Lessons Learned in Self Publishing for ELT, Original Content

Introduction

Self-publishing in English Language Teaching has been around for a surprisingly long time. Eric Roth founded Chimayo Press in 2005. Lindsay Clandfield and Luke Meddings created their indie publishing collective The Round in 2011. And IATEFL hosted a webinar on self-publishing with Dorothy Zemach of Wayzgoose Press in 2015, a topic that she speaks about and always draws a huge audience.

Over the years, self-published books have won prestigious awards; most recently the PronPack series by Hancock McDonald ELT won an ELTON last year. And in fact, some of the best-known publishers in ELT started as self-publishing ventures including Pro-Lingua and Easy English News.

And yet, I still get teachers telling me they would love to self-publish if they just knew how!

What I think I look like when I’m working

For that reason, in this series of articles, I’d like to provide clear practical advice for those who still ask for it. But to avoid repeating what’s already been said, I’d also like to reflect on the past 10-odd years of the self-publishing revolution. We’ve learned some things along the way and some assumptions or predictions have not been borne out. So I’ve tried to annotate my list of things you’ll need with some wisdom I and other small publishers have collected along the way.

And one theme that I think is important if you want to succeed is that you have to take the publishing business seriously. It’s easy to find a list of 10 quick steps to get your book listed on Amazon and Smashwords. But if you want to sell, you need to take your time and consider each step carefully. You also need to go beyond just what it takes to get the book out there and take the time to make it look like a real book. The self-publishers I know who do well act much as if they are “real” publishers. And most of the time when I go out there, people don’t know I’m a small publisher. Teachers at conventions treat me like the real thing and that goes a long way.

So how can you get started in self-publishing? Let’s begin by talking about what you need and where to get it. In this article, I’ll focus on ORIGINAL CONTENT!

What I actually look like.

Original Content

First and foremost, you need original content that teachers want to buy.

Hopefully, this is where you’ve started your journey toward self-publishing. You have an original idea. I get a lot of teachers approaching me saying, “I’ve always wanted a book that did this, and I got tired of looking so I just wrote my own.”

Or perhaps your materials fit into a niche. As the large publishing companies, for a variety of reasons, have tried to create materials that appeals to as wide an audience as possible, opportunities for specialized niche materials have arisen. There are a number of ways your materials might be specialized including:

Audience: grad students, oil workers, Polish speakers, adult spouses of expats, new teachers, etc.

Approach: TPRS, Task-Based Learning, dogme, a method you thought of, etc.

Focus: activities for the last day of class, a new type of reading circles, teaching Physics in English, teaching teachers to write assessments, etc.

Features: Completely modular, has readings and listenings on the same topic, uses mobile phones, promotes student autonomy, etc.

Often what makes our classrooms and thus our books unique is a combination of these things. Maybe you’ve been teaching Polish oil workers business writing using a dogmé-influenced approach. Or like a gentleman I met a few years ago at TESOL, you’ve been teaching assessment writing to MA education students for 20 years and found there’s literally no textbook. Now you want to publish your materials. That’s going to be a great idea because there’s probably other teachers out there with the same need as you, and there’s no competition. Plus because you are a teacher in the classroom, you know what teachers need and want in the book!

WHO ARE YOU?

Are you as confident as her?

Of course, it’s important to write for a niche you are a credible authority for. It should be an area you’ve taught in. I know there’s constant demand in the US for graded non-fiction on current events, but I haven’t taught a lot of school-age children so I probably wouldn’t write to that niche. I don’t know what teachers want or expect from those materials and I don’t really know how graded readers are used in a school classroom, so I can’t tailor my materials to that. Be sure to find the niche where you know all the nuances of what’s needed and what isn’t, the niche that few people are writing for, or writing for well, and do that!

A second caveat is that it needs to be clear how your materials are targeting a niche. It isn’t enough to say your book is designed for a special audience. It has to actually target that audience.

I taught Business English for oil workers in Kazakhstan for a long time, but 90% of my course looked like any other general business class. If I did publish the few materials I created for that class, there would be little that was targeted to oil and gas. And nothing unique to Kazakhstan. So I’d be competing with all the business books out there. Any customers who did buy my book would be sorely disappointed and probably not come back for more.

ORIGINAL MEANS NO COPYING

I hope that it goes without saying that you should not be copying ideas from others. There are a few reasons for this:

You don’t let your students copy, do you?

1. It may be illegal. Anything that has been written down can be copyrighted and that means textbooks, newspaper articles, and even websites are probably off-limits. Some teachers use materials in the classroom citing fair use. However, if you plan to publish and distribute materials widely, and particularly if you plan to profit from them, fair use will likely not apply. In fact, I once asked the New York Times for permission to use a paragraph from an article. They wanted thousands of dollars for the right to reprint it (If that seems unfair, consider that some day an education company might pay you thousands of dollars for your work!)
   It’s always a good idea to consult with a lawyer, but being sued for plagiarism can be costly and time-consuming.
2. Copying other people’s ideas or even reusing well-known ideas without varying them won’t sell well. I once wrote a resource book that included instructions on how to do “Find Someone Who…” Buyer after buyer opened the book, saw that activity, and asked, “Why should I buy this? I can find this information in other books or free on the Internet?” It’s an excellent point. Similarly, I would never write a grammar book using Keith Folse’s ideas, because most people would prefer to buy Mr. Folse’s book instead of mine.
   If you are going to borrow an idea from another person, show how you’ve made it original. Maybe you do “Find Someone Who…” in a new way that makes it better. Or you use an idea from Folse’s book to introduce past-perfect before doing some original work on it. Original content means people have to buy your book to get your ideas. Copying or borrowing means they don’t actually need your book.
3. Copying without varying and particularly without acknowledging the source creates bad will. Technically, you can’t copyright spoken words, so if I hear Penny Ur talk and then take her idea, write it in my own words, and put it in my book, I (probably) can’t be sued. But everyone who heard Penny Ur talk will know I’m stealing her idea and they will be unlikely to buy my book or help promote it.
   And it’s much better for me to take that idea, note that it came from Ms. Ur, add my own variations to show that I’m doing something new with it,. and then ask her to write a blurb. She may even mention my book in a lecture down the road. It takes a community to sell a book. Don’t create bad will. Create good will instead and see how much further you get. When teachers, whether they are influential names or not, like your books, they help spread the word. And that’s a very good thing.

What about Companions to Textbooks?

It’s fairly common for teachers to create a companion guide to a textbook they use in class. I used to have a manila folder full of supplemental activities to use with our course book. Sometimes teachers wish to publish these, but run into the problem of copyright and originality.

First, you probably can’t use the name of the coursebook in the title of your book if you wish to sell your book. Second, you certainly can’t use the cover image. And you also can’t copy the exercises, activities, readings, directions, or art from the inside of the book.

The best thing you can do with this sort of material is write to the publisher. Some publishers have companion websites and they might put your materials on it. They might possibly pay you for it, but even if they don’t, it gets your name out there. It also brings you to the attention of the publisher who might hire you to write materials in the future!

What’s Next?

In the next article, I talk how to come up with marketable content. I also plan to discuss exactly what kinds of materials work well for self-publishing.

I also have a sample copyright page for self-publishers that you are welcome to use and adapt!

In future articles, I’ll talk about where to get images, editing services, software and how to actually publish, distribute, and sell!