Writing educational resources

[dontcallmehon]

I've just had my first resource approved for zigzag education and it is going through the publishing process now. I am a former teacher, but I loved writing so much that I feel that I have found my niche. I'm writing more resources for zigzag - but I was wondering if anyone had any advice on establishing a career in this area. I was looking at the websites for other educational publishers, like Nelson Thornes and Pearson - but I'm not sure how I'd go about getting work as a writer with them. Does anyone know anything about this area?

Big publishers use a lot of freelancers / authors to write resources, so there is work out there. The fact you have had some work published is a plus, so you already have an established portfolio.

You'd really need to identify names of the publishers/editors working in your subject/level specialism and approach them. Or also look for contacts such as a web content manager who may well have a need to supply lots of content for websites etc.

Things such as textbooks are usually written by very established authors - and with the big publishers they normally know what they need written, then author teams provide the material (rather than writing a book and 'pitching' it to them IYSWIM). Untested authors would probably be used for providing supplementary material, such as photocopiables for the back of Teacher's Books etc.

I don't know what the going rate is - but I'm not sure that in itself it's particularly lucrative - the people I know tend to combine it with teaching or other work (and there is possibly an advantage in being a practising teacher and testing your material out in the classroom).

PM me if you want any more info. I'm not in a position to help directly but do have some experience of this area.

Thanks for that, I'm planning on continuing with my tutoring and exam marking and eventually running a tutoring centre. I think this would be a nice sideline and quite complementary with my other lines of work. I'm writing my second resource for zigzag now, so I'll build up a few more and them maybe send my CV off to other publishers.

There are education agencies out there that produce resources for schools by businesses/charities etc. I used to work for one and now work freelance contracting teachers to do writing for client programmes when required.

Check out www.edcoms.com, www.hopscotchconsulting.co.uk, www.nationalschoolspartnership.com/