I was lucky enough to be accepted as a presenter at the Seventh Extensive Reading World Congress (ERWC) held in Sapporo, Japan, earlier this month.
My presentation was on writing and publishing graded readers and was mainly for educators and aspiring authors who are curious about starting writing or self-publishing graded readers.
In the presentation, I shared my own journey, reflecting on how I’ve written more than 25 published titles and how I moved from being a teacher to becoming an author and eventually an independent publisher.
I started by talking about my background running an extensive reading program at a Japanese university. The difficulties my students faced with reading were a big motivation for me to start writing my own readers. From there, I described how my initial reader ideas developed into my first publications with a well-known publisher, and how that experience later encouraged me to launch my own line of independently published Pomaka readers.
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I also explained the process I follow when creating readers, especially the unique challenges of writing engaging material for lower-proficiency young adult learners. Along the way, I shared some practical insights — things like using tools for text grading and editing, handling cover and audio production, getting ISBNs, and publishing both print and digital editions across different platforms. You can find some the platform/tool links mentioned in my talk here.
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