and talk to an attorney when you know where you'll be operating. This just felt like a bunch of short articles strung together (about topics that need more depth than what you get from short articles).

Micheline Cote has been running successful retreats for many years. She seems to have written this little book to help other aspiring retreat operators avoid the most obvious mistakes, increasing the odds that they'll be successful from the start. It's concise, clear and well-organized. A small investment in a big enterprise and well worth it to make sure you've asked yourself the questions you should ask before launching into a writer's retreat.

The author offered great information on establishing a Writer's Retreat. Her formula offered ideas that you wouldn't think of at first, but would prove to be very useful in creating the perfect environment for writers to maximize their creativity. Her suggestions for paying attention to small details is well worth the price of the book!

The book is written in a very easy self-help style. It gives useful suggestions and - for someone like me, who wants to extend a current business (bed and breakfast/conference centre in northern Italy) by attracting a more international public - it was certainly interesting to see another person's point of view.

I was disappointed. There were very few pages of information, and it was targeted mostly to people who wanted to go into the writing retreat business...and in many ways it was more of a brochure for the author's ventures/ I didn't really learn anything about how to put on a writers retreat.

Not really what I had in mind.

Great book to starting writer's retreat.

I love the ideas, even if you are starting any kind of retreat or dreaming about it, you need this book!