#6 How to get the best outcomes when working with an ELT publishing packager.

In the latest Earn Learn Thrive LinkedIn Live, ‘What do ELT writers and editors need to know about working with a packager?’ I was talking to Billie Jago and Laura Broadbent about their digital ELT agency OtterEducation and how they approach offering a packaging service in a way that aims to benefit everyone.??

Billie is an ELT writer and teacher trainer specialising in digital learning materials and assessment resources. She has written for various publishers, delivers international teacher training workshops and is the founder of the ELTcpd professional development podcast .Now one half (or Otter) of OtterELT

Laura is an ELT materials writer and consultant specialising in digital and SEN materials. She also volunteers as a speech and language therapist assistant for people who have experienced a stroke, a school for deaf students and Sussex hospital. Now the other Otter of OtterELT.

If you’re a freelancer working in ELT publishing, you’ve probably heard about the rise of ‘packagers’ in recent years. A packager is an independent company that a publisher sub-contracts in order to build a team of writers, editors, designers etc in order to produce a book or digital product. In recent years, many in-house publishing teams have shrunk, and they don’t now always have the capacity to manage the whole project themselves.

So the publisher will reach out to a packager, or agency, to source and manage the project.

Billie and Laura both have a lot of experience and expertise in ELT materials, and particularly in digital materials, and they found that they were being offered a lot more work than they could personally undertake. It therefore made sense to start the agency.

They pride themselves on helping writers who might not have the connections at the big publishers to break into publishing, and nurturing their freelancers to develop their skills. I have personally heard good things about the experience of working with OtterELT, but it has to be said that I?have also heard a LOT of negative things about working with packagers in general.

One of the biggest issues seems to be around communication. While Billie and Laura place huge emphasis on this, clients have frequently told me about situations where it would seem that the packager does not see their role extending past putting the team together. Inevitably, briefs change, deadlines slip, small miscommunications snowball, and the consequences can be demoralising and expensive for the freelancer (and probably the publisher as well).

So, I would say that finding out about what the lines of communication will be is probably the first thing to bear in mind when accepting work from a packager.

As in any writing project, there are some other questions to consider. What does the contract actually say, and are you happy or at least prepared to accept all the terms? Are the deadlines reasonable? What happens if the project is cancelled? Is there a non-compete clause and is it reasonable? Is the brief clear and finalised? (If not, this can lead to a lot of extra work, so discuss what happens if extra changes are needed)

The other major source of problems when working with a packager is fees. Pretty much inevitably, if there is a ‘middleman’, the fee that comes down to the writer or editor may well be lower than when going direct. Because the growth in packagers is being fuelled by in-house teams shrinking, this isn’t absolutely always the case, but probably most of the time the fee is likely to be less generous than you might hope.

The ELT publishing business is also becoming more and more globalised, which does mean more opportunities for more people, but also makes it harder to make a good living if you’re living in an expensive country like the UK.

This is why it’s so vital to have a clear brief and good communication because what starts as an acceptable hourly rate can very easily get whittled down to a totally unacceptable one as the number of hours required grows.

But it’s also important to say, and I know Billie and Laura would agree with me, that there is almost always room for negotiation. Often money, but even if not, perhaps extent, or number of drafts. Both of which ultimately mean you’re earning more.

Being a freelancer is not the same thing as being employed, and requires different and additional skills, and negotiation is definitely one of these, which is why it’s one of the modules on my 6 month group programme, Designed to Flourish.

There are skills and strategies to learn, but, simply being willing to stick your neck out and negotiate (and knowing that it’s expected) makes a huge difference. Of course, you’re likely to be more successful if you’re clear about why you would be a great person to have on this specific project. Which brings us back to niche, the subject of an earlier edition of this newsletter (you can still see all the past editions in my articles on LinkedIn).

Ultimately it seems clear that ELT publishing packagers are set to grow both in size and number, and anyone working in the ELT publishing sphere is likely to find themselves working with one more and more frequently. I would hope that the quality of these companies improves, and that we see more and more taking the kind of approach exemplified by OtterEducation (I do hear good things about some other companies as well). However, at the moment, it does seem to be a bit of a 'wild west' situation, with lots of companies paying extremely low rates and handling projects badly, and I would urge you to proceed with caution, and to take the things mentioned in this newsletter very much into account when agreeing to a project.

If you’d like to watch the live I’ve been referring to in this newsletter, where we go into a lot more detail on some of these points, here’s the link

https://www.dhirubhai.net/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:7004404878139650049/