Becoming an Academic Entrepreneur: The Private Podcast

If you’ve ever wondered whether it’s really possible to leave academia and make a living as a freelance editor, you need to hear this week’s episode of Leaving Academia: Becoming a Freelance Editor.

My guest, Meg Toth, was a tenured professor who walked away from her academic career, joined my program, Becoming an Academic Editor, and built a successful editing business in just a few months.

In this episode, she shares:

✨ ...

This week is a good one, folks. I've got 5 tips to help you GTFO of academia. 😲

We're living in strange and dangerous times. Life is enough to deal with in a normal week, and now the US government and higher ed are crumbling around us. 🔥 If you're extra burned-out these days, you are not alone.

I'm active in the Facebook group Academics Say Goodbye, and I was asked by the admin to write a featured post sharing my story of l...

Once you’ve started professional editing, how can you maximize your time and earn as much money as possible? 🧐

Let’s get one thing straight: there is NO shame in wanting to earn more money. Especially given your skills and the value you provide to your clients, academic editors should feel confident charging rates that equate to $100 per hour… or more!

One of the best ways to reach this goal is to bill your projects usi...

If you’re unhappy in academia, you may be dreading facing down another 15 weeks–let alone another whole YEAR–of dealing with administrators, AI, and burnout in general.

In this episode, I give you four easy steps you can take to dip your toes in the waters of editing and coaching to see if they feel right for you. 🏊‍♀️

You’ll find out:

🧐 one simple step to get your name in front of grad students who need help editing the...

This week I summarize my 2024 by sharing all the juicy stats on:

🎯 the number of clients I've worked with,

🎯 the projects I've completed, and

🎯 the top strategies I used to attract a steady stream of clients and start earning $10k per month.

I also discuss my website traffic, email list growth, total 2024 earnings, and what's on deck for 2025.

Above all, I am so incredibly grateful that you have joined my little corner of...

In this episode, Ana Hartman shares her journey from the precarious position of adjunct faculty to the more flexible and rewarding career of freelance academic editor.

We discuss the challenges she faced as an instructor, the strategies that helped her overcome her anxiety about starting a new business, and how editing has allowed her to rediscover her passion for writing.

Key takeaways from this episode:

- The importance of n...

In this episode, I give some key pointers on how blogging regularly can help improve your SEO (search engine optimization), demonstrate your value to potential clients, and get you noticed... so you have a steady stream of client inquiries–and income–headed your way for years to come.

Questions I answer:

What should academic editors write about in their blog posts?

How can editors increase the visibility of their articles?

How ...

In this episode, one of the members of my first group coaching cohort, Niki Tulk, PhD, PhD, MFA, joins me to discuss the transition from academia to editing.

Niki has such a fabulous sense of humor, so this episode will make you LOL (and there's a guest appearance by her rescue dog, Lily!).

But she also gets to the heart of the problems with academia--and how this affects so many of us emotionally, and even physically.

Fro...

In this episode I discuss the different ways of setting your editing rates and how much you can earn as a freelance academic editor--per hour and in terms of annual income.

Some of the most common questions I get from faculty who are considering editing deal, understandably, with how much money they can earn, whether or not it would be enough to replace their faculty salary, and if there’s enough work out there to make a sustain...

Dr. Julia Galindo is a former faculty member in the Harvard Writing Program who has helped countless students navigate the challenges of college-level writing. She’s also a trained executive function coach and specializes in helping writers break down overwhelming tasks or break through the blocks that are keeping them from writing. Prior to becoming a coach, she taught the popular course: The Psychology of Success and Failure. In ...

When you’ve been working as an educator for years and you’ve always pictured yourself as having a secure, salaried position, the thought of freelancing or owning your own business can be daunting. In this episode, I’ll break down what it really means to be a freelance academic editor and offer some tips to help you decide whether or not this path is right for you. We’ll discuss the skills you need to be a strong editor, and some pr...

In this episode I discuss what exactly an academic editor is, the different types of editing, and where freelance editors work.

When I was still in academia, I had no idea what a copy editor was or that they worked with scholars to improve their writing and chances of publication. In fact, it wasn’t until I published a book with Routledge and I worked with a freelance copy editor employed by the press that I learned this could e...