Each fall, dozens of new texts are launched in Japan to the bells and whistles of extensive promotion campaigns. Some become long term hits. Others have a respectable life of a few years with decent sales. Others soar first season, only to die the second year once teachers discover that, despite the pretty pictures, they hate the book. And, of course, some newly launched books never fly at all.
The question is "Why?" What makes a book work in Japan? Clearly there is a complex mix of authoring, design, editorial input and promotion--not to mention timing and luck. When approached by the editors of this special issue about an article on writing for Japan, I thought it would be a great opportunity to reflect and share ideas. The problem, however, is that there are few "rules" and no "formulae" for writing ELT textbooks. (Not entirely true: many textbooks are written to a formula; if you're teaching one, you have my sympathy.) As Prowse (1998) points out, most ELT writers employ their own intuitions, writing textbooks much as they might write fiction, albeit in the service of a syllabus. So, were I to write my version of how writing for Japan works, it would simply be "The Gospel according to Marc" rather than truths generalizable for your own teaching and writing. Instead, this article follows a format used by Prowse in Tomlinson's (1998) Materials Development in Language Teaching, a book I highly recommend.
What advice would other Japan-based authors give? What opinions do we share? How do we incorporate our views and experiences into our books? To see if there was consensus, I sent questions to several authors. A sampling of their responses follows.
Just how different is Japan?
A travel writer supposedly suggested that "Japan is the most foreign country in the world." Teachers living and working here often hear about Japanese uniqueness. Interestingly, while everyone recognized the importance of making books appropriate for the target audience (culture, age, interest, classroom realities, etc.), most questioned the idea that Japan is totally different:
"I think there's a certain amount of myth-making involved in this statement. We do a disservice to learners here by perpetuating the myth of difference."
"Judging from reactions from audiences at workshops in other countries, EFL needs seem to be similar in at least Taiwan, Korea, and Thailand. I think their needs for interactive texts are the same as Japan's. Sales show good results in Latin American countries, too, I understand."
"I don't think writing for Japan is so different. Of course every regional/national/cultural/institutional context is unique. However, one way the markets are similar has to do with general educational and/or language learning traditions (teacher centered, grammar translation background, rigid exam-based curriculum, bias toward memorization, certain accepted language learning strategies, text focused learning, etc.)."
Most other countries mentioned are Asian, where we share both traditions of hierarchical educational structures (it's no accident that sensei could literally be rendered as "born before") and practical considerations such as large classes and exam-focused learning. Of course, the culture of each country differs and authors need to balance references to countries--in the same way that one counts male and female characters to ensure they are equally represented. Awareness of cultural norms is also essential. In Thailand, for example, the Thai royal family is so respected that any negative reference to any royal family is considered very bad taste. (Would-be authors, don't worry that you don't know these bits of information yet. Your publisher will have your manuscript reviewed in potential markets and "cultural mistakes" will come out then.)
The usefulness of material in other markets doesn't imply that the teaching situations are the same. A course book that is used over a year in Japan maybe be covered in one term in Taiwan, where classes often meet more frequently. The same book may last only a month or two in Korean language institutes (similar to conversation schools) where classes meet daily. The students' focus can also be different:
"Students here spend only the time actually in class on English and do very little outside of class. The majority just squeak by with minimal English ability even after years of so-called study of English. The learning curve here is a very gradual incline. To write for Japan is to write for the gentle incline. Most of the rest of the world seems to follow a much steeper curve, increasing rate as the student's language ability progresses."
Authors of children's books were very specific about differences in the teaching situations.
"One big difference is that English is taught from a younger age in these countries (first grade of elementary school in Thailand and third grade of elementary school in Korea). Another difference is that students at language schools in Korea often study 3, 4 or 5 times a week, and, in Thailand, students at language schools often have much longer lessons, especially in Bangkok; otherwise it wouldn't be worth their while spending hours in the traffic jams getting to the school.
"Kids get more contact hours outside of Japan. Teachers, too, seem to be getting more training. What does that mean? I think it means a book has to be different than it appears on the surface. For the Japanese market, it needs to be fun and slow, but for other markets, it has to have more depth."
The authors' secrets
The people who contributed to this article are all successful authors. The obvious question, of course, is how they got to be that way? Not surprisingly, experience is a key point:
"The key for me is always to write from the perspective of an experienced classroom teacher. I am a teacher first and writer second. And if I ever doubted that, my bank manager would quickly remind me!"
"I teach a lot (30 hours a week), and I only write for the kinds of students I teach. I also try to make the job of teaching easier for the hectic lifestyle most teachers have in Japan."
"I guess that all boils down to one word: experience." Yes, that one word, plus a few related ones."
"I have used over 60 textbooks during my teaching career in Japan and have gained some experience in what works and what doesn't."
"I worked with editors and advisors who have also worked here for a long time."
"I try to write books that I would like to use myself. Writing a textbook is a very similar process to designing one's own course materials, and many of the 'classic' EFL textbooks were directly based on materials authors developed for their own classes. But there is one major difference: a textbook (if it is to be successful) will be used by teachers with different teaching styles, different amounts and types of experience, and of different nationalities. It should also be adaptable to different teaching/learning contexts and student needs."
Oh, yes. One other thing--the wild card:
"Another secret is being lucky--an author is not always in a position to choose the type of book, publisher, editor, co-author, or designer. But they are all crucial; it's a team effort. It's a little bit like those Oscar acceptance speeches: 'First of all, I'd like to thank God ...."'
In publishing, to some degree you make your own luck. There's the image of a teacher having a great idea, sitting down, drafting a manuscript, submitting it to a publisher . . . and the rest is history. It rarely happens that way. In many cases, the publisher knows the kind of book or series it needs to complement its list. The publisher then goes searching for authors.
"One editor told me that most ELT texts are commissioned, not submitted and accepted. That told me I needed to build my reputation so someone would ask me to write for him or her, rather than try to write a text and then get someone to publish it."
"I spent several years doing reviews for various publishers, and in that process not only had the chance to make my voice heard, but much more importantly, got a sense of how to look carefully and critically at texts with an eye to how they could be made better. While this may seem a long backdoor approach to becoming an author, I'm quite glad I took my time and had this experience, for I probably learned more from doing this review work with the authors and editors I worked with than I did in, say, graduate school."
"I was doing JALT presentations. My to-be editor came up to me and asked me if I was interested in reviewing a book she was working on. I said, sure. A month later, she contacted me and said uh, the book wasn't ready to be reviewed yet--in fact, it wasn't even written yet, as the writers didn't work out, would I be interested in authoring? And we went from there."
Changes in publishing
Publishing, like most industries, is experiencing major changes. One cause is technology:
"Technology has made tremendous changes to the way textbooks are produced. As far as writing is concerned, it is now possible to communicate easily with co-authors and editors wherever you or they may be by fax, email, and phone. It is possible to exchange files and make changes to a manuscript extremely quickly. Word processing and page layout programs enable an author to produce near-professional drafts, which facilitate piloting in class, although most publishers prefer a final manuscript that is not 'over-designed'."
Many of us feel that, for all the talk about technology, the real changes that affect the students and the industry have hardly started.
"There are wonderful opportunities, but the expectations from new technology are often way ahead of the reality. In the past, we saw this with under used language labs. We've seen it with educational CD-ROMs, which are a wonderful learning tool, but which just haven't taken off in Japan."
"CD-ROMs and the Internet have great potential but few have really tapped into that potential yet. The early CD-ROMs were mostly words on paper turned into words on screen. They are getting better but there's still a long way to go. The same can be said for the Internet--lots of potential but most of it untapped."
"My gut feeling however is that jazzy technology still does not replace good pedagogy and well-structured book-based activities and tasks."
"It will be quite interesting to see how web-based publishing, for example, will change the way we think both about writing and about purchasing books."
Another major change in publishing has been merger mania. In 1990, JALT had 102 associate members, mostly publishers. Now there are 66. Macmillan swallowed Heinemann. Pearson grew out of AddisonWesley, Prentice Hall, and Longman, which had previously taken over Lingual House, Nelson, Harrap's, and a list of others.
Authors have mixed feelings:
"Generally, when a company becomes larger, it becomes less flexible and more bureaucratic. It has more problems making decisions on a local level. They waste a lot of time in the decision-making process, which hurts authors, teachers, and students. Material becomes old before it ever reaches the students. Give me a speedboat any day over a luxury liner like the Titanic."
"On balance, I think (the mergers are) bad. There is a bigger gap between those who are already established and those who are not, and fewer opportunities for newcomers. There seems to be less happening at a grassroots level. Perhaps, in time, there will be a reaction to all this, and many smaller companies will start up.
"It all smacks of monopolization of the market, decreased competition, potential sameness of the products, overly conservative and cautious publishing agendas."
Some authors do see positive aspects:
"Perhaps (there will be) more rational consolidation of resources between the relatively fewer publishers, perhaps bigger marketing budgets for promotion of the books, perhaps more budget resources for teacher development seminars/workshops, perhaps less reliance on the mythical 'blockbuster' so that the publisher can concentrate more on smaller, regional/country-specific projects."
One person, ever the optimist, went so far as to say the following:
"In theory, fewer companies means fewer chances for new authors, and fewer new ideas. In practice, I'm not sure. On the other hand, if an author has a successful title with a large publisher, he or she stands to sell more books, make more money, and descend into a life of debauchery a tad quicker."
Right, this despite the fact that royalties usually work out to something well under 100/hour.
Horror stories
All of the authors involved in this article are positive about the publishing process. However, like any endeavor, there are negatives. A couple that are telling:
"The publishing world can be incredibly arrogant. An editor may have spent one year teaching on the JET program and then become the Japan expert for a major international publisher. Other publishers who have never worked in Japan are often so confident in their armchair theories about the Japanese market. Most of the courses which didn't come out of the Japanese classroom but became best-sellers here did so by accident, not because some publisher in the UK or US deeply understood the Japanese market."
"(I've had) impossible deadlines--writing a text, workbook, and Teacher's Manual in six months, which included writing the TM before the book was even edited. THEN to have the publishing date pushed back, first 6 months and then 18 months. And then to have the main character in the text changed a year after final submission! It's almost enough to drive you over the edge! I felt kind of like (Gone with the Wind author) Margaret Mitchell would have felt if her editor had said, 'Wonderful book you have there. I know it's finished, but after talking with some focus groups, we've decided we'll have much more chance of selling the book if Scarlet O'Hara were a man instead of a woman. And if you had her living in Vermont...'."
Our best advice
The authors involved in this article are assuming those who read it do so for one of two reasons. Some readers may be teachers with a general interest in how books are written and how, in the authors' views, Japan-appropriate books get to be that way. Others, perhaps the larger group, are teachers who have thought about writing a book themselves. To that end, the participating authors each offered bits of advice. We hope they help.
"Work with a co-author. It is so much more fun to write with others and to bounce ideas off of each other and to keep each other honest when an idea really doesn't work. I have had more painfully hard belly laughs when writing and working with my co-authors than any other time I can think of. It makes the difficult writing experience fun. Someone once said that writing is easy. Just stare at a blank sheet of paper until blood forms on your forehead. This is true only if you write alone; when you work with others it's great!"
"Work backwards. Have an idea of where you want an activity, page, unit or book to go before you sit down to try to get there. You start with the final 'product' and work backwards from there. Though in fact, you may never wind up getting to that point (because something more interesting happened along that way) it's a form of poetics which works quite well for me."
"Always be honest in your dealings with publishers. Apart from the question of basic morality, one reason for this is the high incidence of takeovers and publishing employees changing companies!"
"Offer to review textbooks for publishers--they are always looking for reliable, informative reviewers. Offer to write workbooks or teacher's books for courses; they can lead to other work."
"Teach as many classes as possible for some years. Record what you did in class. You might stick to one book, strictly stick to it to the point you do exactly what the teacher's book tells you to. Teacher's Books teach you a lot more than the student book itself.
That's where the author talks to the teachers who use the book. By the time you finish one year following one author, you find yourself with your own ideas because your teaching situation is different from the author's."
"Question the assumptions behind methodology and ideas imported from teaching situations in other countries. Just because somebody famous said something, it doesn't mean it applies in the same way in Japan. There may be fundamental differences between the situations in which experts formed their ideas and the Japanese classroom."
"Don't be afraid to throw away what you've written. It is, in fact, sometimes helpful when one reaches a major block to simply crumple the paper or delete the file and then start over again, after, of course, a good break away from it. The fresh perspective and the clean file is often just what's needed."
"Get out there and do things--present workshops, volunteer in JALT. Get a good reputation regarding your specialty. Get your name out there as someone who has ideas and is willing to work."
"If you are dissatisfied with a textbook you are using, don't just bitch about it; rewrite exercises so that you think they work better.
If you develop your own handouts, think of them as pages from a textbook. Think about layout, illustrations, white space, clear and concise instructions (rubrics)."
"They say every teacher has a book in them. I think reality is that teachers have first drafts in them. If you can make it through the changes that come after that, then you've got a shot."
"Advice? Persistence, tenacity, flexibility, belief in your ideas, willingness to adapt, more persistence, tons of coffee (and beer), willingness to give up lots of weekends, ability to take massive quantities of criticism without getting too bent out of shape, more persistence, thorough research of the published material that's already out there, and a well-placed connection or two in the ELT publishing world. Oh yeah, and more persistence."
"Be yourself. Don't pattern yourself after the success of others. Be original. Don't pattern yourself after other textbooks. Do something different."
"Having a good time with what you're doing. Writing books is hard work. The chances that it will be a major hit are minimal. Make sure you're having fun while you do it."
Reference
Prowse, P. (1998). How writers write: Testimony from authors. In B. Tomlinson (Ed.), Materials development in language teaching (pp. 130-145). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thanks and Acknowledgments to Contributors
Everyone invited to contribute to this article lives in Japan and has had at least two successful books or series published. Some of the authors involved write primarily for the adult market, some mainly for children and two write for both. I tried to invite authors for all major international publishers active in Japan.
To keep.the article focused, however, I didn't contact people who write exclusively for Japanese publishers. While an important market segment, it is a very different kind of publishing. As one of the participating authors (who writes for both types of publishers) pointed out: "Editors' work is very different between ELT publishers and those Japanese publishers. You're much more of a team member in ELT publishing but tend to be treated as BIG sensei at Japanese publishers. I'm not saying which is better. It's just different. "
These are the authors who were able to contribute to this article, listed in the order of response (publishing rewards speed). For reasons of space, I did not list co-authors or full bibliographies. The participating authors wrote far more than could be included here. If you'd like to read the entire text (and know who authored each quotation), visit the JALT Material Writers SIG website:
http://www2.gol .com/users/bobkeim/mw/ mwcontents.html
The document is entitled "ELT author-raw material" and can be found at
http://www2.gol.com/users/bobkeim/mwcontents/tltsp/ helg.html
-Marc Helgeson
Steven Gershon, OnLine series (Macmillan Heinemann), Sound Bytes series (Prentice Hall [Pearson]).
Dale Fuller, Face to Face, Airwaves (Macmillian LanguageHouse).
Toyama Setsuko, Journeys Listening/Speaking 1, SuperKids series, Development Editor (Prentice Hall [Pearson Education]).
David Harrington, Speaking of Speech (Macmillian LanguageHouse), Street Talk (Calson Books).
Aleda Krause, SuperKids and Supertots series (Prentice Hall Asia [Pearson]).
Roger Barnard, Fifty-Fifty series (Prentice Hall [Pearson]), Good News, Bad News (Oxford University Press).
Chuck Sandy, Passages series, Interchange video (Cambridge University Press).
David Paul, Finding Out, Communicate (Macmillan/ Heinemann).
Nakata Ritsuko, Let's Go series (Oxford University Press), Koushite Oshieru Kodomono Eigo (Apricot).
Marc Helgesen, English Firsthand series (Longman [Pearson]), Active Listening (Cambridge University Press).