Getting Started Teaching How-To Classes

If you’re a developmental editor, you’ve probably occasionally thought about teaching a class for writers—perhaps as a means to let people get to know you before they invest in the expense of a full developmental edit or because you want to help them solve some common writing problems before they finish their first draft or even just because you’d like to make a little extra money.

Time and Patience

Typically, such editors will offer an online class so that more people can join. And naturally they use social media to promote their class. But they’re often disappointed when their class doesn’t get much traction or enroll many students.

As someone who has been teaching online classes for writers and editors for years, I can tell you that it takes a lot of time and patience to break through the noise on social media.

My Top Tip for Aspiring Teachers

That’s why one of my top tips for teaching classes is to start by teaching for an established organization. They already have an audience and can help spread the word. And after a while, you’ll become known as a teacher and then you can start running your own classes (self-sponsoring them).

For example, I first started teaching writers in person at my local senior center. Later I started teaching an online book proposal class to members of a freelance writers association. Then I started teaching online copyediting classes for the University of California San Diego. Finally, I began teaching developmental editing for an editing organization (again online). And that eventually led to Club Ed. But it would have been extremely difficult for me to get any traction with Club Ed if I hadn’t taught for some established organizations at the beginning.

Opportunities Abound

Look around at local and regional opportunities—arts centers, senior centers, libraries, even bookstores. They may not pay a great deal, but it’s a good way to get a start, and you can move along to the next opportunity fairly quickly.

Once you have a little experience, think about teaching at regional or national conferences or workshops or for bigger national and international organizations. At some point, it’s likely that people will start coming directly to you, asking for classes on specific areas of interest, and that’s when you’re more likely to have success with a self-sponsored class.