Well, that’s the wrong question. It really doesn’t matter what you’ll learn. What matters is what you’ll do.

Before I started The Company, I ran a publishing company for more than ten years. We would sometimes interview candidates for entry-level publishing jobs. They’d come in with their shiny new 4-year college English degrees and I’d ask them a simple question: So what can you do?

Their answer: *Blank Stares*

They’d spent 4 years in college (sometimes 7!) because they desperately wanted to work in writing and publishing, but after all that time and money they’d spent they would show up to a job interview and they’d never written a book, edited a book, designed a book, marketed a book, or done much of anything that an actual writer or publishing company does! All they could show me was a piece of paper and maybe some pretend assignments.

At The Company’s writing apprenticeship, we like to say that your career doesn’t start on graduation. It starts on the first day of your apprenticeship.

Don’t worry, we take it one step at a time, and you’re supported every step of the way. But you do real work with real people.

If one of my apprentices could show up to that job interview, they’d be able to say, “Here are three books that I’ve written…and here are three books that I edited for other people and you can see the kind of reviews they got on Amazon…and these books I helped to design and setup the distribution and printing…and this book here I helped the author with her book launch strategy and marketing.”

How can we accomplish so much? Well, we just do it.

We don’t waste a lot of time on General Education requirements. If you want to learn calculus, French, or about the Tang Dynasty, there’s a public library down the street and that’s a great way to spend your Saturdays. But during the workday, we’re going to focus on the skills that will directly make you successful as a writer.

And we don’t play pretend. Why would we have you create pretend projects that you throw away at the end of the semester when we can just as well have you work with real clients to produce something that will live and breath as a published book one day?

Why would we have you sit in a chair and listen to a lecture all day so that you can take a test about the theory of how to do it, when we can just do the real stuff together right now?

The reason that they don’t do it this way at University is because it requires too much time from the instructors. That’s why at The Company we never have more than 12 apprentices at a time, and all of the instruction is done in small groups or even one-on-one.

And that’s just the writing stuff.

As an apprentice, you’re also going to launch your own business. You’re going to set things up the right (and legal!) way. You’ll learn how to keep track of your finances, pay taxes, and how to plan for the future. You’ll learn how to market yourself to new readers and clients.

Most importantly, you’re also going to grow in your walk with Jesus. If you don’t learn anything else here, we want you to connect deeply with the Holy Spirit. You’re going to read books that challenge what you think about your faith so that you can refine your beliefs and grow in confidence. You’re going to have real opportunities to get comfortable doing things that might scare you today, like lead a Bible study or pray for someone’s healing.

And you’ll probably see some miracles while you’re here. We wouldn’t presume to make God do anything, but year-after-year our apprentices show up in faith and God does really cool stuff!

So what are you going to learn at The Company? Wrong question! Who are you going to be at The Company? Well, you’re going to be a faith-filled, small business guru, writing and publishing ninja.

That’s what you’ll “learn” while you’re at The Company.

And somehow, when the Holy Spirit is involved, it’s all really fun. We take one step at a time together, and while each day is challenging…it’s worth it.

Ready to get started? Learn more and apply here.