BFP partner me in my magazine for freelances. I've known them for
decades, and subscribed myself in my first freelancing days. I still get
their newsletter of course.

Short answer - I've never managed NOT to make a sale when I have decided
a BFP lead was worth following, but I have not followed one for a couple
of years. I have always read the newsletter with great interest, but
only occasionally see a picture requirement which hits my files on the
spot and for which I can almost be sure of a sale. Best example once was
a business travel magazine looking for hotels in cities abroad - I sold
several images and a couple of magazine covers from one sheet of slides.
If I did more photography I'd probably find four or five sales a year
from BFP market newsletter contacts.

Editors and agencies do complain that BFP can produce a load of dross as
well as useful images, but try www.photographersdirect.com - I have been
testing that, and no better way to waste time seems to exist. If I was a
buyer and ended up being sent the 500 or more shots a requested subject
I would find it very hard to judge any from the little 400 pixel size
JPEGs. At least with BFP, my submissions could look different and my
prints and slides could be judged 'live'. Presentation counts, still.

As for the courses, another short answer - BFP have a secret. They sell
the courses at a fair price. If you complete the course, you have got
ten times the value of the price you paid. But nine out of ten wannabees
can't manage to complete the course. They give up. They don't use the
tutor's advice or take it seriously. John Wade is the course tutor and
he dreads the day that a decent proportion of course buyers actually
stick with it. He would be working for nothing! So, if you go for it,
and complete it, and use John's services as offered - fantastic value.
You are being subsidised by all the punters who were not all that
serious to start with and saw freelancing as an easy way to make cash,
or thought they knew it all already, or whatever.

BFP's mail order course is much like all courses in this respect. The
ones who stick it out get fantastic value, the majority who don't have
wasted their money entirely.

David