It has been a little more than two years since I left my full-time job. All I wanted to do was teach copyediting. Two organizations immediately offered opportunities to train their editors on specific needs through friends in the profession who knew me. (Thank you, both! You know I am referring to you.)

My vision, or dream, was to offer copyediting training online! I have to confess that the task was not easy. The one goal for this course was, will always be, that it should mimic a classroom session as much as possible.

My sessions were never tailored in that I know what I am going to deliver, but not the details of how. There will be a mix of faces: awed, thrilled, satisfied, confused, puzzled. I love to read them – each one of them – and address questions. All of a sudden I am losing this biggest strength of mine. But I don’t want to.

I tried to deconstruct my sessions. What do I do other than teaching editing?

My classes are full of questions. I seldom answer a question, but rather ask another probing question until I lead the person to the answer. If you have ever attended my classroom sessions, you would agree that I am witty. There will also be plenty of practice.

My online training should reflect the classroom me.

The first choice was easy: that I will build my site on WordPress. I have been using WordPress since 2008 and am very comfortable with it. The next task – choosing my LMS – compensated for the ease of the first choice. This decision-making involved a few months of intense trials and testing. Finally I zeroed in on LearnDash.

The next was to create course material. This task was daunting: understanding how to build courses and preparing learning materials have both proved to be time- and resource-intensive.

After a lot of ground work, the first version was ready almost a year ago. While it served the basic purpose – of teaching copyediting – I wasn’t happy. I procrastinate if I am not happy. Until I regain the motivation to resume or start over. After a lot of iterations, I decided that the course is ready for launch. But it was still not the perfect version I envisioned. I worked on it a bit more.

I am so thrilled to share with you the happy news that the course is finally live now. A course that is much closer to my definition.

The course Essentials of Language Editing is specifically aimed at those who aspire to become language editors and get employed in the many typesetting companies in India. The four modules will help the aspiring editor to become ready for an editing career. The course page offers further details.

More courses are on the pipeline, including the individual modules of the course Essentials of Language Editing. In fact, you may consider this course as a specialization and the modules as individual courses.

I want to share my happiness by offering a reduced course fee to those who join on or before 5 January. The regular fee will be INR 23,600 (including a GST of INR 3,600). Until 05 Jan, you can enrol in the course at 50% off: you pay just INR 11,800 (including a GST of INR 1,800).

If you aspire to become a language editor, please make use of this wonderful opportunity. If you are already, but want to refresh your basic skills, individual modules will be available separately soon. Share this news with those who aspire to become a language editor.

If you have already reviewed the course page and are ready to enrol, you can do it from here:

This New Year has made one of my dreams come true. It also offers you an opportunity to realize your own. Why wait?