New to Copyediting? Let Us Help You
Build your business skills in a personalized environment and get the specific information and encouragement you need through one of Comma Sense’s mentoring groups. Each mentor is an industry expert. You’ll get professional mentoring in an affordable group format.
2021 Mentoring Groups:
Preparing to Go Freelance. Will meet Saturdays. For editors preparing to launch freelance businesses.
Expanding Your Editing Business. Meeting days TBA. For freelancers who would like to build an existing freelance business (targeted to those in business at least four or five years.)
Each mentoring group includes:
Topics will include:
Mentees will be asked to set action item goals. These will be followed up throughout class. We encourage discussions between meetings in our private online space.
Once a group is filled, we can’t add any more mentees. Groups are kept small to ensure each person gets personalized attention, so if you are interested, please sign up soon.
Important facts about our mentorship groups:
Cost: $200 per person
Sign-up information: If you want to join one of these groups, email Lourdes at LVediting@gmail.com with the name of the group you want to join (see below). A PayPal invoice will be sent to your email.
Refund Policy
If you decide to exit the program, you will receive a refund based on a prorated schedule:
Preparing to Go Freelance with Sea Chapman. Sea Chapman has been working as an editor since 2006. From book manuscripts and audio transcripts to press releases and ELL programs, she has worked on a little bit of everything. Sea has specialized in editing creative writing for over seven years. These days, she is a technical editor by day and a comics, novels, and games editor by night. (Her day job is as a technical writer and editor for the IT department of an international aerospace and telecommunications company.)
Sea has earned an Editing Certificate from Poynter and ACES: The Society for Editing, a Copyediting Certificate from UC San Diego Extension, and a Bachelor of Science in Technical Communication from Arizona State University. She is a member of ACES: The Society for Editing, the Editorial Freelancers Association, and the Association of Independent Publishing Professionals. Sea is also one of the coordinators for the new Phoenix chapter of the Editorial Freelancers Association and the vice president of the Arizona chapter of the Society for Technical Communication.
Beyond editing manuscripts, Sea likes to be involved with the publishing community in other ways. She was one of the jurors for the Speculative Literature Foundation’s 2016 Working-Class Writers Grant, and she was one of the judges for the 2017 Writing Contest hosted by the Society of Southwestern Authors.
In April 2017, Sea was a featured speaker at the Tallahassee Writers Conference and Book Festival, where she gave a talk about authorship as entrepreneurship. Sea spoke with the EFA Boston Chapter about how to edit fiction in November 2017, too. At the ACES: The Society for Editing conference in April 2018, she spoke on panel about finances for freelancers. At that same ACES conference in 2018, Sea gave an individual presentation about conlangs in fiction. Sea also spoke at the ACES: The Society for Editing 2019 conference about confronting death in the written word as an editor.
Expanding Your Editing Business with Lourdes Venard. Lourdes Venard has been working as a writer and editor since 1985. She has worked as a copyeditor at newspapers around the country: The Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and Newsday in New York. She was part of copyediting teams that shared in two staff Pulitzer Prize wins. She now works as a freelance editor, and has edited for a travel magazine, a food magazine, a scrapbooking magazine, and a marketing company. In addition, she has edited more than a hundred books, mostly fiction.
She teaches through the Editorial Freelancers Association and through the University of California, San Diego, where she is also the lead course developer for their Copyediting Certificate program. Through EFA, she has presented a webinar, “Sensitivity Reads: What You Need to Know to Offer This Service,” and co-written an EFA booklet about sensitivity reads.
Her mentoring experience goes back to the beginning of her journalism career. She has worked with high school and college students, as well as new copyeditors, through many programs: the Robert W. Greene Summer Institute for High School Journalists at Stony Brook University; Metpro, a training program for new copyeditors through Newsday/Tribune Co.; Unity, a conference for editors of color; the Latino Reporter Student Newspaper Project at National Association of Hispanic Journalists conferences; Exposure, a workshop for high school students sponsored by the Chicago Association of Black Journalists; and Presente, a workshop for high school students sponsored by the Chicago Association of Hispanic Journalists.
She has spoken to other journalists and to authors at several conferences and meetings, including “Copy Editing: A Fine Line,” a double-session panel at Unity conference in Washington, D.C. (2004). Unity was the largest gathering of journalists of color, with more than 8,000 attendees at this conference.
She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Miami (communications) and a master’s degree from the University of Missouri (media management).
2021 Mentoring Groups:
Preparing to Go Freelance. Will meet Saturdays. For editors preparing to launch freelance businesses.
Expanding Your Editing Business. Meeting days TBA. For freelancers who would like to build an existing freelance business (targeted to those in business at least four or five years.)
Each mentoring group includes:
- Six group meetings (Zoom or some similar platform) with your mentor.
- A private online space dedicated to your group (io.Groups), where you can ask questions, share information, and interact.
- Booklet with informational material.
- There is no one-on-one training, although your mentor may agree to do so for an additional per hour amount.
Topics will include:
- Marketing
- Best business practices
- Networking and finding work
- Starting a business (or expanding your business)
- Best work routines
- Work-life balance
Mentees will be asked to set action item goals. These will be followed up throughout class. We encourage discussions between meetings in our private online space.
Once a group is filled, we can’t add any more mentees. Groups are kept small to ensure each person gets personalized attention, so if you are interested, please sign up soon.
Important facts about our mentorship groups:
- Attendance is mandatory. Carefully check the online meeting times and plan to attend at least four out of six meetings. You will get the most benefit by attending live discussion.
- This is not a traditional course. You will not receive a syllabus. Your mentor will announce a general topic for the meeting.
- Participation is required. Mentees are expected to generate the questions about the current week’s topics and participate in the discussion.
Cost: $200 per person
Sign-up information: If you want to join one of these groups, email Lourdes at LVediting@gmail.com with the name of the group you want to join (see below). A PayPal invoice will be sent to your email.
Refund Policy
If you decide to exit the program, you will receive a refund based on a prorated schedule:
- Up to two weeks before first meeting: 100% refund
- Two weeks before first meeting through the third meeting: 50% refund
- After the third meeting of group: no refund
- In the case we cancel a class (not enough enrollment), we will refund 100% of your payment.
Preparing to Go Freelance with Sea Chapman. Sea Chapman has been working as an editor since 2006. From book manuscripts and audio transcripts to press releases and ELL programs, she has worked on a little bit of everything. Sea has specialized in editing creative writing for over seven years. These days, she is a technical editor by day and a comics, novels, and games editor by night. (Her day job is as a technical writer and editor for the IT department of an international aerospace and telecommunications company.)
Sea has earned an Editing Certificate from Poynter and ACES: The Society for Editing, a Copyediting Certificate from UC San Diego Extension, and a Bachelor of Science in Technical Communication from Arizona State University. She is a member of ACES: The Society for Editing, the Editorial Freelancers Association, and the Association of Independent Publishing Professionals. Sea is also one of the coordinators for the new Phoenix chapter of the Editorial Freelancers Association and the vice president of the Arizona chapter of the Society for Technical Communication.
Beyond editing manuscripts, Sea likes to be involved with the publishing community in other ways. She was one of the jurors for the Speculative Literature Foundation’s 2016 Working-Class Writers Grant, and she was one of the judges for the 2017 Writing Contest hosted by the Society of Southwestern Authors.
In April 2017, Sea was a featured speaker at the Tallahassee Writers Conference and Book Festival, where she gave a talk about authorship as entrepreneurship. Sea spoke with the EFA Boston Chapter about how to edit fiction in November 2017, too. At the ACES: The Society for Editing conference in April 2018, she spoke on panel about finances for freelancers. At that same ACES conference in 2018, Sea gave an individual presentation about conlangs in fiction. Sea also spoke at the ACES: The Society for Editing 2019 conference about confronting death in the written word as an editor.
Expanding Your Editing Business with Lourdes Venard. Lourdes Venard has been working as a writer and editor since 1985. She has worked as a copyeditor at newspapers around the country: The Miami Herald, Chicago Tribune, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and Newsday in New York. She was part of copyediting teams that shared in two staff Pulitzer Prize wins. She now works as a freelance editor, and has edited for a travel magazine, a food magazine, a scrapbooking magazine, and a marketing company. In addition, she has edited more than a hundred books, mostly fiction.
She teaches through the Editorial Freelancers Association and through the University of California, San Diego, where she is also the lead course developer for their Copyediting Certificate program. Through EFA, she has presented a webinar, “Sensitivity Reads: What You Need to Know to Offer This Service,” and co-written an EFA booklet about sensitivity reads.
Her mentoring experience goes back to the beginning of her journalism career. She has worked with high school and college students, as well as new copyeditors, through many programs: the Robert W. Greene Summer Institute for High School Journalists at Stony Brook University; Metpro, a training program for new copyeditors through Newsday/Tribune Co.; Unity, a conference for editors of color; the Latino Reporter Student Newspaper Project at National Association of Hispanic Journalists conferences; Exposure, a workshop for high school students sponsored by the Chicago Association of Black Journalists; and Presente, a workshop for high school students sponsored by the Chicago Association of Hispanic Journalists.
She has spoken to other journalists and to authors at several conferences and meetings, including “Copy Editing: A Fine Line,” a double-session panel at Unity conference in Washington, D.C. (2004). Unity was the largest gathering of journalists of color, with more than 8,000 attendees at this conference.
She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Miami (communications) and a master’s degree from the University of Missouri (media management).
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