Interview

Peter Viney

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On Publications (cont'd)

What advice would you give to prospective textbook/material writers? What essential points must be covered before submitting proposals and ideas to publishers?
Never discuss contracts in a place where alcohol is served? That's probably unfair. I did and I wasn't ripped off. The fabled publishing lunches of days gone by no longer exist, if they ever did. It's all much harder than it used to be. The ten or twelve significant international publishers who were operating when I started writing are now down to just four mega international publishers. That's an extremely bad thing for writers, editors, students and teachers. All of us in this profession suffer from the resultant MacDonaldization of ELT. There are not enough markets for your material.

First, be original, use stuff that you know works. People have often told me what the next major coursebook might be. Whatever is it, it'll be different from the last one. It won't be a clone of Streamline, Cambridge Course, Interchange or Headway. Avoid "Me too!" writing. Don't plagiarize. I could fill a book with stuff that's been "lifted" from Streamline, Grapevine, Main Street and Handshake, particularly Handshake in recent years.

When you meet with publishers, get outside advice about contracts. They are not fixed, they're just word processed to look like it. The Society of Authors in Britain will provide guides to contracts, copyright etc. The guides are free to members, and available at a small charge to non-members. See www.writers.org.uk/society. If you get a deal, or look like getting one, join a writers organization. It's worth it. We've been professional writers for twenty years, and we still make mistakes because of our trusting nature.

Ask for a contract early on, and failing this ask for a letter of intent to publish. Be aware that there's a very long gap between writing something and earning money from it. I'm talking years here! A single level of a coursebook can take two years to write with a further two or three years of piloting, reports, editing and production. It'll be at least two years after publication before it earns anything sensible, and then the publisher sits on the money for six months before they pay the author. That's just the way it is.

Submitting ideas: Look at the catalogues, find out who publishes which coursebook. It might not be important to you, but it's important to them. Then speak to the ELT representatives from the publishers when they call at your school. Get the name of an editor interested in your area. Ask the rep to mention that you'll be writing to them, so your letter doesn't come out of the blue. Write an introductory letter with c.v. and a brief synopsis of your idea. They'll probably ask to see a rationale, approximate syllabus / chapter list and two sample completed units. Write a full art brief for any pictures you need. Volunteer to read and pilot material for the publisher.

Once the publisher gets to know you, through (say) writing good reports for them, you might be offered work on materials for courses they already have. This might be teacher's guides, or resource packs or workbooks. It's going to be easier to get a foot in the door with smaller-scale projects, like photocopiable resource packs, readers, supplementary titles than with a six year course. For minor projects, publishers might suggest a fee rather than a royalty. That's OK if it's a test pack or photocopiables that are being given away by the publisher. Once you've committed to a major project, always stick out for a royalty, and whenever possible an advance.

Prospective authors often ask me about copyright and clearly harbour fears that publishers will rip off the material. I don't think this is a realistic fear with the vast majority of publishers.

Can I use the opportunity to be cruel to be kind? We must have seen five or six suggestions for Monopoly-style board games based on Streamline, and another couple on Grapevine. None of them have been published because the market for such a game would never, never cover production costs. Do think this through if you have an elaborate and unusual project.

On Peter

What has been your greatest satisfaction from working in the ELT profession?
It's been a privilege to meet so many people of different nationalities. I've travelled a great deal, and had the chance to be introduced to countries by the people who live in them. That's the deepest personal satisfaction.

The most fun I've had has been filming the videos. It rarely feels like fun when you're standing in freezing fog on Exmoor at the end of a 15 hour filming day, but there are enough magic moments to compensate. Writing is a lonely activity and it's great to get outside and work with a video production crew. You have twenty or twenty five people focussed on a common purpose.

What do you see yourself doing in 5 years time? Is another course in the pipeline?
There's always another one in the pipeline. We're currently working on the Student Book to the ELT adaptation of Wallace and Gromit in ""A Close Shave", which should be out by the start of 2001. Video activity books are much faster than standard coursebooks, because you don't start writing until the video is finished, which means the text is set, and the source of illustrations is set. Five years is not that long in main course book writing. For example, that's how long Grapevine took for three levels.

We've been working hard on a full new course for eighteen months, but its destiny is still unsettled. It's time for us to start on a major series again. We've had time to accumulate new ideas and contexts.

Five years time? Hopefully, the new course will be finished (and published) and we'll be working less. I expect that the internet will have had sufficient impact by then to change the means of distribution of material. The positive scenario sees this as a way of authors connecting directly with users. The more negative view (or 'The Microsoft Belief') suggests that there will be even less choice with the big publishers dominating everything. Pearson and AOL are working together already. The Internet should have allowed more choice, but think about it, how many web browsers are there? Effectively just the two.

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