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The Top 10+ Writing YouTube Channels (2023)

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While the craft of writing hasn't gotten any easier for writers over time, the methods and avenues for learning and practicing writing skills have expanded in so many ways. Take a look at my list of more than ten top writing YouTube channels to see which one holds the best writing tips for your creative writing growth.

YouTube: Where Writers Go to Learn

The other day, as I was pilfering through a closet, I came across the first novel I ever wrote. Picking up the yellowed manuscript, I cracked it open. The handwritten words looped across the college ruled notebook paper. Red ink crowded the margins and whiteout chipped off some of the lines.

So much has changed in the decades since I penned my first tale. Not only what I write on, but how I prepare for the next leg of my writing journey.

There are so many sources of amazing information available on a variety of media. So many, in fact, it can feel overwhelming.

How do you know where to start? How do you know if the book, blog, podcast or YouTube channel is worth your time?

The world of writer YouTube channels has a name: authortube. There’s a wealth of channels with thousands of videos. Some focus on the writing craft, the nuts and bolts of writing. Others on self-publishing and the business of being a writer.

Fortunately for you, I’ve done the research, and found the top ten Youtube channels for writers. These channels are from authors, editors and entrepreneurs who are currently publishing videos on a regular basis to provide you with ongoing and up-to-date advice.

Top 10 Writing YouTube Channels

Check out these writing channels to give your writing a boost:

1. The Creative Penn

The Creative Penn  from New York Times best-selling author, Joanna Penn, covers a wide variety of topics. She offers tips on self publishing, marketing, and being a successful author.

While she is known for her thrillers, Joanna often collaborates with guest writers who provide advice on fiction, memoirs and nonfiction. You can find her posts weekly.

2. Mark Dawson

Mark is a prolific best selling indie author with over forty novels. His website and authortube channel, The Self Publishing Formula, offers tutorials and collaborations with other successful authors who use social media advertising to supercharge their careers.

Mark publishes videos weekly each with a new topic on the path to being a successful indie writer.

3. BooksandBigHair

India Hill Brown, author of The Forgotten Girl and The Drowned Girl, leads this booktube channel where she provides book reviews, unboxing and read-a-thons.

She also has videos offering advice on how to land a literary agent and how to set and accomplish your writing goals. India uses her own experiences as a writer and a mother to help influence her content.

4. Jenna Moreci

Jenna won over a huge fan base by offering her sarcastic, comedic writing advice in bite size pieces on her YouTube channel . She is a successful indie writer with thousands of short videos serving up writing do’s and don’ts; like How do I Write My First Chapter or Why Your Plot Twist Sucks.

This is not your mama’s Youtube channel, and I suggest you don’t let your kids watch either. But her wit and humor keep you coming back for some great tips and laughs. Jenna puts out new videos weekly.

5. Michael La Ronn

Michael heads up a channel called Author Level Up . Each week he posts videos about the writing craft, self-publishing and increasing your productivity. He offers livestream Q&A sessions as well so you can interact directly with Michael. Learn to write better and faster all while having fun.

6. Dave Chesson

Dave’s channel, Kindlepreneur, provides a series of short, easily digestible videos on increasing your notoriety as well as some great `”how to’s” on a variety of publishing topics like uploading your book to Amazon, writing a prologue, and book formatting.

Dave’s strength is moving books to readers. His website, kindlepreneur.com , is a book marketing website. Dave is also the founder of Publisher Rocket, a book marketing software. (See The Write Practice's review on Pub Rocket here .) Dave publishes videos weekly, so you can always be informed on the most up to date trends in the publishing industry.

7. Diane Callahan

Looking for something more creative? Diane’s channel, Quotidian Writer, offers a unique view on a variety of writing craft topics. Diane is a developmental editor of fiction and an author. Her videos themselves are works of art.

These short pieces feature images and reenactments while you learn. Diane puts her videos out every other month, so be sure to tune into her next installment or get caught up on her previous topics.

8. WordNerds

The channel Word Nerds focuses on live streaming videos with eight word nerd hosts from across several genres. It’s like a writer party each week where you can participate in the discussion with a writing community. With a library of nearly 1,500 videos on topics ranging from inspiration to interviews you’ll find something to spark your interest.

9. Alexa Donne

Alexa is a traditionally published YA author who uses her channel t o provide guidance on writing and publishing. Even though she’s a YA author, she hosts interviews with authors across several genres. Alexa offers straightforward advice to keep you focused on writing and your head in the game.

10. Abbie Emmons

Abbie’s upbeat videos will help inspire you to meet your writing goals and improve your writing process. She believes the rules are less important and puts her focus on empowering authors to find the meaning in their words and understanding their craft. In her words, “I teach writers how to make their stories matter by harnessing the power and psychology of storytelling.”

3 Bonus Channels!

All right, I couldn't stop at just ten. Here are three more top channels that are well worth your views:

11. The Write Practice

Joe Bunting’s channel, The Write Practice , focuses on improving your skill as a writer and helping you develop good habits to becoming a successful author. These short monthly videos provide easily executable lessons and creative ideas that are paramount to any writer regardless of your skill level or experience. Paired with the site's writing prompts, there's something to help every writer grow.

Joe is a best selling author and founder of The Write Practice website, a place for authors to gather and share their work and improve their craft. Joe has been helping people achieve their writing goals since 2011, so join in and let him help you on your journey.

12. Brandon Sanderson

Brandon Sanderson didn’t mean to become a Youtube sensation. The sci fi / fantasy author and university lecturer fell into it by accident. Brandon has his own current authortube channel, but the lecture series he posted in 2020 is well worth the watch. Brandon has a knack for teaching so these popular videos are not only easily understood and engaging but delivered in the classroom making it conducive to learning.

Lecture #1 Introduction on Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy

Lecture #2: Plot

13. Robert McKee

Robert McKee is arguably one of the most well-known and celebrated screenwriting lecturers. Former students have gone on to win Academy awards, Emmy awards and WGA awards. His renowned “Story Seminar” on the art of storytelling has been presented around the world. While his YouTube pieces aren't recent, his short videos offer timeless advice on structure and design for anyone who puts words to the page.

What Are Your Top Writing YouTube Channels?

There are so many fabulous creative voices out there, I’m sure I missed a few. Check out these channels to get started exploring authortube. And don't hesitate to try some new channels, too.

Just don't let watching authortube become a way to procrastinate writing your own book!

What's your favorite authortube channel? Let us know in the comments .

Choose one of the YouTube channels above and watch one video. Then, set your timer for fifteen minutes and put the lesson into practice.

Watch Joe's video on writing a premise here . Then, set a timer for fifteen minutes and write your idea out as a premise.

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Our 13 Favorite YouTube Channels for Writers

Hayley Milliman

The best part of being a writer in the 21st century is free access to countless resources! YouTube has so many great channels for writers. It’s like getting your own personal writing tutor from the comfort of your couch.

We’ve rounded up some of the best YouTube channels for writers. These channels are full of invaluable information and inspiration.

1. ProWritingTV

2. shaelinwrites, 3. iwriterly, 4. brandon sanderson, 5. terrible writing advice, 6. mark dawson’s self-publishing formula, 7. grammar girl, 8. the creative penn, 9. jorden makelle, 10. writing with jenna moreci, 11. alexa donne, 12. self-publishing with dale, 13. book launchers.

We are definitely biased, but our favorite YouTube channel for writers is our own. Here at ProWritingAid, our goal isn't just to create an amazing grammar checker that will help you find and fix errors in your work. We also want to help you learn from your mistakes to improve your writing and your understanding of your writing every single day.

That's why we launched our YouTube channel, ProWritingTV: to give you even more ways and mediums in which you can learn about the craft of writing. Whether you're a visual learner who prefers to watch a video than read an article or you're just looking for a more educational bingewatch topic than normal, head over to ProWritingTV now to check out our frequently updated content.

We also have replays of all our free writing webinars, where you can learn from bestselling authors like Jerry Jenkins, Orna Ross, and more.

Shaelin Bishop is such an inspirational writer and vlogger. She’s very young, but she’s already written more than eight novels! Her videos are chock full of great information on topics ranging from plot to point-of-view. They are longer than many AuthorTube videos, which just means they are detailed and leave nothing out.

Shaelin started her channel while she was still in school for creative writing, and she recently graduated. That means her information is fresh and up-to-date. She talks about things she has learned from her professors, so it’s like you get several experts in one YouTube channel.

This is one of our favorites:

Next up, we have iWriterly, the brainchild of author Meg LaTorre. Meg’s videos cover a wide range of topics. She delves into craft topics like tropes and characterization, but she also has great advice for both traditional and indie publishing. She covers everything from querying literary agents to finding a cover artist for self-published authors.

Meg worked at a literary agency before she branched out on her own as an author, blogger, and speaker. That means she has valuable insider information to the world of traditional publishing. Her videos are professional quality, and she keeps it real about the good and the bad sides of publishing.

Here is one of our favorites:

At this point in my writing career, I’m convinced Brandon Sanderson has more fans from his author content than from his actual books. Brandon is one of the top-selling fantasy authors. He’s also dedicated to the writing community and shares information on his own website and his podcast, Writing Excuses.

But he also was a guest lecturer at Brigham Young University. On his channel, you can find all thirteen of his lectures. And let me tell you, he’s the coolest professor you’ll ever have. This is a must-view channel for fantasy authors.

Terrible Writing Advice is exactly what it sounds like. Everything the vlogger tells you to do is something you really shouldn’t. So, why am I calling this one of the best YouTube channels for writers? Well, it’s actually a lot more helpful than a lot of writing advice. Plus, the videos are a lot of fun: animated and full of sarcasm.

It’s easy to listen to regular writing advice and think: Sensory description? Check. Character motivations? Check. But it’s a lot harder to find the mistakes. So, if a piece of Terrible Writing Advice sounds like something you did in your novel, chances are you, you might want to rewrite it. (I’m looking at myself here, when it comes to fantasy battles!)

One of our favorites is:

If you are planning on self-publishing and you haven’t heard of Mark Dawson, you can thank me later. Mark is a highly successful indie author who has turned his expertise into the business of helping other self-published authors find success.

You can find everything on his channel from formatting your book to earning a six-figure income. And he doesn’t rely only on his knowledge. He regularly interviews other independent authors to share their experiences and expertise.

Grammar is the bane of many writers’ lives. It’s great to have editing software like ProWritingAid, but have you ever wondered why you keep making the same mistakes? Grammar Girl provides an easy-to-understand explanation of different spelling and grammar rules.

I’ve loved Grammar Girl’s website and podcast for a long time, so I was thrilled to discover that she has a YouTube channel. She updates regularly, and her videos are often very timely, like her recent explanation of the difference between a “pandemic” and an “epidemic.”

No list of AuthorTube channels would be complete without mentioning The Creative Penn. Joanna Penn has built a small empire teaching other writers about writing craft, book marketing, and self-publishing. When I’m looking for a specific question, Joanna’s website and channel are the first places I look.

She has videos on every topic you could imagine. And she isn’t just for fiction writers, either. Joanna also brings on other authorpreneurs to share their stories and advice.

We’ve talked a lot about YouTube channels meant for fiction writers. But writing books isn’t the only type of writing out there. Jordan Makelle, the founder of Creative Revolt, is a freelance writing guru.

She started her freelance career as a complete novice and was earning $5,000 a month within just four months. She now teaches courses for bloggers and freelance writers. But she gives out plenty of great, free advice on her channel. Fair warning, if you don’t want your kids to pick up an swear words, watch her videos with headphones.

There’s a reason Jenna Moreci is one of the top authors on YouTube. Her videos are hilarious and informative at the same time. She has over 200 videos on tons of subjects.

Jenna mostly focuses on craft discussion and writing tips. However, she also talks about the business of being a writer, too. She also makes her share of videos about the life of an author, like finding motivation to write and dealing with haters.

Everyone needs a writer friend that will tell you the stuff you need to hear but don’t want to hear while also being super supportive. But if you don’t have that friend, Alexa Donne’s YouTube channel is the next best thing. Alexa has a personality that makes you feel like you’ve known her your whole life.

She gives great writing advice and can be brutally honest about the writing community and its trends. But she is also encouraging and gives great pep talks. I find her videos some of the most engaging on the internet.

Dale L. Roberts is a best-selling author and self-publishing advocate. He wants to show you how to build a successful writing career through self-publishing. On his YouTube channel, Dale covers everything from how to find the best keywords for your book to whether or not you should hire a narrator to do your book's voiceover.

Learn how to publish books that sell on this channel. Subscribe now to stay up-to-date on the latest in self-publishing news, insights and strategies.

Julie Broad is the founder of Book Launchers , a self-publishing service that helps authors get thier book out there.

She is also an Amazon Overall #1 Best Selling Author, so she knows what it takes to successfully self-publish a book. Her popular YouTube channel, BookLaunchers.TV, champions the hashtag #noboringbooks, and helps nonfiction authors write (and market!) books people want to read.

Here's Julies guide to marketing your self-published non-fiction book on LinkedIn.

What is your favorite writing YouTube channel? Let us know in the comments.

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Hayley is the Head of Education and Community at ProWritingAid. Prior to joining this team, Hayley spent several years as an elementary school teacher and curriculum developer in Memphis, TN. When Hayley isn't hunched over her keyboard, you can find her figure skating at the ice rink or hiking with her dog.

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This class exceeded my expectations. Class format, content, teacher and peer engagement were so well thought of and encouraging. I was excited to start my week to open up the new lessons.

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This was a great experience for me being able to work with such a knowledgable, helpful and insightful instructor, as well as a solid group of participants who also offered great critiques and encouragement throughout the class.

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I’ve taken other online writing courses, and this was far and away the best, in large part that was due to the sense of community that developed among the students and between us and the teacher. 

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Ollie was very encouraging and supportive; they not only knew their stuff, but shared feedback in a non-critical manner. This course provided an intimate and challenging opportunity for me to learn about various poetry forms/styles, as well as the experience of writing and sharing unedited, first-draft poems based on prompts provided by the instructor. It forced me to work outside my comfort zone, and that was a benefit in and of itself, outside of the class material.

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If you are a writer interested in the pervasive effects of tech on society, this course is a must-take. Shankar creates an inspiring space for creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and celebration of each other’s work. I found the generative prompts in this class inspiring. The students in this class were truly amazing people and the course has opened up a whole world of possibilities for my creative writing. Shankar is also extremely generous with resources, so you are learning for long after the class is over

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6 YouTube Writing Activities for Students and Teachers

No doubt about it: YouTube has some amazing cat videos, but we have some creative YouTube writing activities your students will love more.

 But, if we can tread the line of its algorithm-generated sidebar suggestions and avoid falling into a black hole of mindless entertainment, we can uncover some powerful tools to help get our students writing.

 As a resource to enhance learning in the classroom, few free tools can match the sheer volume and diversity of the content that the world’s largest video-sharing platform offers.

 Not only is YouTube the world’s most popular video-sharing platform, but it’s the 2nd most popular search engine overall, with over 3 billion searches performed per month.

 And most importantly, our students love YouTube. Heck, it’s even more popular than Facebook.

 So, if you’re struggling to ignite your students’ enthusiasm for yet another writing task , why not check out our 6 Writing Activities Involving YouTube list below.

Things to Consider When Using YouTube in the Classroom

 But, before you or your students begin to use YouTube in the classroom, be sure you’ve thought through some of the potential safety issues that arise when using the platform with young people.

 The relative importance of these safety issues will depend largely on the age of the students you’re working with. But, be sure to take all the necessary precautions and acquire all the required permissions before getting started.

 Some safety issues to consider when using YouTube in the classroom include:

• Inappropriate content within videos
• Inappropriate content suggested by the algorithm
• Offensive Material in the comments section
• Privacy settings for videos posted by students.

With some thought and a little careful screening thought, YouTube can prove itself an invaluable and safe resource for use in classroom writing activities.

1. Learn to write and film a Script

Back in the day, the best a student could hope for was to see a script they had labored over being performed by a ragtag group of peers at the top of the class before the bell rang.

Often, a hurried, poorly rehearsed, and unsatisfactory affair. These days, the tech has taken us a long way from that!

If you’d told ’80s school children that one day every student would be able to record and broadcast their own movies to the world – and all from a magic box in their pocket – minds would’ve been blown!

Now, most of our students have access to a video camera of some description, whether on their cellphones, tablets, or laptops and can produce and broadcast from the palm of their hand.

Any scripts that a student writes can quickly be turned into a video and uploaded, edited, and broadcast on YouTube for the world to see – all in a matter of hours.

Of course, it may not be appropriate for the settings of these home-produced movies to be ‘Public’, but the chance to see their work on the screen can still be a powerful motivating tool for students. Even if the video will be listed as ‘Private’.

While the obvious text type to focus on with YouTube in mind might be a movie script or similar, there is plenty of scope for writing a script based on a wide variety of text types too.

For example, if you’ve been working on persuasive writing in class, the students could script and produce an advertisement that employs the persuasive techniques they’ve been working on.

The YouTube Studio even allows the students to edit their videos inside the app with the YoutTube Video Editor, so there’s no need to have a subscription to any expense editing software either.

When the students have finished writing, producing, and editing, why not schedule a time and date for the screening of all the video tasks at the end?

Don’t forget the popcorn!

2. Create a Video Essay

A recent study by the Pew Research Center revealed that 85% of young people use YouTube regularly. That’s more than even social media giants such as Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram.

It would be a mistake for us as teachers to dismiss YouTube as merely the world’s single largest repository for the meme-worthy cat videos and the like. For many of our young people, it’s their single biggest source of news and entertainment.

So important is YouTube as a medium that it has even birthed new and interesting genres never before seen, such as the video essay.

The video essay is a long-form exploration of hot topics within the culture. They’re unrestricted in many of the ways more traditional, TV-style documentaries are. They’re low budget, able to appeal to smaller, more niche audiences, and they aren’t limited in length by the demands of commercial breaks and scheduling considerations, for example.

The technological skills required to produce a basic video essay are minimal. While they often use images, clips, and other media to make their case. Most of the technology is intuitive and easy to use by design.

To get a sense of what a good video essay looks like, students could check out some great YouTube channels such as:

• Nerdwriter – explores the world of interesting ideas
• Vox – examines cultural and political issues
• Every Frame a Painting – provides in-depth film analysis.

There are a ton of sites catering to a wide range of interests. They also serve as useful tools for inspiring debate and discussion in the classroom.

The process of scripting a video essay has some similarities to that of writing a regular essay. Here’s a brief outline of the process:

a. Planning

The student needs first to identify the central argument they want to communicate and they’ll also need to identify the audience they want to communicate to.

They should write this down in a few clearly expressed sentences.

b. Storyboard

Then, the student will need to organize their ideas through a storyboard. The storyboard should provide a detailed outline of what the video essay will look like. This will be a great help to help the student visualize the final product.

Once the essay has been comprehensively outlined, it’ll be time to collect together the various media needed to help to make the argument.

These resources can be gathered from third party sources or produced by the student. They may take the form of still images, video clips, slides, interview audio, documents, and screenshots to name but half a dozen.

These media can then be edited together and music added as necessary. Students can use the YouTube Editor or a third-party video editor as required.

Writing/rewriting a final version of the script will be necessary. It will need to weave the various media together coherently before adding the voice-over.

Students should also be careful to reference and credit all sources appropriately in their final work version.

3. Use Video Writing Prompts with your students

Sometimes you just need a writing activity you can pull out of the hat in an instant. Something that will get the students writing quickly with the minimum of fuss.

Traditionally, these are the times we would have scrawled a writing prompt across the board in chalk and told the students to get on with it. Effective in its way perhaps, but not very inspiring.

With video writing prompts, you can have the convenience of a quick-start writing activity but with a bit more of a spark to get things going and little to no prep required.

Video writing prompts lay a little more groundwork for the students. The scene is set in a clever and interesting way with the help of dramatic music, imaginative visuals, and a theatrical voice-over.

 There are several channels dedicated to providing quality writing prompts for students. One of my favorites is Video Writing Prompts by John Spencer .

4. Teach Poetry

We teach our students that the origins of poetry lie in oral tradition. We emphasize the musicality of poetry when we teach literary devices such as alliteration and assonance.

However, too often poetry remains primarily 2-dimensional words printed on the page of a textbook.

Fortunately, now it needn’t be so. Using videos from YouTube we can help our students see and, more importantly, hear the words living and breathing in the mouths of people – often the poets themselves.

When your students are writing about a poem, as well as reading it together in class, they should get a chance to hear it read. You can find readings of many classic and modern poetry on YouTube – sometimes read by the poet themselves or a very talented actor.

This gives students a strong sense of the musicality of the poem they are writing about. Things like intonation, tone, and stress are much more apparent in spoken versions of poetry than when reduced to lifeless words on a page to be read silently.

A quick search of a poem’s title will reveal if a reading is available on the platform. Several public playlists have compiled poets and poetry together. One of the best playlists I have found is Poets Reading Poetry .

Link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3E68BA005B5CC2DF

If your students have been working hard on their poems, you might want to host a class poetry slam. Students can get a good feeling for reading poetry out loud by checking out the content on the appropriately named Poetry Out Loud channel.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/user/poetryoutloudvideos

5. Go On a Virtual Field Trip with your students

It’s great to get out and about with your class. Going on a field trip together can not only provide some valuable time to bond as a group, but it can also provide useful experiences for students to draw on when completing writing tasks, especially recounts.

Often, however, our field trips and the time scheduled to study recounts (for example) don’t coincide. Virtual field trips are a useful tool in just such circumstances.

Virtual field trips on YouTube consist of a filmed guided tour of anything from an animal sanctuary to a world capital such as Paris.

You can also find animated historical tours like ancient Rome, for example, as well as public and private facilities such as libraries, art galleries, and museums.

Virtual Field Trips playlist offers a diverse playlist of virtual field trips and is an excellent place to get started.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOHtTtEFnefTWRSLkWPqIMN3gJU_fSauU

To write factual recounts on historical events, students could also use old newsreel footage as a useful source for their research.

A fantastic resource for this kind of footage is the British Pathé channel.

Here you’ll find everything from footage of the Titanic setting off from Belfast to the American Civil Rights marches of the 1960s.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/user/britishpathe

6. Teach Narrative Writing Through Video

YouTube is chock-full of short video stories, both live-action and animated.

There are original short movies and reworkings of classic tales, such as Aesop’s fables and the Brothers Grimm fairy tales.

These can be a valuable resource to draw upon when teaching the elements of a narrative arc.

When explaining elements such as characters, setting, rising action, problem, climax, falling action, and resolution, it can be easier when the class as a whole is familiar with the very same story.

Watching a video version of the same story together ensures everyone has a fresh and identical version of the story in mind.

It ensures everyone moves through the story at the same pace, allows you to pause the tale for discussion at significant moments, and enables you to rewatch specific parts together as necessary.

One great playlist for animated versions of Aesop’s fables is Aesop’s Fables – Bedtime Stories which contains 46 different stories.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBxwrApWIpdLR0UEFfgA0x8At4CG2LAu8

Another excellent channel with animated versions of all kinds of traditional stories is English Fairy Tales .

Link: https://www.youtube.com/c/EnglishFairyTales

Videos like those found on YouTube are a great tool for increasing student engagement in the classroom.

They give you as an educator another string to your bow when students grow weary of reading from a textbook or watching yet another slide presentation.

YouTube – it’s more than just cute cats and babies!

Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAWzhTb5vGii16D_SuKpBZQ