Leaving Academia: You Are Meant for More

Paulina Cossette
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In 2019, I was a political science professor who was fed up with the stress and hostility of academia–not to mention the low pay. I left my tenure-track job and went from barely surviving to thriving as a freelance academic editor. Today, I own Acadia Editing Services, an editing and coaching business that brings in six figures a year.  In this podcast, I’ll discuss the challenges of academia, what academic editing involves, and what life as a freelancer looks like. If you’re willing to jump outside your comfort zone, it IS possible to find joy, true flexibility, and a profitable and rewarding career as an academic editor or coach. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. 1d ago

    Tenured and a Little "Woo": How One Professor Is Working to End Scarcity Thinking Among Faculty

    You've probably been told you have two choices: stay in academia and hope for flexibility, or leave for a 9-to-5 job in industry. There's a third one nobody talks about, and it's a lot more fun. In this episode, I talk with Marie Gasper-Hulvat, a tenured art history professor at Kent State and the founder of Soulstar Attunement. She also created the Ivory Tower Inner Fire Summit, a free online event for academics who are disenchanted and want a livelihood that sustains them. When Marie asked online whether anyone else felt caught between academia and the woo, hundreds of people answered. Then, 740 signed up for her first summit. Now Marie is hosting a second round of the Summit, and this one is focused on the "vow of poverty" that faculty take, even if they don't realize it. You'll hear us gab about: 🐦‍🔥 Why so many academics keep parts of themselves closeted and masked at work 🐦‍🔥 How Marie teaches a full course load and runs a business, and why finding a supportive co-working community changed everything 🐦‍🔥 Why "abundance" is almost heretical in faculty meetings, and how the scarcity stories in academia keep us small 🐦‍🔥 What's happening at the summit (Oct 9–11): 24 pre-recorded presentations, live Q&A panels, hot-seat coaching, and a fabulous community of people like you 🐦‍🔥 Why "nobody's going to pay me for that" is usually a story, not a fact Register for and access the Ivory Tower Inner Fire Summit here: https://ivorytowerinnerfire.com/2-summit-registration?am_id=paulina2538 Resources Mentioned: Ivory Tower Inner Fire Summit, Oct 9–11 (free to attend, or get your VIP pass for extra goodies): https://ivorytowerinnerfire.com/2-summit-registration?am_id=paulina2538 Soulstar Attunement (Marie's business): https://soulstarattunement.com/ Flow Club (the online co-working space Marie mentions): https://in.flow.club/?inviteCode=marie698 Want to turn your academic skills into paying clients in 90 days? Go to AcadiaEditing.com/map 01:45 - Teaching art history 100% online 03:30 - Founding Soulstar Attunement and human design 06:45 - Are academics open to woo? 08:00 - The Venn diagram post that started it 09:45 - Academics with PhDs who read tarot 12:00 - Wanting a livelihood that sustains you 14:30 - Marie's group programs and offers 18:00 - Doing both: Flow Club co-working 20:15 - How the summit came together 23:00 - Who the summit is for 27:00 - Summit schedule, VIP pass, and gifts 29:30 - Changing the story you tell yourself 31:30 - The third option beyond academia or corporate 33:30 - Scarcity versus abundance in academia 35:15 - How to register (it's free) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  2. Sep 24

    How He Got 13k LinkedIn Followers After His PhD (the Exact Formula)

    You've been trying to grow your reach on LinkedIn—posting consistently, following the experts' advice, tweaking your hooks—and nothing's working. Each post gets 8 likes and disappears into the void. Christos Efthymiou, PhD, knows that feeling. After a random rant went viral on LinkedIn, he thought that maybe there was something to the platform that could help him grow his consulting business. But then he spent two months struggling to strike gold with another LinkedIn post before he finally figured out a formula that works. Now he has over 13,000 followers and gets hundreds of likes per post. And he's sharing his step-by-step framework with us here! In this episode, Christos breaks down exactly how he plans and writes his posts, as well as: -how long it really takes to find your LinkedIn voice, -the post structure that works for an academic audience, -why the "one line per paragraph" advice might be wrong for PhDs, -how to handle links without killing your reach, and -why authentic comments beat formulaic engagement every time. Have you been struggling to expand your reach on LinkedIn? What tactics have you tried? Share them in the comments! Subscribe and hit the bell so you don't miss new weekly episodes. Resources Mentioned: Follow Christos on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christos-efthymiou/ BioVectoral (Christos's Substack): https://biovectoral.substack.com/ Connect on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@christos_efthymiou_phd Want to end burnout and become an academic editor or coach? Go to AcadiaEditing.com/map TIMESTAMPS 0:00 - Meet Christos Efthymiou, PhD 1:30 - Leaving computational biology for entrepreneurship 3:45 - How one frustrated post went viral 6:15 - Why personal brand matters for academics 9:00 - The no-cost barrier to entry on LinkedIn 11:30 - Two months of struggle before finding his formula 14:00 - Where post ideas actually come from 16:45 - Why specific moments beat general topics 19:30 - The hook is 70% of your post's success 22:00 - Finding your genuine writing style (stop copying) 25:15 - Post structure: get to the point by the middle 28:30 - Should you put links in LinkedIn posts? 31:00 - Why CTAs in every post can backfire 34:00 - Dealing with negative comments and haters 37:00 - Workflow: writing and posting same day 39:30 - Does posting time actually matter? 42:00 - Authentic commenting vs. formulaic engagement Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  3. Sep 17

    My Husband's Honest Take on My Academic Exit and Building My Business

    If you're an academic, have you ever wondered what your spouse really thinks about the countless moves, job insecurity, stress, and burnout that are likely shaping your life together? In this episode, my husband, Travis, sits down with me on our back porch in Maine to talk about what he saw—from the outside looking in—during my entire journey through academia and into business. We moved six times in seven years chasing tenure-track jobs and a prestigious fellowship. Travis left a 12-year research career in Florida to follow me to Washington, D.C. He watched me grade papers seven days a week, pump breast milk between lectures, and slowly lose myself to a system that demanded everything and gave back very little. And then he watched me leave. Build a six-figure business from our kitchen table. Take summers off with our kids. This is a conversation about what the people closest to us notice before we do—and what it looks like when you finally choose your life over your academic career. In this episode, you'll hear: 💕 What it was like for Travis to be the "trailing spouse" through 6 academic moves 💕 How academia's career-first culture affected our marriage and family 💕 The moment we finally said "let's just go" and moved to Maine 💕 Travis's perspective on watching me build a business vs. watching me survive academia 💕 His honest advice for the spouse of someone considering leaving Want to identify your transferable academic skills? Go to AcadiaEditing.com/map 0:00 Intro 3:14 Meet Travis 4:14 Dating during the dissertation 6:38 The first academic move: St. Augustine 8:22 Jacksonville and the trailing spouse question 10:00 Leaving Florida for Washington, D.C. 15:54 Travis's career pivot to vet medicine 19:04 Back to Jacksonville—and hitting bottom 23:37 The decision to try Maryland 25:40 "Let's just go"—moving to Maine 27:39 New baby, teaching overload, breaking point 32:04 Starting over: job hunting and freelancing 35:31 The book proposal course flop 37:38 Launching BAE and diving into business 39:15 Academia's overwhelm vs. business's overwhelm 40:07 Choosing summers off with the kids 43:03 Dinner table business talk and hiring a coach 47:48 What this business gave our family 49:15 Travis's advice for the trailing spouse Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  4. Sep 3

    From Burnout to 10k Followers: How Erin Schleiden Built The Academic Writing Coach

    You've always assumed that niching down will scare clients away, but you're getting it wrong. I know it's counterintuitive, but Erin Schleiden, PhD, is the perfect example of why narrowing your niche is the way to grow your audience and expand your client list. After grad school, Erin picked one tiny slice of the dissertation--the literature review--and became the go-to editor for it. That's what got her from a business idea to more clients than she could take on. In this episode, Erin, founder of The Academic Writing Coach, walks us through her journey, from burning out while teaching six classes in grad school, to freelancing on Upwork, to building a successful business--including 11,500 followers on Instagram. She also explains why having an ultra-specific niche worked in her favor when she was scared it would backfire, and how a year of posting on Pinterest every single day contributed to her success. Whether you've spent decades in academia or you're just finishing your PhD, it IS possible to use the skills you've developed to build the life you've always wanted. In addition to editing, Erin offers a Lit Review Writing Bootcamp and a 14-Day Methodology Momentum Challenge. Get more info and join her email list at the links below. Resources Mentioned: The Academic Writing Coach: https://theacademicwritingcoach.com Erin on Instagram: @theacademicwritingcoach Want to end burnout and become an academic editor or coach? Go to AcadiaEditing.com/map Timestamps 00:00 - Meet Erin Schleiden, the Academic Writing Coach 02:58 - Burnout from teaching six courses at once 04:48 - Freelancing on Upwork back in 2012 07:33 - Building a basic website beyond Upwork 09:50 - Niching into literature review editing 11:40 - Why niching down brings in more clients 13:57 - Pinterest SEO and posting daily for a year 16:14 - Officially launching The Academic Writing Coach 18:05 - Growing Instagram from 300 to 10,000 followers 21:17 - Using a VA for voice-of-customer research 24:02 - Inside her 1:1 coaching and editing packages 26:46 - Running the 30-day dissertation writing challenge 31:48 - Her teaching background as a business asset 34:06 - Where to find and work with Erin Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    From Burnout to 10k Followers: How Erin Schleiden Built The Academic Writing Coach

  5. Aug 27

    4 Signs Your Academic Business Has Outgrown You (and What to Do Next)

    You're fully booked with editing or coaching clients. Revenue is good. And somehow you still feel like something's about to fall apart. If that sounds familiar, you haven't done anything wrong—you've hit a point that almost every academic entrepreneur hits after the early growth stage. In this episode, I walk through the four signs that your editing or coaching business has outgrown the "figure it out alone" phase: 1. doing everything yourself 2. being too busy to market 3. trading time for money, and 4. decision fatigue and shiny object syndrome I share what each one looks like day to day, why the skills that got you here stop working past this point, and what changed for me once I stopped trying to solve all of it solo (hint: my business grew well past $100k). If you're past the launch phase and starting to feel the ceiling pressing down on you, this episode will show you that it's time to make a change so you can keep growing. Want to end burnout and become an academic editor or coach? Go to AcadiaEditing.com/map 00:00 - Why scaling has no one-size-fits-all formula 03:00 - The BAE roadmap and why early growth is simple 07:15 - Sign 1: doing everything yourself 09:30 - Why delegating feels harder than it should 13:25 - Sign 2: fully booked but no time to market 16:30 - Building a marketing system that runs in the background 19:00 - Sign 3: trading time for money 21:30 - Pricing on value instead of hours 23:20 - Sign 4: decision fatigue and shiny object syndrome 26:30 - The shiny object syndrome story with my coach 29:30 - Refining what already works instead of chasing new offers 33:00 - Recapping all four signs 36:00 - What changed after getting the right support Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    4 Signs Your Academic Business Has Outgrown You (and What to Do Next)

  6. Aug 20

    The "House Cleaner Theory" of Pricing Your Academic Editing Services

    If you're still charging 2 cents a word for academic editing, this episode is going to make you uncomfortable—in a good way. In this episode, I break down the two beliefs that keep editors underpriced ("I'll lose clients" and "who am I to charge more?"), why the EFA rate chart is training the whole industry to undercharge, and exactly what I charge now for copy editing, developmental editing, and coaching. I also share real rates that editors inside BAE are landing right now, from US$350 journal article edits to US$2,300-a-month coaching clients. I explain why a client who leaves when you raise your rates was never the right client to begin with (and how you can attract the right clients who value your expertise). And I offer the "house cleaner" analogy to help you stop feeling guilty for raising your rates. Watch the full episode or listen wherever you get your podcasts. And be sure to register for my free training on Sept 2: "Where Are All the Private Clients? How to Stop Relying on Agencies and Start Attracting Clients Who Value Your Work" Get the Zoom link at: https://acadiaediting.com/editorslive Resources Mentioned: Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA) rate chart: https://www.the-efa.org/rates/#ratechart **A note on the EFA rate chart: Since recording, I've been thinking about my comments on pricing and the EFA rate chart, and I want to clarify some things. First, I've heard from dozens of editors who charge very low rates (around 2 cents a word) because they think that charging less will get them more clients. These are experienced editors who should be learning how to market themselves, instead of keeping their prices low. This is the audience I was thinking about when I recorded this episode. Second, I think the 4-6 cents per word that the rate chart quotes for line editing in the humanities is in line with the pricing that I see among BAE members (brand-new editors), but I do think that editors with a year or more of experience and positive client feedback should be charging closer to 7-8 cents per word (yes, even in the humanities and social sciences). Furthermore, the EFA chart's rates for STEM, legal, and medical are far too low. Editors with 6-12 mos of experience (and positive client feedback) in these fields should be charging 7-12 cents per word, especially for shorter articles. Finally, I'd like to repeat my call to the EFA to release more data from the survey: what is the sample size (total and per category), what does the distribution of rates look like (total and per category), etc. The medians are helpful but they are not the whole story. Timestamps 0:00 - Why raising your rates feels so scary 2:00 - The two beliefs driving underpricing fear 5:00 - Beliefs vs. facts: unmaking the fear 8:30 - How Paulina went from 2 to 8 cents a word 11:30 - What editors in BAE are actually charging 15:00 - Clients who leave are a fit problem, not a price problem 18:30 - The house cleaner pricing analogy 21:30 - What premium clients are really paying for 24:30 - Why pricing for everyone prices you for no one 27:30 - Why the EFA rate chart is too low 31:00 - Real BAE member rates and project examples 34:00 - How to actually price editing and coaching work 37:00 - Community, confidence, and the free Sept 2 workshop Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    The "House Cleaner Theory" of Pricing Your Academic Editing Services

  7. Aug 13

    Does Leaving Academia Still Feel Like Failure? Reflections on the Last 10 Years

    Leaving academia can feel like admitting the whole thing was a mistake. It isn't—and the fear that says otherwise isn't an accident. In this episode, Paulina sits down with career coach Jen Polk (From PhD to Life) for an honest conversation about the stigma around leaving academia: where it comes from, whether it's actually loosening, and how to push through it if it's holding you back. You'll hear the "you can never come back" fear-mongering both of us heard firsthand, why the tenure-track benchmark is more arbitrary than it feels, and practical ways to rebuild your sense of identity and community outside a university. Watch the full conversation, subscribe for more real-talk about life after academia, and check out Jen and Paulina's Monday YouTube Live series for weekly conversations on leaving academia. Resources Mentioned: Jen Polk — From PhD to Life.com Want to end burnout and become an academic editor or coach? Go to AcadiaEditing.com/map 1:21 – Today's question: does the stigma persist 3:45 – Catching up before diving in 6:43 – Paulina's story: fear-mongering to stay put 9:10 – "You can never come back" myth 11:33 – Stigma exists to keep academics trapped 14:21 – The "such a shame" irony story 17:37 – Coaching clients who wait for tenure 18:51 – Ticking the box before feeling free 22:38 – Hiding your job search from colleagues 24:14 – Publishing outside academia gets you shunned 31:38 – Nobody outside academia cares about tenure 32:22 – Who are you without the title 35:36 – Reframe: pick your top three hats Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Does Leaving Academia Still Feel Like Failure? Reflections on the Last 10 Years

  8. Aug 6

    How to Finish Your PhD and Launch Your Editing Business (with a Toddler at Home)

    Thousands of moms around the world are getting their PhD while juggling many (or all) of the parenting responsibilities. In this week's episode, I spoke with Laura Vasquez Bass, of Atlantic Editorial, about how she defended her dissertation and launched her editing business--while being a toddler mom AND an international student. Laura is a September 2025 BAE grad who came to the US as an international PhD student, spent years as a managing editor at a peer-reviewed journal, and eventually realized that "an intellectual is who I am, not where I am." That reframe changed everything. Here's what we cover: 🤱 How Laura turned her research background in race, gender, and postcolonial studies into a niche that lets her charge for expertise, not just proofreading 🤱 How to find your coaching niche by drawing on your own life experiences 🤱 Why the real value editors provide has almost nothing to do with fixing commas—and why that's exactly why AI won't replace you 🤱 Why you don't need to be an "expert" to coach—you just need to be a few steps ahead If you're burnt out, underpaid, and wondering whether there's a version of academic life that will give you the life you actually want to have—this conversation is for you. ▶️ Watch, then subscribe for a new episode every week. Resources Mentioned: Laura Vasquez Bass — AtlanticEditorial.com Instagram: @atlanticeditorial LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-vasquez-bass-phd/ Want to get my free training and find out how to become an academic editor or coach? Go to AcadiaEditing.com/live 1:49 Meet Laura Vasquez Bass, PhD 2:41 From London to a US PhD program 5:27 When academia stopped being the plan 6:53 Discovering editing through an academic journal 9:20 An intellectual is who I am, not where I am 10:31 Rethinking what it means to be an academic 11:08 Building a niche around social justice scholarship 14:38 Why editing isn't about fixing commas (and why AI won't replace you) 16:09 Two client stories: expertise and emotional labor 19:58 Launching a coaching practice for academic moms 25:58 The loneliness of mothering in academia 32:44 You don't need to be an expert to coach 35:04 Being realistic: business is an iterative process 37:35 The marketing lesson: content vs cold email 46:07 Delayed gratification and the 3.5-year cold email 48:17 Where to find Laura + outro Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    How to Finish Your PhD and Launch Your Editing Business (with a Toddler at Home)
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About

In 2019, I was a political science professor who was fed up with the stress and hostility of academia–not to mention the low pay. I left my tenure-track job and went from barely surviving to thriving as a freelance academic editor. Today, I own Acadia Editing Services, an editing and coaching business that brings in six figures a year.  In this podcast, I’ll discuss the challenges of academia, what academic editing involves, and what life as a freelancer looks like. If you’re willing to jump outside your comfort zone, it IS possible to find joy, true flexibility, and a profitable and rewarding career as an academic editor or coach. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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