Origins

One of the flagship series of our little e-publishing house will be the Learning Languages with Technology series. This seems an appropriate place to start as this was the topic that initiated our thoughts about forming our own publishing company. Back in May, 2012, some colleagues in Japan were putting together ideas for a book proposal. The ideas were sound ones: the focus should be on language learning and benefits for students. The activities contained in the book should be theoretically grounded and easily adapted to different contexts. The book should have wide appeal and should contain international contributions. The book should be up-to-the-minute and accessible around the globe. With that in mind, our colleagues did a thorough search for similar volumes and also for publishers dealing with this kind of content and approach. They identified a gap. Many of the current books on CALL focus on the computer, the device, the software or the application. The books then figure out how the learner might benefit. We wanted to to the absolute opposite: start with the learners' needs and then see how technology might (or might not!) support this learning in an engaging, enriching and beneficial way. The other problem we discovered was that it could take two to three years for these texts to see the light of day. Traditional publishing is a slow process and it totally unsuitable for delivering the kind of hot content that our colleagues want to deliver and that the market needs. Other problems include accessibility and cost. Who wants to pay 100 dollars for a hardback text at least two years out of date plus pay high shipping costs? We wanted the content to reach regular teachers in classrooms around the world at a reasonable price. It was later that month that we (Chris Candlin & Jo Mynard) decided to take action. Based on our experience, we think we can achieve the following aims for publishing in our academic fields: affordability, accessibility, quality and timeliness. Since establishing Candlin & Mynard, we have contacted our colleagues in Japan in the hope that they will publish their work with us as one of our first titles.