This is a sponsored post paid for by Oriel Square

When you’re adapting content for a new audience or specific markets, understanding why is crucial. 

Oriel Square’s Commissioning Editor and ELT subject champion, Mairi Hamilton, talks us through her top tips for creating or adapting educational content for specific markets. 

Confirm the what and why

The ‘why’ for these projects is often glossed over as ‘so we can sell into this market’, but making sure you fully understand the justification will mean you make the right decisions, and in the process you could potentially open up other areas for consideration. 

For instance, you might find that a new market is identified for a series, but find that the original series was meant for a slightly different age group. How should that be taken into account?

Educational content for adults can sell down into secondary schools, but some markets will prefer the level to stay the same so that the content is aspirational for their students. Others will want some of the content to be more relevant to their students so that they can relate to it more.

Understanding the what and why will help inform the most appropriate decisions.

Make sure you understand the full scale of the project

Sometimes instructions for change can come from a stakeholder who isn’t that close to the content (or who doesn’t have access to it), so it’s your job as the editor to make sure you understand the full impact of any changes. 

If the title of the book is changing, where else might the title appear, or be referred to? Are there any supplementary or dependent products that would also be affected? 

For an educational course it might be the case that a title change would only mean changing the cover and title page of one book, but involve changing the footers on every single page in an accompanying book or supplementary resources. It isn’t uncommon for content to be adapted by an entirely different team of people to the original version, and changes that seem minor initially can end up having a ripple effect that wasn’t accounted for in the original proposal. 

However, adapting content can also be a chance to put things right. Make sure to check whether there are any existing reprint corrections which are due to be made to the original version, or see if there’s an opportunity to refine or improve upon any content which seems weaker or outdated. 

That said, adaptations are often delivered on a very short timescale and if you are not pragmatic and realistic about what should be done vs what could be done then the adaptation can quickly become much too complicated and out of scope of the original brief.

One of the biggest challenges of adapting content for specific markets can also be making sure that the amends are seamless. Wherever possible, you should integrate new content without diminishing the quality and integrity of the adapted version.

Don’t assume anything

In English Language Teaching we often use the acronym PARSNIP to summarise the main areas of contention (politics, alcohol, religion, sex, narcotics, -isms and pork), but considerations for market adaptations can go far beyond that. Be wary of making assumptions based on your own experience, as it’s easy to ignore the limitations of your own background and knowledge. 

You might think an illustration of a bowl of cereal would be easy to match to the word ‘breakfast’ based on your own experience, but that might not be the case for a very young child in a country where cereal isn’t a common breakfast food. Depending on where your customers live, advertising that something will be available in spring could mean completely different months in the year – but then, not all countries use the same calendar, nor do they all experience four seasons. 

Be respectful

Sometimes changes we make as part of adaptation don’t totally align with our own beliefs, and this is one of the most difficult things to reconcile as an editor. 

It may help to think of adaptations which involve aspects of this as part of respecting the traditions and beliefs of the target market instead – you don’t have to agree with someone to respect their point of view. You should also try wherever possible not to reinforce stereotypes and focus more on celebrating a particular culture or country’s customs and traditions.

Make the best use of your resources

Ideally, you’d always have access to a person in the market who can answer any and all queries about content fully and correctly, but needless to say that will likely not be the case! 

Different people can have hugely conflicting opinions about what is acceptable in a market and what isn’t. Again, taking steps to understand the ‘why’ can help here (it might be the case where it’s something that older people would feel differently about than younger people) but veering on the side of caution is usually the best option.

Enjoy the process

You’ll end up with a list of weirdly specific Google searches and will likely encounter a lot of surprises and headaches along the way – one day you’ll be researching which sportsperson is most popular with teenagers in a particular region; the next you’ll be changing all instances of a person’s name because it bears an unfortunate resemblance to a swear word in another language – but publishing for a specific market is also a terrific learning opportunity regardless of the issues that crop up. 

At first it can feel like a game of ‘spot the controversy’ but as you gain experience you will develop a much keener understanding of areas which could be a problem. You will start seeing where some countries approach things the same way and where they differ completely, and you can appreciate nuances of your own culture as a result. 

Read more about Oriel Square’s work adapting content for local markets or working with local teams in Malaysia to produce content for the IGCSE syllabus. Our team can support you with end-to-end services, or jump in at any point in a print or digital publishing project. So that we can always offer you specialism, we maintain the best network of education professionals in the industry from which our project leaders build expert teams to give a perfect fit for each project. 

Commissioning Editor Mairi Hamilton is Oriel Square’s subject champion for ELT and holds a master’s degree in Publishing. She taught English in Germany and worked in the ELT division at OUP, as an editor and project manager across print and digital for courses published worldwide.

Follow Mairi on LinkedIn.