Dyslexia-friendly publishing | Matt Bird

David chats with entrepreneur and book publisher Mark Bird about how he made his book publishing company, Publish You, a more dyslexia-friendly organisation.

Hear the real-life stories of dyslexic people in Scotland.
With thanks to Dyslexia Scotland Podcast Volunteer David Thomson.

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Transcript

David: Welcome to the next episode of Let's Talk Dyslexia with me, David Thompson. We speak to a book publisher and entrepreneur Matt Bin this episode. Matt, who is dyslexic himself discuss how he's made his publishing company PublishU a more dyslexia-friendly organisation, for those employees, like authors who are publishing their books. Matt will introduce himself and tell us about his publishing company PublishU.
Matt: Thank you, David. It's great to be with you and all your listeners today to talk about dyslexia. My name is Matt, Matt Bird, and I live in London and in Sicily, in Italy, I live between the two. I'm slowly learning Italian, but it's quite slow. For a dyslexic to learn another language. I struggle a bit. But, you know, I've got a story, like we all have, that goes back to school days. But currently, amongst other things, I run a publishing company. Somehow I managed to publish a book, author a book. And in fact, I've also 20 Now, and my publishing company, we actually coach other people to write their books in 100 days. And then we publish them in a further 100 days. So this is the work that I'm involved in, which is quite unusual for somebody who is dyslexic to end up not only becoming an author, but a coach to other authors, and also a publisher.
David: In terms of your publishing company how do you make it dyslexic friendly, so that if somebody's got a difficulty, how do you actually make it easier for them to actually excel and do well when you're working for your publishing company?
Matt: Well, I hope as a dyslexic, I'm very, very orientated towards engaging with people who, who also have dyslexia, which, incidentally, I see as a superpower and an advantage rather than a disadvantage. But through the publishing company, we, we coach people online, so I try and make what we do very visual. You know, from the beginning, because, you know, they say that people with dyslexia think in pictures rather than words. Yes. So I paint a lot of pictures. Not not actual pictures, but I create pictures. And I encourage other people to use pictures in order to create their books. So one of the sessions we do is about how to create a, an outline for the book you're going to write. One of my students recently did the whole outline in pictures. Yeah, it just shows actually what's possible, when we're flexible enough to adapt for different people's learning, and communication styles.
David: How many of those 100 people who you may be coached to help write the books, how many would you be aware of have maybe got a disability, or a form of learning disability?
Matt: So really interesting question, David because I've never actually asked people to identify about whether they believe they are neurodiverse or not. So I actually I don't know the answer to that question. I would be interested to know, and I'm thinking about doing a survey of the 100-odd people that I've coached, and the 50-odd people I've published to actually find out whether they would identify as being neurodiverse. But I think it'd be quite interesting.
David: I think I mean, because I think that's why, obviously, I'm thinking, because I thought they may come focus on one, please see, if you're dyslexic wherever you can, you can actually disclose that to your employer. I don't know in terms of yourself as a publisher, and writing a book. If somebody's maybe struggling to write a book and they might say, "oh by the way Matt, I've got a difficulty here, I'm dyslexic." Wit your background of being dyslexic, it might actually help them, to give them that extra support?
Matt: Yeah, it's interesting, David, because I've only had one job in my entire life. Yeah. Everything else I've done, I've created myself. I'm an entrepreneur. Yeah, I love to start things. So I've always started things that are dyslexia friendly. I create businesses that work for me. And in fact, not just work for me, but where I can exercise my advantage of being dyslexic.
David: So, in terms of, you've talked about the fact that you created businesses that are dyslexia friendly because of your background. Is there anything that you've had to put in place when you've set up that company or specific support tha toyu have to do to make sure that it's dyslexic friendly and make sure it's helping yourself and also maybe helping other people who may have maybe difficulties, not necessarily dyslexic.
Matt: Sure, sure. Well, the coaching I provide for people who are writing their books, it's very step by step. You know, I walk people, each session that I coach finishes with a little assignment, and you complete the assignment and you become you take a step closer towards finishing your book. So after eight sessions, over 100 days, people have a book, and that I'm very methodical, and process-focused in that journey. So I try and hold people's hands and guide them through the whole journey. Then when it comes to publishing, of course, you know, I have a team of people, because I would not be a good copy editor, or a proofreader, but I have great people in my team who are brilliant copy editors, great proofreaders, great designers. I'm not a designer myself. But I know when I like something, and I know when I don't, and I know what it is about something I don't like. So I think very fast. If I get shown a design, I know immediately yes or no, whether I like it, what I do like about it, what I don't like about it. And so yeah, I've built a team in my business that complements my abilities. I could not run a publishing company on my own. There are so many skills required. 
David: So if somebody actually comes to your team, maybe one of the proofreaders, copywriters, or maybe what the designers suspected to be somebody who you're coaching may have a difficulty, is there a process in place to maybe you could go support them or give them extra support  in terms of whether it's dyslexic, or maybe more widely in terms of some sort of neurodiversity disability that they have, or disability.
Matt: We don't we don't have any special systems in place. For people with neurodiversity, I think because I am neuro diverse, I make the process, the journey that I take people on, very friendly, and very engaging, and not difficult. So my view is, you know, I was in remedial English at school, David, because that's how they treated me. I left school believing I was stupid, because that's what my teachers told me. Yeah, you know, and I'm sure people listening with dyslexia, some of them may have similar stories about struggling in education, you may have yourself. But you know, I think it's learning, for me, it's been actually learning that my dyslexia is actually my advantage in life, not my disadvantage.
David: In that case I'll probably respond to that last point about your dyslexia being being an advantage, has actually helped being dyslexic make it easier to say, Oh, I'm using probably more lateral thinking in terms of the way you do your processing in terms of you started up companies that you do as well. So in terms of coaching,
Matt: Yeah, often we don't see our own strengths, do we? Often people around me say, "Matt, you think phenomenally fast." Very, very fast. And I make connections between ideas, and connection between people, connections between places, I see synergies and collaborations where other people don't. And so this has been a real help for me as an entrepreneur, because I've started, you know, I've got three or four companies running at the moment, and I find it very easy to start things. Yeah. And they require a lot of work. I find it easy to start, but then you've got to make them work and make them profitable. And that's often the harder part. But for me, you know, my dyslexia has given me this ability to start things and start things very quickly. Because I see, I solve problems, I see solutions, and I make connections between things that already exist.
David: Now in terms of... do you think that your publishing company, do you think it's kinda...because of hte way it's set up and the coaching and that, do you think it's actually very dyslexic friendly in terms of or even more friendly of disabilities or neurodiversity in nterms of the way, it's a step by step process in terms of really coaching the authors to publish to publish a book so that's a help, the way you help is to make sure that it's dyslexia friendly.
Matt: Indeed, I think that the way we coach people to write their books is very dyslexia friendly. It's, it's not "go away and write a book outline", we provide a template for a book outline. And we we work with people from high-level concept all the way down to the practicalities of what will be included in a chapter of that book. So we make no assumptions about somebody's ability to put words together. And then we have a very rigorous editing process, which most people wouldn't use. But we use because I need a rigorous editing process, when I write a book, numerous people will go over my work and give me feedback, give me advice. So I personally edit the book, I have private editors. And then I have professional editors with my publishing company. So there are three levels of of editing for me, when I write a book, or I coach somebody else to write a book. So it means that you don't have to write perfect English. In fact, I actually teach my students not to edit, they, I encourage them to write the book, as a stream of consciousness, without editing anything I say to them, Do not go back and read the present previous sentence, don't read the previous paragraph or the previous page, just write down what's in your head and what's in your heart. And only when the entire book is finished, do you then begin the editing process, Because I know, David, if I started editing after the first chapter, I'd never write more than the first chapter. Because I would spend inordinate amounts of time trying to get that first chapter right. Whereas I know I'm better off writing the whole book without any editing whatsoever. And then engaging others to help me edit the book and make it flow.
David: Let me ask a quick question about that, you don't use some sort of software, like with grammar? I know when I maybe write something myself, maybe it's a, maybe it's an articleor maye emails, often I use Grammarly to help with the editing then as I'm going along. So do you use anything like that when you're, when you're writing your books, or maybe encourage people to use something similar when you're coaching or when, when they're writing the books themselves?
Matt: I encourage our editors and proofreaders to use software like that. But our authors, there's there's no need to. That's why, that's why you work as a team. That's why you have other people. What we do, David is we do use AI to create audiobooks. Yeah, because a to read a book without a mistake, or well, with limited mistakes will be very, very difficult, if not impossible. Yeah. So we will we have we use software that imitates your voice for a short reading, and then creates the entire audio file for your manuscript. So we use technology in these kinds of ways. So it means that people who would struggle to read the book can still have a book, an audio book that sounds like them. For the, for the listeners, 
David: So how does that deal with AI though, because at the time that we do this podcast, there is a lot of controversy about AI in the public sphere about AI. But how would you be able to actually capture that voice that you've got if especially if you're dyslexic in digital if you do struggle to read?
Matt: Yeah, you can pick up anything and read it for 30 seconds. Without mistake, if you can do that, then we can imitate your voice and create an audio of your entire book in your voice. So if you do 30 seconds, sorted, no problem. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. And people are nervous of AI. I think people are nervous of new technology. And there are there are always risks to new technology. But you know, this is creating, AI is creating incredible opportunities, and efficiencies. And I think we should be a little bit more....yeah, we don't need to be so afraid.
David: Yeah, that's why I was asking the question, because this time when we're doing the podcast. The interviews in the media, there's a lot of debate about AI, as well. It's quite controversial sort of thing. Widespread in the workplace and whatever, so I just wanted to get your take on it, but is there any improvements you'd like to see in workplace which might help people who have got dyslexia, whether it is AI or maybe something else?
Matt: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I do a lot of work with, I'm an entrepreneur, and I do a lot of work with entrepreneurs. And they always talk about creating business plans. I don't think I've ever written a business plan, I would so struggle to write a business plan. Yeah. Yeah. And so I have a, I have a two-page business, I suppose you call it a venture plan, I call it and in two pages, I scribbled down what I need to know to plan a business. But you know, writing big long documents, no, thank you, is... entrepreneurs don't, the only time these big people write these business plans is if they think they must. Or if the bank asks for it. Nobody else really writes these business plans.
David: I thought you were going to say, the way you write a business plan is in fact, that I thought it was going to be like a chart, or diagram or something. This is what it's going to be in it, it's all kind of visual, you know what I mean?
Matt: Well, my two-page enterprise plan is very visual. It's it's icons and words that  describe what you need to populate that particular part of the enterprise plan with so yeah, we use, I use a lot of icons and infographics to communicate things. 
David: So would there be anything more widespread in terms of improvements in the workplace that any changes you would you like to see or observations about being dyslexic. Like to see more widely in the workplace, like seeing people with dyslexia may be something like government legislation that has to be changed ormaybe improved upon or initiatives that need to be performed to make it easier for people to come forward who are dyslexic. You know, I just like, hey, guys can actually see yourself in conversations that it's a lot of people maybe haven't come forward or maybe you weren't aware of people who you're coaching yourself? 
Matt: I mean, David, I think I said that I don't have a lot of experience of the workplace. Because I've always created my own workplaces. You know, I've only because I've only had one job. And that was when I left school. I've never been in a workplace ever since I've always created my own workplaces. I've got a little box that says, if the door of opportunity isn't knocking, make a door. So I spent my life making doors of opportunity. And the sort of doors of opportunity I create are, are dyslexia friendly, because I create them and I run them. So So in terms of traditional workplaces, I actually don't have a lot of what I'd hardly have any experience of that. And I am not someone who likes to sit at a desk. Monday to Friday, nine to five I I'm incapable of doing this. I I'm much more of a an aesthetic, visual, learner and communicator. That's how I do things. Yeah, perhaps perhaps, David, this is why I've never kind of settled down and got a job and always created my own jobs because I can create them as I like them. 
David: Yeah. Because that's what I was thinking, because because I think part of that question was that maybe people haven't actually come forward especially your people you're coaching, the fact that there's still this taboo within society, in terms of being dyslexic and you see as a positive with yourself with dyslexia, which is quite good, but I think it's more people still see it as a negative thing, like you're stupid, or thick or whatever. So it's just, it was just be able to encourage people to have that sort of finally that the workplace  to say, I've got a learning disability, and it's actually a good thing and I've actually got other things I can bring to the workplace.
Matt: One of my views is David that we need to change the way we talk about dyslexia. Yeah. Often dyslexia is talked about and described as a learning disability. I'm sorry, I'm not disabled. Yeah. You know, and not neither do I have a learning difficulty. I don't struggle to learn. I just don't learn how other people learn the way I learned very fast. Yeah, so I refuse to allow dyslexia to be called a learning disability, or a learning difficulty. It's a learning difference. People with dyslexia, we learn differently. And we don't suffer with dyslexia. Society suffers, because of its lack of understanding and ability to embrace the learning difference, and the learning advantage that people with dyslexia have. So I think there's a whole mindset shift, and a language shift in the way we talk about dyslexia, and neurodiversity. So and it starts with us, it start has to start with the people who are dyslexic, you know, and not allowing ourselves to be described as having a learning difficulty or a learning disability, it's a nonsense. We are very good learners, we just do it differently.
David: Yeah. So basically, it's the big, it's more of a cultural shift, to try and get that change between ourselves and how others see us as well, we can make it a positive thing rather than a negative thing, it's quite a good thing being dyslexic rather than having the negative stuff or being aware of difficulties or being called stupid thick because you can't read and write and do have problems with... wherever. So thanks. So many skill sets, like it's that as well.
Matt: I quite agree. I quite agree. So these are the high level things that need to take place, I think it's a cultural shift, that will lead to a behavioural shift.
David: Yeah, so if htere's one specific thing you'd like to see change in terms of society, and maybe more? This may affect the workplace as well? What is it you'd like to see in terms of making it better and easier for people who have dyslexia?
Matt: Yeah, I just want people with dyslexia to feel positive about themselves. Often dyslexia comes with low self esteem, or people with dyslexia can suffer with low self esteem. And I think we need to hold our heads up and say, I'm dyslexic. And be proud about it and confident about it. Because it's not a weakness, it's a strength. Yeah. It's not the people who are neurologically normal or typical, you know, have an advantage over people who are not. We have changes in how we view intelligence, how we teach children, how we continue personal development, how we assess learning how we assess smartness, the whole thing needs to change, it's not enough to tweak the edges and make some allowances, the the actual foundation of the educational system is, is unjust.
David: What about going into adulthood then, what's the big issue for people with dyslexia going into adulthood,going into the workplace so that's gonna be the big problem in terms of people who have dyslexia is the fact that it's all the way through education system, so some may get support or some sort of support and education, some may get workplaces l that you'll get no support. And it's up to the person who'ss dyslexic to try and get that support. Which is part of the reason why we we're asked what support do you give in the workplace yourself.
Matt: yeah, yeah.
David: You've heard Matt discussing how to improve their awareness of dyslexia in the workplace. You have come to the end to the interview that I did with Matt Bird with me, David Thompson. I would like to thank Matt for giving up the time  to be interviewed for Dyslexia Scotland.  For information about the Let's Talk Dyslexia podcast series, please check out our website at dyslexia scotland.org.uk. Or you could check out our Facebook www.facebook.com/dyslexiascotland or a Twitter page @dyslexiascotlan. If you enjoyed this podcast, they say thanks by becoming a member of Dyslexia Scotland, for as little as ten pounds per year. Members help us to keep working for a dyslexia-friendly Scotland. You'll get a whole heap of benefits for joining. Show you support for our work by visiting dyslexiascotland.org.uk/shop