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Getting my foot in the Japanese EFL textbook door
—Diane Hawley Nagatomo

I started writing college EFL textbooks almost by accident. Around 1992 or 1993 I was asked to do a voice recording for a college level textbook. It was not my first gig as a narrator—I had already been doing that for more than ten years— usually narrating unnatural dialogs and excruciatingly boring reading passages such as the “history of cement” or a similar topic that no student in their right mind would be interested in. There were always mistakes in the manuscripts— grammatical, lexical, and pragmatic—but as the books were already at the printers, we narrators were told to read them as is, and so we did—mistakes and all! We also tried not to laugh ourselves silly at some of the crazy things we had to read. I remember one chapter’s topic centered on a dead dog, The condolence conversation we narrated would have been much more appropriate had it been for a dead grandma than a dead pet!

After the 80s, the quality of these textbooks began to improve. The writers, editors and the publishers became smarter. They made the recordings before the galley proofs were final letting us make necessary changes to the manuscripts. Come to think of it, we probably should have demanded extra pay as proofreaders!

Anyway, one day I was asked to do the narration for a college textbook that a friend and colleague had written. I was impressed that he was soon to be a published author but at the same time I was green with envy, thinking to myself that if he could do that, so could I.

After that job finished, I kept the editor’s name card on my desk instead of tossing it into the drawer with all the other name cards I had accumulated over the years. I kept looking at it, and wondered if he would dismiss me as an imposter (or possibly a lunatic) if I contacted him to say that I wanted to write a textbook, too.

Well, it was the beginning of spring vacation and I didn’t have much else to do. I thought I might as well give it a try. I hunkered down in front of my word processer, which was practically the size of a Volkswagen (no computer back then), made sure that I had plenty of that pesky printer ribbon, and made a list of chapter topics that I thought my students would be interested in studying: dating, weekends, movies, shopping, telephone (the old fashioned kind!) and so on. Then I wrote a couple of sample chapters, each with a vocabulary exercise, a reading with comprehension questions, a task listening exercise, conversation practice, and a crossword puzzle activity at the end of the chapter.

I composed an oh-so-polite cover letter to that editor, and before I lost my courage, I stuffed everything into an envelope, went to the post office, and mailed it to him. I figured that the worst thing that could happen would be rejection. I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing—I figured rejection when no one knows, doesn’t count. Right? What I really didn’t expect was receiving a phone call within a week, asking me to write the rest of the book! Then, of course, I told everyone.

I whipped out the rest of the book during the spring break, and my first book, Conversation Topics for Japanese University Students, was published by Kinseido in 1994. This book may not have caused much excitement in the EFL world, but it certainly caused a big stir in my family, and possibly for the very first time, they began to see my decision to live and work in Japan to be not as freakish as they had previously thought.

In retrospect, I know now that I didn’t have a clue about anything and everything when I wrote that first book. Looking back, I can see that I did do some things right. It must have been beginner’s luck. Once I had decided the topics for each chapter, I wrote individual chapter sections together. In other words, I wrote all of the dialogues at the same time, all of the readings at the same time and all of the task listenings at the same time. The advantage of this conveyer-belt style of textbook writing prevented me from falling into a novice’s trap of having a Chapter 20 that was considerably different from a Chapter 1. I learned later that one thing that editors look for in evaluating a manuscript is that a certain amount of uniformity is carried from beginning to end.

I also was very quick in finishing the manuscript. I’m pretty sure the editor was surprised to get all twenty chapters just weeks after my proposal was accepted. I later learned that university teachers are notorious for missing deadlines, causing textbook editors and publishers a great deal of trouble! Being able to produce materials quickly was probably one reason why Kinseido went ahead and published two more of my books in the next two years, and several more in the years after that.

I love to write and I don’t mind sitting in front of a computer for hours. Seeing words appear before me on a computer screen (yes, of course I’ve kept up with technology—the old word processor now lives somewhere in a land fill) makes me feel incredibly happy. Once I get started on a writing project I can generally get it done in pretty good time. Maybe not brilliantly, but I get it done. And published.

So what advice can I offer for anyone who wants to dabble in the Japanese EFL textbook market? You may not have the same luck I had getting a foot in the publisher’s door. I was lucky. As we all know, Japan in the 1990s, especially for teachers, is considerably different from the Japan of today. Textbook companies do publish new books every year, hoping to get a monster hit and make lots of money for them (and for the author). Unfortunately, fame and fortune rarely comes from textbook publishing. But it is kind of fun, and you can make some money from them (But don’t give up the day job!).

I’m sure everyone who has published books in Japan has their own story, and their own thoughts and ideas on the subject. Here are a few tips that I think may be useful to help you get your book published:

Publish anything! Once you get something in print, you can always add that to your resume and use it to attract the attention of an editor. I wrote short 300 word articles off and on for twenty years for the Mainichi Weekly.

Offer to help Japanese coworkers with their books. Often times they want to have a native speaker to help with dialogues and proof reading. You may not have a lot of input in coauthoring such a book, but you will get your name out there.

Talk to the sales reps at JALT or other book fairs. Ask them what kind of books they are looking for, and who to contact if you have an idea. Be nice to the sales reps when they come to your office. Again, you can get a lot of useful information from them. If there is a hole in the market that needs to be filled, you can find out what it is from them. They know what kind of books sell well.

Make connections with all sorts of people. The more people you know, the more chances there will be for you to meet someone who can help you get your foot in the door. Besides, interacting with lots of people has many other benefits as well—not only will you have an improved social life, you may also have more things to write about!

Don’t be too idealistic. Yes, it would be great to publish a fantastic book with wonderful and creative exercises. But remember, the main buyers off Japan-based textbooks are Japanese teachers. Not all Japanese teachers have backgrounds in applied linguistics, and not all Japanese teachers are particularly interested in fabulous learning materials. They want something that is easy to teach from, something that will not induce comas into their students, and something that they can complete within a semester.

Also keep in mind that Japanese university students’ English abilities are declining. It is better to write a text that is for the lower-level student rather than the higher-level student. Japanese publishing companies want to make money from the books, and the only way they can do that is to sell them. In other words, write for the masses, rather than for the select few who are good at English.

Don’t give up! Keep on trying.

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Last updated: August 25, 2010.