In June 2016, my wife got a call from the Taichung agent of Kang Shin Publishers that informed her the publisher wanted to have a meeting with me about becoming the Central Taiwan EFL curriculum developer and editor of their EFL middle school textbook series. I was glad the summer was starting to shape
up with things to do for the publisher. There was even a chance I would be be asked to re-write textbooks. I would talk
with the publisher's rep soon; the editor was coming to Taichung to meet me. But business agreements in Taiwan are funny. Don't believe anything you hear until you see it in writing and it is signed by both parties. Bosses in Taiwan are used to getting something for nothing, from natives and ex-pats alike.
Since there is little written into a contract with foreign teachers and writers, a hiree is dealing with a slippery fish. I knew in advance what could torpedo the next day's meeting with the editor from headquarters in Taipei: I would want intellectual property rights on my creations; compensation and royalties. I
would not write any material for them that I would not be rewarded
for unless they gave me an upfront bonus. I would want to know how many copies are published and how many copies they expect to sell. I would
want to see an ISBN for the book to be sold worldwide. But it was a preliminary meeting we had. I had no reason to discuss any of it, yet.
On June 17th, I had the meeting with the managing editor from one of
Taiwan's three textbook publishers. We had lunch and left with a hand-shake agreement that I would be freelancing re-writing the story and dialogue sections of their EFL textbooks used in Taiwan's public schools island-wide.
By June 28th, I had finished
editing the dialogues and little stories in the first EFL textbook, English 1,
First Half. I began editing English
1, Second Half. There was no editing to do in the corresponding workbooks.
There were two more levels of EFL textbooks to do, each with two parts. I spent about sixty hours editing six textbooks.
By September 1st, I finished editing the dialogues and stories in the last of the six junior high school EFL textbooks. The topics meandered, were irrelevant, had few corresponding exercises, and there was no cohesive theme. The grammar and idiom used by different second-language Taiwanese writers in the original books, was stilted and unnatural. Only one of the six books was written by someone with natural American English dialect and content.
The books' dialogues and stories were off-kilter; either straining to be cute, or downright off-color. For example, there was a dialogue in one between two mice discussing how to kill a cat. In another dialogue to expose idioms, G-d was juxtaposed with devilish idiomatic expressions.
I changed the content and hoped my suggestions would be taken to heart in the new edition, due to be revised in two years. I didn't give it another thought until before the Lunar New Year.
I knew that, in Taiwan, businessmen like to clean their books before the Lunar New Year. I had recently heard back from the publisher's editor who called to say they hadn't forgotten about me; he hemmed and hawed about new Dept. of Education changes to the curriculum that had to be incorporated immediately, but I had not yet been fully paid, so I asked my wife to give him a call. My editing assignment would have to be put on the back burner. At least Eric Yang agreed to have me sent compensation for the work I had put into editing and revising the six book series.
As of this date, August 2017, though I continue to be asked by the publisher's agents to do freelance enrichment in schools that use their textbooks, I have not heard any news about the textbooks I revised or whether they would ever be published or not. It's a good thing I am a retired pensioner and not dependent on Taiwanese schools or book publishers for my livelihood.
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