Standalone Course Working with Authors
Learn strategies for managing expectations, setting schedules, negotiating contracts, ensuring timely payments, and marketing your services to attract new clients.
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At a Glance
- Enrollment:
- Open Enrollment
- Length:
- 7 weeks
- Format:
- Online
- Investment:
-
$1,500
Upcoming Dates
Course Start
Building strong, collaborative relationships with authors is essential to a successful editing career. This seven-week course introduces you to the best practices for fostering trust and effective communication with authors—a skill set that is particularly critical for freelance editors. We will cover the multifaceted role of an editor, including project management, basic business skills, and client relations.
You will learn strategies for managing expectations, setting schedules, negotiating contracts, ensuring timely payments, and marketing your services to attract new clients. You will also explore how to handle challenging situations, such as working with authors who are hesitant to be edited due to past experiences, and how to create positive editing experiences that lead to ongoing collaborations and referrals. Through this course, you will gain the tools needed to build lasting author relationships and thrive in the competitive field of editing.
Grow Skills and Your Business
Our Working with Authors course teaches you about the multifaceted work editors perform in coordination with authors, including:
- Building a trusting and collaborative editor-author relationship, which is fundamental to success.
- Basic business skills to maximize impact with authors and on projects.
- Navigating the past experiences authors have had with editors.
- Creating a positive experience that leads to referrals.
- Growing skills outside of editing such as project management skills, accounts payable, and communications skills.
Designed For
Designed for professional editors working in-house or as freelancers, aspiring editors looking to launch their careers, and writers working in fields such as academia, grant writing, and cultural institutions pursuing freelance opportunities.
Enhance Your Career
Learning objectives and outcomes
During this seven-week course you will:
- Learn several strategies for establishing and maintaining trust throughout a project.
- Understand the full suite of administrative, and sometimes production, work that goes into a successful editorial career.
- Learn project management skills and strategies.
- Learn time management skills and strategies to make the most of your time—to the author's benefit.
- Learn about pricing your work and getting paid without hassle.
- Learn the most helpful ways to query authors and get results.
- Learn the value of accounting and keeping a paper trail to successful author relationships and business development.
- Take away tools and resources that you can implement directly on projects and use in your freelance business.
- Learn marketing strategies for finding and attracting authors.
- Develop strategies to deal with difficult authors.
- Be able to approach projects with good business sense and good rapport.
- Learn when to step away from editing work or a client to ensure continued positive relationships.
- Understand equitable and inclusive practices when working with authors.
Upon completion of this course you will be able to:
- Confidently build trust with all authors, including remote collaborators and those you interact with primarily via email.
- Make and run an editorial project to support author relations.
- Communicate and deliver on project needs and expectations.
- Apply different levels of editing to meet author expectations or project/time management needs.
- Implement different strategies for managing personal and work time in view of author needs and output.
- Price your work and basic accounting information for author-editor relations.
- Understand the essential elements of an editorial project from start to finish, and how to manage various projects (and relationships).
- Understand the freelance business basics.
- Write queries that are heard and responded to, get results, and reduce workload.
- Develop a plan for finding and attracting authors to your services.
Earn a Credential in Editing
After successful completion of this course, participants will receive a course badge certified by the University of Chicago to recognize their achievement.
The Joy Is in the Details
Quality Education Taught by Industry Thought Leaders
We provide stackable learning options with UChicago brand recognition, networking with top-tier professionals, and courses taught by thought leaders in the industry. You will receive highly practical training with in-depth assessment and instructional feedback. Our editing courses are backed by the authority of The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) and bolstered by direct connections to the UChicago Press.
Meet Your Instructor
Our expert instructors set the standard for the incredible experience you will have in our Editing courses and certificate program. They have worked as freelancers, consultants, and in-house editorial and production managers at industry-leading presses and have extensive experience working with CMOS—even consulting on new editions. They understand the technical and professional demands of the industry and have a wealth of contacts and resources. As experts in the field, they offer invaluable networking opportunities.
Katherine Faydash, MUPP
Editor and Urban Planner
Katherine Faydash is an editor and urban planner. She previously was an editor at Great Books Foundation, Loyola Press, and University of Chicago Press, and a practicum instructor for a course on human rights in Mexico at DePaul University’s College of Law. At UIC’s Great Cities Institute, she...
Skill Development in a Changing Job Market
Our Standalone Editing Courses provide professional development in response to the evolving skill requirements in the job market. These courses address the need to expand beyond a curriculum in manuscript editing and encompass a wider spectrum of competencies. They provide tailored learning paths that cater to the specific and various needs of professional development in editing. Participants will have ongoing training opportunities to stay relevant and grow skills to work across sectors and roles. These are individual courses meant to enhance your training outside of our full Editing certificate program.
Other standalone courses include:
Editing for Lawyers (Coming soon)
Join a Distinguished Editing Community
Our welcoming and supportive community will challenge you, motivate you, and help you build connections with like-minded learners. You will become part of an extensive network of editors, writers, and industry professionals. There are opportunities for collaboration, mentorship, and professional growth, helping you advance your career.
Talk to an Advisor Today
Do you have questions about the online course or our full Editing certificate? Our team is ready to discuss the program and answer your questions regarding our registration process. Connect with our admissions team via email, by booking a live appointment, or by filling out our online request form to receive more information and have someone reach out to you.
Payment Options for Non-Credit Certificate Students
Our goal is to provide students with a variety of tuition payment options that will suit their financial circumstances when they register for non-credit certificate UChicago Professional courses.
The University of Chicago has a clear refund policy for non-credit courses. View the withdrawal and cancellation policy for more details.
Current members of certain professional associations are eligible for a 10 percent tuition reduction. Please check the list of eligible organizations below. If you are a member of an organization listed, please contact editing@uchicago.edu for more information.
- American Medical Writers Association
- Board of Editors in the Life Sciences
- Council of Science Editors
- Editorial Freelancers Association
- Independent Writers of Chicago
- International Society of Managing and Technical Editors
- National Association of Science Writers
If you have already completed a certificate program at UChicago Professional, you are eligible to receive our 20 percent Alumni Scholarship toward this standalone course.
For more information on the Alumni Scholarship program, please email the director of professional development programs, Karine Bravais, for eligibility.
Are you a benefits-eligible UChicago employee? Please see the UChicago tuition benefits page for more information related to your employee benefits.