Sunday 26 March 2017

See Why Every Writer Should Publish Online In Nigeria




Most Nigerian authors have been searching for publishing companies to help them publish their books. They expect the publishing houses to review their manuscripts and then offer them publishing contracts where the publishing house handles the cost of publishing the book. Well, as long as it’s in Nigeria, that might never happen because most publishing houses in Nigeria don’t operate that way. They can only offer contracts to well established writers like Chimamanda, Wole Soyinka or promising up and coming writers like Charles Umerie. These are people they think they can make profit off their books even if it didn’t sell well. Nobody wants to invest their money into an unknown author; and not just that, Nigerian literary business isn’t as hot as that for unknown authors to break the market just like unknown music artists do all the time. That’s the simple truth.
A lot of young authors have figured that too, and they don’t depend on publishing houses to give them contracts. Rather they resort to printing their own books. That’s a totally brave move, but very unwise. Unless you have people requesting your book before you print it, and also have a perfect channel to distribute it after publication, you shouldn’t think of wasting money by printing it.
Well don’t be discouraged by this post because I have an amazing solution on how you can achieve your literary dreams. Have you heard of online publishing? Most people have, but if you haven’t, I think you should really pay attention.
Online publishing can be the answer to the problem young Nigerian authors face today. With online publishing, your book would be available for purchase worldwide! That’s one thing printing your book can’t give you. You can’t distribute it worldwide.
We live in an advanced age, and if you look around, you will notice that printed books are starting to lose value. Everything is read digitally these days. If you go to church, pastors are using iPad as bible. Even newspapers don’t sell that much again! Why purchase bulky papers when you can read them online- for FREE?!
That’s the world we live in, and young writers should adapt too. My advice to them should be they should publish online first. When you publish online, and maybe you are lucky enough to break the internet with your online published work, you will notice how publishing houses would be calling day and night to publish your work because you have proved that your work worth the risk.
Now let’s talk about how you can publish online.
Publishing online is just like printing the book. Both of them are still read. That’s what most online publishers forget. They think since it’s mostly free to publish online, they can treat their work anyhow and put it out for people to see; and still at the same time expecting to sell thousands of it. If you don’t prepare your online work professionally, it will never get anywhere. It would be available to the world, but only to be rejected by the world too.
With my research, it costs about N200,000 to print about 500 copies of your book, and still, most people won’t sell about 50 copies of that book. But do you realize that with just.. let’s say N50,000, you can have your book professionally published online? If you can handle the processes of publishing it yourself, starting from editing the manuscript, formatting it to kindle format or epub, designing the book cover and uploading it online, then you do it yourself. But if you can’t, I suggest you meet a professional to help you do it. There are a few publishing houses that help people publish online at a very cheap rate. Check BLACK TOWER PUBLISHERS NIG and contact them.
After your work is available to the world, all you have to do then is promote. As a person, you have friends and families. Share the link to your book to them through Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc, and also ask them to share with their friends and relatives too. Then connect with them and build yourself some fanbase.
There are many platforms to publish your book online. They include Createspace, Amazon Kindle, Smashwords, Lulu, etc. Createspace offers you a chance to publish your work, but it cannot be downloaded and read digitally. What they do is print-on-demand. That is when people order a copy or copies of your book, they print the book and ship to the person. Amazon Kindle can be downloaded digitally, but that is mostly for international sellers. Most African countries (including Nigeria) can’t purchase kindle books on Amazon. But you can still publish there if you still wish sell to international audience that reads mostly kindle books. Then the best one for Nigerians is Okadabooks and Lulu. Okadabooks is easier, and it has over 100,000 readers on their site. Readers can easily purchase your eBook just by recharging their Okadabooks account with airtime. The minimum withdrawal limit on Okadabooks is N10,000, and you can withdraw straight to your local bank account. Lulu offers two options. You can publish it as Print-on-demand or just as ebook.. or even both for the same book! People can easily buy your book with their ATM cards, download the book and then read it on the phone with an ePub reader!
You can visit these sites and find which is best for you! Or contact Black Tower Publishers and request how they can help you publish online.  Good luck!

Monday 13 March 2017

Africa Mourns ‘Mother of SA Literature’

The recent death of the first black South African woman to be published, Miriam Tlali has robbed Africa of its pioneers in literature.
Tlali died last Friday at the age of 83 after a long illness.
 
She is remembered for the books she wrote such as “Muriel at Metropolitan”, which was the first to be published by a black South African woman in 1975.

Some of her books include ‘Amandla’ (1980), ‘Mihloti’ (1984) and ‘Footprints in the Quag’ published in 1989.
In her native land, the late Tlali is remembered as the ‘mother of literature’.

South African Minister of Arts and Culture, Nathi Mthethwa, described Tlali as a literary legend and a literature pioneer who told the African story on the international arena through her reputable novels.
“Mama Miriam Tlali has earned her stripes as the real mother of South African literature,” said Mthethwa as he poured out his heart on social media.
“In Mama Miriam Tlali, South Africa and the entire African continent, has lost a literary giant.
“An African proverb says ‘when an old person dies a library burns to the ground’. What then happens when an old writer, a man or a woman of great knowledge, like Mama Tlali dies? Do a thousand libraries burn to the ground?
“The late once said just a book by itself, if it has the right messages in it, can change the whole human being. It can remake a person.”
He said Tlali was a trailblazer having been SA’s first black woman to publish a novel.
Zimbabwean celebrated artist and novelist, Albert Nyathi, in his tribute message said Thali did not belong to South Africa alone but the whole region.
“A writer carries the history, hope and aspiration of a nation or continent.  A writer like the late Mama Tlali, does not only belong to South Africa but, she belonged to the whole region,” said Nyathi.
“Writers are observers coming from the community and are also affected with what affects the community; I believe Africa will continually give birth to writers such as the late Mama Tlali.  Although the continent may not have the exact hand of the late in literature, her legacy lives on to inspire writers of the current generation.”
Several condolence messages for Tlali – ranging from novelists, readers and literature fanatics across Africa are still flooding the social media.
“Mama Tlali shall forever be remembered for giving birth to South African literature. In her time, she was one of the female novelists who pioneered the dismissal of gender and racial discrimination in literature in Southern Africa,” said Lekhetho John from Lesotho commenting on Minister Mthethwa’s recent posts on social media.
According to SA Ministry of Arts and Culture department, Tlali was born in Driefontein and grew up in Sophiatown.

Thursday 9 March 2017

Penguin Random House Wins "Heated Auction" over Barack and Michelle Obama's Books.


The bidding war for Barack and Michelle Obama’s post-White House books is over, and Penguin Random House has emerged the winner. They won the worldwide rights to both books after what a New York Times report described as “a heated auction among multiple publishers.”
Penguin did not disclose specific terms of the deal. But the word on the streets is that it is most probably an 8-figure deal. Industry insiders say that some of the opening offers ranged from 18 to 20 million, so it is very likely that the winning offer exceeded that.
The Obamas have had a long relationship with Penguin. They published Obama’s previous bestselling books and Michelle Obama’s book on her experience running a garden in the White House.
Here is what Markus Dohle, henchman at Penguin has to say about the deal: “We are absolutely thrilled to continue our publishing partnership with President and Mrs. Obama…With their words and their leadership, they changed the world, and every day, with the books we publish at Penguin Random House, we strive to do the same. Now, we are very much looking forward to working together with President and Mrs. Obama to make each of their books global publishing events of unprecedented scope and significance.”
The Obamas are always about service, so it comes as no surprise that they plan on giving part of their earnings to charity. Penguin will also “donate one million books in the Obama family’s name to First Book, a nonprofit organization that provides books to disadvantaged children, and Open eBooks, the Washington-based partner for the 2016 White House digital education initiative.”