Product Idea - Maybe Someone Can Do This

Hello Justin

As an American who has lived in Britain for twenty-five years now, I think yours is a great idea but I don't know exactly how you go about it.

I write a great deal and I enjoy writing. The one book I have published is a management book, but I am now writing copy and I like to write a bit of fiction for relaxation.

Based on my experience, I think your project would need a great deal of thought and work. If I, for example, were to write a manual for Americans trying to write for the British market I would have to research extensively into the differences between American and British idiom and then build all this into my manual (and I now have lived in both cultures for a long time). And all this for two cultures supposedly speaking a 'common language'.

If you want to have some laughs, watch carefully an American film produced in America for an American audience about some British folk doing something in Britain, or vice versa.

Imagine how much more work would be needed to do the same, for example, for someone whose first language is Chinese or Arabic trying to write convincingly for either the British or American market, again, or vice versa.

This is not an excuse not to think about this as a product, it's just my caution that it's quite ambitious (some idiot will no doubt come back with the suggestion you can create a piece of software for about £29 to do this).

I think for this to work, your writer would have to be somebody who has lived for a while in both cultures, for each manual you created.

Good luck with your project.

All the best.

Warmest regards
Bill