It combines the expertise of the professional with the production, distribution, technology, administration, and, when applicable, continuing-education compliance capabilities of a professional education publisher.
The professional brings the knowledge.
The publisher builds the product and brings it to market.
That distinction matters.
Professional Education Publishing Is More Than Hosting a Course
Technology has made it relatively easy to record a presentation and place it online.
That is course hosting.
Professional education publishing begins earlier and continues much longer.
A professional education publisher evaluates whether an expert's knowledge can become a viable educational product. The publisher helps shape the program for its intended professional audience, manages production, prepares it for distribution, establishes the systems through which professionals can purchase and complete it, and supports the program throughout its commercial life.
Where continuing-education credit is involved, the publisher may also manage accreditation, completion verification, certificates, regulatory reporting, recordkeeping, and other compliance responsibilities.
The result is not simply a recorded presentation.
It is a published professional education program.
The Expert Is More Than a Presenter
Traditional continuing-education programs often begin with a simple question:
Who can present this topic?
Professional education publishing asks a different question:
Who possesses expertise worth publishing?
That person may be an attorney, physician, mediator, therapist, accountant, engineer, consultant, educator, or another experienced professional.
Some may already teach workshops or speak at conferences. Others may have spent decades developing specialized knowledge without ever creating a formal course.
The publisher's job is not merely to put that professional in front of a camera. It is to recognize valuable expertise and help transform it into an educational asset capable of reaching professionals well beyond the expert's existing audience.
The Publisher Invests in the Program
Professional education publishing also differs from self-publishing.
An expert can certainly create a course independently. But doing so requires much more than subject-matter knowledge.
Someone must manage production. Someone must provide the learning platform. Someone must process enrollments and payments. Someone must provide participant support. Someone must market and distribute the program. Someone must maintain records.
And when professional continuing-education credit is offered, someone must understand and administer the applicable accreditation and compliance requirements.
A professional education publisher assumes those publishing responsibilities.
The relationship therefore resembles other forms of professional publishing: the expert supplies the intellectual value; the publisher supplies the infrastructure and investment necessary to turn that value into a commercial professional product.
Professional Education Publishing Creates an Ongoing Asset
A live seminar exists primarily at a particular place and time.
A published professional education program can have a much longer life.
A strong program may continue educating professionals for years. It can be updated as laws, standards, practices, or professional knowledge change. It can reach audiences far beyond those who could attend the expert's original workshop or presentation.
That changes the economics for both the expert and the publisher.
Instead of compensating an expert only for appearing at a seminar or recording session, a publishing relationship can allow the expert to participate in the continuing economic value of the program.
The program becomes part of a professional education catalog.
Over time, a publisher's catalog can contain programs from many experts, across many specialties and professions, with established programs continuing to reach learners while new programs are added.
Professional Education Publishing Is Selective
Publishing does not mean accepting every course someone wants to create.
A professional education publisher must make publishing decisions.
Is the expert qualified? Is the subject valuable? Is there a definable professional audience? Does the proposed program offer something worth learning? Can it be produced effectively? Does it have sufficient commercial or educational potential to justify the investment? Can applicable continuing-education requirements be satisfied? And does the program belong in the publisher's catalog?
That makes the relationship fundamentally different from uploading content to an open course marketplace.
The publisher selects what it is willing to publish and invests in the programs it selects.
The Publisher and the Expert Have Different Roles
A successful professional education publishing relationship works because the parties do not attempt to do the same job.
The professional contributes subject-matter knowledge, experience, professional judgment, and the substantive educational content upon which the program is built.
Depending upon the program, that may include program development, production, technology, pricing, distribution, participant administration, continuing-education compliance, and royalty administration.
- program development and instructional organization;
- recording and production;
- editing and course materials;
- technology and course delivery;
- pricing;
- marketing and distribution;
- enrollment and payment processing;
- participant support;
- continuing-education accreditation;
- completion verification;
- certificates and regulatory reporting;
- recordkeeping; and
- royalty administration.
The professional does not have to become an education company simply because they possess something valuable to teach.
How Is Professional Education Publishing Different From CLE or CME?
CLE, CME, CE, and similar designations describe forms of continuing professional education and, frequently, the regulatory credit associated with completing that education.
Professional education publishing describes something different:
how the educational product is created and brought to market.
A published professional education program may qualify for CLE, CME, CE, or another form of professional credit. It may also be valuable professional education without carrying regulatory credit at all.
Accreditation can therefore be an important function of a professional education publisher, but accreditation alone does not make an organization a publisher.
Publishing encompasses the larger relationship between the expert, the educational work, the publisher, the professional audience, and the continuing commercial life of the program.
How Is It Different From an Online Course Marketplace?
An online marketplace primarily provides a place where course creators can offer courses to consumers.
Professional education publishing is more involved.
The publisher does not merely provide shelf space.
It participates in selecting the program, developing the educational product, investing in its production, establishing its commercial positioning, distributing it to an appropriate professional audience, administering the learner experience, and maintaining the program as part of a professional catalog.
The distinction is similar to the difference between listing something for sale and having something professionally published.
Who Can Become a Professional Education Author?
Professional education authors are people who possess knowledge other professionals would benefit from acquiring.
They are not required to be professional speakers. In fact, some of the most valuable professional education may reside with practitioners who rarely teach publicly.
- an aviation attorney with decades of experience handling aircraft transactions;
- a physician with specialized knowledge of a difficult clinical or practice issue;
- a mediator who has developed an effective approach to complex negotiations;
- a therapist with extensive experience addressing a particular family problem;
- an accountant who understands an unusual area of taxation;
- an engineer who has solved the same expensive industry problem hundreds of times; or
- another professional whose accumulated experience can help colleagues perform their work better.
The central question is not:
“Are you a professional instructor?”
It is:
“Do you know something worth teaching?”
A New Model for Professional Knowledge
For generations, professionals have shared expertise through books, journals, conferences, lectures, apprenticeships, seminars, and professional associations.
Digital education has created another possibility.
Specialized professional knowledge can now become a durable educational product capable of reaching professionals across jurisdictions—and sometimes across countries—without requiring the expert to build and operate an education company.
That is the opportunity professional education publishing addresses.
It gives experienced professionals another way to convert what they have learned over a career into something that can educate others.
And it gives publishers an opportunity to build catalogs based not merely upon subjects, but upon people whose expertise deserves a larger audience.