June 7, 2020

• Welcome to Publish Africa #8
• Thinking ahead to the post-pandemic publishing world
• Before we proceed: Percentages - a cautionary tale
• Ake Arts & Book Festival leads the African Renaissance in 2020
• Morocco's Casablanca International Book Fair pulled in half a million visitors
• Zimbabwe International Book Fair prepares for July launch
• Storytel raised $96.5 million in fresh funding
• Novel about the journey of Livingstone's corpse wins Chautauqua Prize
• “A perfect moment for ebooks." – Bloomsbury
• Morocco’s National Library goes digital as country locked down
• New global subscription service for English-language Manga publishers
• Ghana's 2020 International Book Fair cancelled rather than prolong uncertainty for publishers
• “Severe and lasting damage” as 2/3 of French publishers miss out on the 30% digital surge during lockdown
• Thieves in Rwanda steal books from a primary school...to rip out the pages
• Simon & Schuster Q1 revenue up 4%, driven by 16% growth in ebook and audiobook sales
• Sierra Leone digital platform Poda-Poda calls for submissions
• YouScribe launched in Burkina Faso
• Zimbabwe poet appointed UNESCO-Rila affiliate
• A life saving growth of 300% in our D2C e-commerce sales during lockdown” – Verso
• Bakwa Literary Festival, Cameroon
• Sweden’s Nextory sees 94% revenue and 110% subscriber growth in Q1
• The James Murua Literature Blog
• Mills & Boon launches unlimited subscription service
• StreetLib CEO Giacomo D’Angelo participates in Abu Dhabi panel discussion
• Further Reading
• Thanks for reading

Welcome to Publish Africa #8

As a pandemic sweeps the world, publishing limps into the new decade

Whatever high hopes and ambitions we may have had for publishing in the new decade have been mostly turned upside down by a crisis so improbable it was, until a few months ago, the stuff of science fiction. But today fiction has become reality in the cruelest way possible. 

The global publishing industry - from big corporate publishers right down to single authors, from printers to distributors and almost all stops in between - face an unprecedented threat to business and to life, and every aspect of the industry has had to adjust.

Not least the StreetLib-TNPS newsletters, which have been focussed on global opportunities that, given the new reality we face right now, are fewer and further between, at least in the short term.

That in turn led us to pause the newsletters briefly while we re-assessed the global publishing scene.

But as we put Easter behind us and summer looms, the pandemic has, for some countries, peaked, and there is light at the end of  a very dark tunnel.

As this post goes live some parts of the world are emerging from lockdown, and publishing is beginning to find its feet again.

Too soon to say how that will go, but it would be crazy to think the print book industry can just pick up where it left off.

However, as we begin the early stages of recovery in some parts of the world, even as others are hit hard and still others have yet to face the worst, there is a need for authors and publishers - and especially self-publishers - to keep abreast of developments and stay attuned to such opportunities as are still out there.

And among the biggest opportunities is the unprecedented interest in digital that the pandemic has brought about.

Because make no mistake global publishing does still have an exciting future ahead, however bleak things seem right now in some sectors of the industry 

And fair to say the brightest element has been, is and will continue to be digital, which is at the heart of our newsletter programme.

With that in mind, let's proceed with Publish Africa #8, which, to remind everyone, is aimed at African authors and publishers looking to get a global perspective on the opportunities within and beyond this vast and beautiful continent, and to shine a light on some of the exciting publishing news from across the continent for the benefit of subscribers not fortunate enough to live here (I'm writing this from The Gambia)all types.

And just to add you'll see that our other industry-facing newsletters Publish MENA and Publish Global newsletters are also getting back on track, and we hope to get our planned launch of Publish South Asia lined up for later this year.

Thinking ahead to the post-pandemic publishing world

Global publishing will never return to its pre-pandemic status

Our opening piece for this issue of Publish Africa is an op-ed from TNPS  early into the pandemic crisis, where I took a look at something many authors and publishers around the world have yet to seriously consider - what will publishing life be like when this crisis is over?

From TNPS (refer to OP for links):

Publishers globally need to understand the new normal now evolving, and to develop post-pandemic “go wide” strategies that may at first glance seem counter-intuitive.

It is estimated at least 50,000 readers in Spain have transitioned to digital reading – ebooks and audiobooks – in the past three weeks as lockdown in Spain keeps bookstores closed, people at home, and makes online print delivery an unnecessary hazard for warehouse and delivery workers.

Spain’s eBiblio government-operated public library platform has grown 130% since the State of Emergency was declared, picking up over 18,000 new users in three weeks, while eLiburutegia, the Euskadi digital books platform has picked up 6,000 new users.

Bookwire and Libranda are both reporting a 50% increase in digital books engagement, while Kobo says ebooks are up 140% and audiobooks 254%.

Subscription platform Nubico reports a 3-fold sign-up increase, with content consumption up 32%. Spotify audiobook consumption is up 17%.

As Javier Celaya says in an Op-Ed for Dosdoce:

Confinement is transforming the book discovery habits of thousands of readers, as well as their purchase and consumption on screens.

While we can argue the detail of the numbers (these may well be very conservative, as they do not take into account untracked consumption on platforms like Amazon, Apple, Scribd, etc), what we can be sure of is that the pattern is being replicated around the world wherever digital books are meaningfully available.

The longer the pandemic crisis continues, the longer time for dedicated print readers to migrate to digital, even as print-based stakeholders like booksellers struggle to survive. Many will stay hybrid readers or even transition fully to digital afterwards.

To be clear, there’s no suggestion this will be an extinction-event for print – but when this is over and we return to whatever the new normal may be, digital books will play a far larger part in the lives of consumers and publishers than we could ever have imagined as this new decade began just a few short months ago.

And for publishers who have for years been practicing digital-distancing not because of any irrational dislike of digital but because of fears that embracing digital would strengthen Amazon’s hand, now is not the time to be thinking how to downplay digital in the future.

Rather now is the time to, in the parlance of self-publishing authors, “go wide” to ensure Amazon’s value is collectively balanced by treating other digital outlets seriously, and to embrace counter-intuitive business models like unlimited subscription to ensure a more favourable balance in publishers digital reach and revenue streams.

Because even if the majority of booksellers survive this crisis and when all the restrictions are lifted and consumers are free to spend where they want, we have to understand that a desperately weakened global economy will for the foreseeable future thrust printed books, with their scant price flexibility, into the luxury category for most people around the world.

For authors and publishers that embrace digital’s capacity to offer flexible pricing, consumer demand will remain high.

Global publishing will never return to its pre-pandemic status.

But let's end this opening item with a number from Kobo that should ram home the points made above. This from Rakuten's 2020 financial report, referencing the number of new users signing up with Kobo globally during the pandemic.

Kobo CEO Michael Tamblyn told Publishers Weekly that that sales were up between 35%-130% "In all our key markets, including Canada and the United States."

Before we proceed: Percentages - a cautionary tale

Percentage increases may not mean what you think

This issue of Publish Global will have more than its fair share of reports about the digital renaissance brought about by the pandemic. But be warned, a lot of the reports deal in percentages, not actual sales and revenue numbers.

So keep in mind that percentage increases reported, while indicative and exciting, to be fully meaningful to us need baselines which are not always shared. I stress that to make us look at these percentage increase reports across the industry with business-minded caution.

Here’s why:

As a hypothetical example, suppose Retail Outlet A reported a 20% increase in sales, while Retail Outlet B reported a 90% increase in sales, and Subscription Outlet C reported a 200% increase in downloads.

It’s easy to jump to erroneous conclusions here. Because while at first glance Subscription Service C is doing best and Retail Outlet A is performing least well, it may well be that Retail Outlet A is our best option. Percentages don’t tell the whole story.

Here’s the thing:

Let us suppose by way of example that Retail Outlet A was selling 1,000 units each month and suddenly began selling 1,200 units each month.

Meanwhile Retail Outlet C was selling 10 units each month but suddenly that leapt to 19 units per month.

And Subscription Service C was registering 1,000 downloads per month and now was reporting 3,000 downloads per month.

In terms of downloads/sales, Subscription Service C wins hand down, while Retail Outlet B performed least well, shifting just 19 units.

Yet Retail Outlet B shifting just 19 units had a far better percentage increase – 90% - than Retail Outlet A which only increased 20%, but shifted 1,200 units.

Now consider cash values. If Retail Outlets A and B are handing over 70% as a royalty and Subscription Service C is handing over 15% as a subscription shared pot royalty, suddenly that 200% increase in subscription downloads isn’t as hot as it at first appears.

None of which means the percentage increases are not valuable to us. And of course if we are seeing similar increases across Retail Outlets D, E, F, Library Outlets G, H and I, and Subscription Services J, K and L, then these percentage increases become collectively significant.

But what we should not be doing is looking at percentage variations and making business and distribution decisions based solely on that criteria. Otherwise we’d be putting all our efforts into the example Subscription Service C delivering a 200% increase and Retail Outlet B delivering a 90% increase and sidelining Retail Outlet A for only delivering a 20% increase when in fact Retail Outlet A was our best performer.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at just a few of the many reports coming in from across the industry that shows that while print understandably has struggled because of bookstore closures during lockdowns, digital has boomed. 

Ake Arts & Book Festival leads the African Renaissance in 2020

Ake changes its 2020 theme to "AFRICAN TIME"

We'll be looking backwards and forwards in this edition of Publish Africa, and we'l begin by looking forward to the big event in October.

No, not the Frankfurt Book Fair (more on that in the next edition) but Nigeria's Ake Arts & Book Festival.

Regular readers will know we're big fans of digital and using social media to build global publishing reach. connect with wider audiences and to sell books, but also that when it comes to embraces the digital advantage many on the African publishing circuit have yet to wake up to the incredible opportunities unfolding.

So we kick off the meat of this edition of Publish Africa with news from the Ake Arts & Book Festival (AABF) straight from the AABF twitter feed, where the Ake team are masters of the art of combining digital imagery and micro-text (tweets) to get their message across.

"Our world has changed forever. And when the world turns, we turn with it. The magnitude of recent world events cannot be ignored. We have therefore decided to change the theme for the 8th edition of Ake Arts & Book Festival to AFRICAN TIME."

For those unfamiliar with twitter, you click on the image to see the full version.

Again for the unmitigated, twitter can build out a message storyline using threads.

"In 1918, African nations were in the clutches of imperial forces that denigrated our stories, culture, history, language and belief systems. A century later, a new pandemic finds Africa struggling with the colonial hangover of poor leadership and a predatory global order."

"Africa must reject the old normal and seize the opportunity of the moment to recalibrate and break the cycle of betrayal by those elected to lead. This may be our last chance to shape Africa and define the continent of our dreams"

"It may have come later than expected but, for the children of Africa everywhere, this is Africa Time."

The Ake Festival is based in Lagos, Nigeria, and always has a strong international audience, but this year with all efforts being put into a digital event, the Ake Arts & Book Festival has a potential audience bigger than anything it has previously envisaged.

The decision to go fully digital was made way back in April, as reported by TNPS.

In a bold move the Ake Art & Book Festival scheduled for October 22-25 in the former Nigerian capital Lagos, is to be transformed into an online event.

With “only” 318 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 19 dead, Nigeria is far behind even the worst hit African states (that will be Algeria, with just shy of 2,000 cases and just shy of 300 dead reported as this post goes live), and faring a lot better than many other countries.

That was April. In early June the Nigeria numbers stand at 11,844 confirmed cases and 333 dead. Still faring far better than many richer nations, but still worrying enough to confirm the Ake Arts & Book Festival team made the right decision.

It will be interesting to see how many other African events follow suit, and how much this will prove to be a one-off event or a permanent new fixture.

With 126 million people online Nigeria is the sixth largest country in the world by internet users, and still only at 62% internet penetration. The potential is there for the Ake Festival to reach a much larger audience, both domestic and global, that it could ever dream of with a physical event.

The 8th incarnation of the Ake Arts & Book Festival promises to be the best yet!

The world's biggest book fair clocked 3.5 million visitors

Sadly the rest of the 2020 book fair calendar is on hold

Morocco's Casablanca International Book Fair pulled in half a million visitors

A reminder of the potential of MENA - still accessible via digital

While not quite on the scale of Cairo, the Casablanca International Book Fair in February drew a crowd of half a million for the third year running.

From TNPS:

It’s a central part of global publishing’s urban mythology. Arabs don’t read. Or rather, they do, but only for six minutes a day.

Not here to give further oxygen to that depressing and all-too-obviously flawed argument. Rather to note that the ten-day Casablanca International Book Fair, which wound up earlier this month, attracted just shy of 500,000 visitors – an average of 50,000 per day. For comparison the London Book Fair typically brings in 25,000 over three days.

Yes, it’s apples and oranges – the London Book Fair is trade event, while Morocco’s Casablanca fair is public-facing.

But worth noting 500,000 visitors is more than any US or UK literary event – even the Hay Festival – can pull in, and from that alone publishers should be reconsidering their position on the Arab markets of the Middle East and North Africa.

At which point it’s worth taking a step back and noting that one reason these events are so popular is because on an everyday basis books are hard to come by in this part of the world, especially outside the big cities.

The cruel realities of print distribution in a region like MENA - or indeed Africa as a whole - cause few people can buy them, and that in turn limits the choice available, which in turn dampens demand.

But as more and more publishers within and beyond the Arab markets realise the potential digital offers to reach consumers anywhere in the region, 24/7, so the region’s embryonic literary Renaissance will accelerate.

It’s already happening.

Morocco, along with Algeria and Egypt, are the three MENA countries hardest hit by the pandemic  (as this newsletter goes live), and with a tight lockdown shuttering bookstores and other retail, digital is again a lifeline and safety net for the industry and a source of relief for consumes unable to leave their homes.

Sadly Google Play's usually excellent reach does not extend to Morocco, but for those with French and Arabic content there are still ways to reach this market digitally via Kobo, Scribd, YouScribe and others.

Where the option is available authors and publishers might want to consider offering free content to markets like these, offering consumers welcome relief at a difficult time, and connecting with new audiences that might become loyal customers when this crisis is behind us.

Mexico book market plummets 88.2% amid pandemic

Digital saves the day

 

Over at TNPS I’ve been covering the impact of the pandemic on global publishing, with a particular focus on how digital has shifted from an afterthought to being of critical importance to the survival of the trade.

For Africa's publishers the significance of these reports is not so much that mainstream publishing aroiund the world is embracing digital as for what it means for consumers.

Put simply, amid the pandemic consumers have turned to digital in unprecedented numbers, many discovering the benefits and advantages of digital reading for the first time.

And while the pandemic doesn’t herald the end of print, and many of these new-to-digital consumers will revert back to their old habits at some stage, many more will be converts for life.

So Africa's publishers can expect not only to enjoy increased sales and downloads in the short term, but for the digital boom to be sustainable into the future.

Each country has been hit in its own way, some extremely hard, others less so. What follows is how TNPS reported on the situation in Mexico.
 
The latest data on the Mexican book market, as reported to El Economista by Nielsen Bookscan Mexico makes grim reading.

The decline in annual turnover started subtly in the first half of February, with a barely noticeable -2.5%. For week 13 of the year, in the second half of March, economic losses began with double-digit percentages for bookstores in the country were closed, it was 67.3%, and it bottomed in week 15 (April 6-12), with 88.2% publishers. The decrease went from 9.9% to 42.1%; then, at the beginning of April, when practically all the compared to the same period of the previous year.

…

But from that low point the numbers began to revive, not because of any easing of Mexico’s lockdown, but because publishers belatedly realized digital was their best friend.

…

Oniine print sales took up some of the slack, but it was digital – ebooks and audiobooks – that became not just the safety net but the rebound platform for Mexican publishing.

Diego Echeverría, CEO of digital conversions specialist Ink It, reported a 60% surge in sales in march and said he expected triple digit increases when the April numbers 
…

Print focussed publishers and booksellers, while disadvantaged, have also shifted their attentions to digital, with online promotion and author activities.

Read the full post on TNPS.

Zimbabwe International Book Fair prepares for July launch

But it seems digital is not yet seriously on the agenda

With just 9 coronavirus cases confirmed, and just one death from the virus as this post went live on TNPS in April, the Zimbabwe government, like many across Africa, is not following the US and UK example and waiting to take action until its too late, but taking preemptive measures to halt the epidemic.

The 21-day lockdown that started April 4, will hurt, but it may just save the country from longer-term pain and misery if it can help contain the spread of the most devastating plague in modern history.

For Zimbabwean publishers, already struggling to recover from the Mugabe era, the lockdown will be especially painful, but at this stage some in the industry seem confident it will all be worthwhile, that the measures taken now will prevent the coronavirus causing the devastation it has wrought in Europe and the USA, and that by end July the Zimbabwe International Book Fair (ZIBF) will be able to go ahead.

With the ZIBF scheduled for July 27 through August 1 this year, preparations for now continue on the assumption it will be safe or permissible for the event to proceed.

A statement from the ZIBF organisers has asked for 500 word abstracts from industry stakeholders to help select speakers and presentations for the Indaba Conference, which is set for July 27-28, this year with the theme Book Industry: The Dynamics Within.

Having observed that most of the themes from 2011 to 2016 addressed developmental and philosophical issues, the board decided to select a theme that may give us a rare opportunity to look more closely at the internal welfare and goings on of real people and institutions (big and small) in the book industry itself in Zimbabwe and Africa.

The book industry in Zimbabwe and Africa is currently in a state that demands that we evaluate the perspectives of every stakeholder against those of others, in order to create harmony and cohesion. We have noticed that the book production chain in its various formats seem not to be united to address the opportunities and challenges that we have in our daily relations as creators and business people.

A positively open and candid forum discussion may possibly allow all stakeholders to get a 360-degree view of the situation, understand and empathise with other groups’ positions, ultimately leading to viable solutions in taking the industry into the future.

Too soon to say how much the coronavirus crisis will influence this debate, always allowing it will go ahead, but in the wider Zimbabwean media digital is already taking centre stage.

Technomag reports that in response to the lockdown Alpha Media Holdings and The Chronicle have,
employed electronic papers to disseminate news as measures to reduce physical contact and curb the spread of COVID-19 (despite newspapers being) exempted from the lockdown and considered an essential service to inform the nation during the lockdown.

Alpha Media Holdings said in a statement that while,

Zimbabwe is under a 21 day lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic there will be no physical contact between readers and our staff. The pandemic is wrecking havoc around the world economies. Let us all maintain social distancing.

Alpha Media Holdings journals The Standard and Zimbabwe Independent are now being issued in PDF format.

Technomag postulates that this digital transition may see the media abandon traditional print runs and go fully digital once the pandemic is over.

That’s a bold forecast that I suspect will not come fully to fruition this year, but the longer this crisis forces publishers to offer digital solutions and the longer consumers have to get used to digital media consumption, the harder it will be to return to the ways things were in 2019.

For Zimbabwean media and book publishers alike this crisis could be a game-changer in ways unimaginable in Zimbabwe as this year began.

And for most stakeholders in the publishing sector the long-term impact will prove positive, with digital enabling publishers to reach more consumers, both at home and abroad, while reducing production costs and timelines.

For Zimbabwean printers and related distribution and retail sectors on the other hand, this could prove disastrous for many.

Covid-19 won’t be an extinction event for print-based publishing, but things will never return to how they were three months ago.

UPDATE: As this edition of Publish Africa prepares to go live the position of the Zimbabwe International Book Fair 2020 remains unclear, with no news or updates .

As long ago as 2013 a headline ran "ZIBF embraces digital technology", but in 2020 it's still almost impossible to find anything reliable online about the Zimbabwe International Book Fair.

The Zimbabwe International Book Fair Association Facebook page was last updated in 2014 and the link to the ZIBF Association website goes nowhere.

The ZIBF(dot)org website hasn't been updated since 2003.

While much of the world's publishing industry is embracing digital at a whole new level, the Zimbabwe IBF seems to be looking the other way.

But per items further down in this newsletter, it's not all bad news on the Zim publishing front.

Storytel raised $96.5 million in fresh funding

You can't put the digital subscription genie back in the bottle

We've two stories from the Swedish digital books outfit Storytel for this edition of Publish Alobal. First a look at how Storytel attracted some serious fresh money for its global plans This before the coronavirus crisis threw much of the global publishing industry into turmoil.

As reported here in our previous edition, Sweden's Storytel is targetting 20 new markets over the next three years (on top of the 20 existing markets), and picked up $50 million in a bank funding shuffle in 2019.

Not satisfied with that, Storytel picked up new funding to the tune of $96.5 million in February of this year, to aid its massive global expansion programme.

Many publishers have doubts about unlimited subscription services, a judgement in part no doubt coloured by the issues surrounding Amazon's Kindle Unlimited (KU).

But setting aside the scams that seem never-ending, and the contentious issue of KU's demand for exclusivity for some publishers, let's remember that the KU pot paid out over $300 million in royalties last year. That's quite separate from the payments made to the big-name authors like JK Rowling, whose books are in the KU catalogue, or the payments to A-Pub authors.

The value of subscription for publishers lies in being affordable, accessible and discoverable. The challenge for publishers is balancing what subscription can deliver against what they have invested in the traditional model that might be cannibalised.

For a publisher seeing downloads in small numbers it’s likely the à la carte model would give them a better rate per download. But would they be reaching these new audiences at all?

That's where publishers can really benefit, because with subscription services we can reach markets around the world, even where à la carte sales are challenging because of relatively low incomes or consumers having no bank card to pay.

Last year YouScribe picked up 300,000 new subscribers across francophone Africa, for example, in countries were bank cards are a rarity and where mainstream ebook retailers fear to tread. Consumers buy mobile phone credit with cash and then use that credit to pay for their ebook and audiobook streaming.

And this is being repeated across the globe in countries where mainstream ebook and audiobook retail is all but non-existent, opening up new market opportunities where indie authors can be part of the advance guard.

Places like West Africa's Burkina Faso.

More on that story further down this newsletter.

Digital-first Storytel thrives as other publishers struggle amid the pandemic 

The digital advantage

Amid the global coronavirus crisis Storytel saw subscribers grow 38% and streaming revenue 45%, even as publishers that sidelined digital struggled. for survival, as this post from TNPS explained:

...

The only surprise with the latest results from Sweden-based Storytel would have been if subscriber rates and earnings had dipped amid a global crisis that has left print-focussed publishers imperiled.

That of course did not happen, and while streaming revenue took a notional hit at SEK 429m ($44m) compared to the SEK 438m forecast, this in large part was down to “negative currency effects from the Norwegian Krone and an increase in Family subscriptions during the period.”

Overall Storytel’s Q1 results came in at 33.5% revenue growth (streaming and non-streaming) to SEK 513.2 million ($52.7) and a subscriber boost of 71,400, taking Storytel’s total subscribers to 1.54 million.

The average number of paying subscribers in the Nordic segment was 785,800, while 43,200 subscribers were added outside the Nordics, taking total non-Nordic subscription levels to 369,000.

Tellander issued a Q2 forecast of 1.25 million global subscribers, amounting to 41% YOY growth, and a 43% YOY revenue growth to SEK 458m ($47m), with the caveat that the coronavirus crisis meant there was an element of uncertainty about how things might pan out.

Addressing shareholders, Tellander, echoing a common theme that audiobook downloads had dipped as commuters stayed at home, said that afternoon and evening consumption “more than compensated” for the downturn in commuter consumption.

Tellander talked of consumers becoming more “digitally savvy” and noted that,

New consumption patterns have started to emerge as a result of lockdown on many markets. Morning listening while commuting has gone down in some markets for obvious reasons, but this is more than compensated for by a higher rate of listenings in the afternoons and evenings. In the Nordics, we also see a clear growth in consumption on Sundays and at the beginning of the week.

Crime & Thriller and Fiction have kept their positions as the most consumed genres in our service, but the influx of new users, combined with families spending more time with each other at home, has boosted the Children category to third place. At bedtime this category actually surpasses Fiction and is the second-most popular genre among our customers. Biographies and Personal Development are two other genres that have grown pronouncedly during the coronavirus pandemic.

Addressing the bigger picture of print struggling globally in the pandemic era, Tellander told shareholders,

It is obvious that the popularity of audiobooks and the digital transformation of the book market are increasing in both speed and impact due to the coronavirus pandemic. Publishing houses are currently experiencing rapidly decreasing physical sales and might find it difficult to stay profitable. This makes them more dependent on digital sales and audiobooks. The publishers that are likely to come out on top in this situation are those that manage to pivot or have invested in audiobooks at an early stage and already earn a large portion of their sales on audio.

That statement is worth picking up on for its focus on audiobooks, which of course is the mainstay of the Storytel operation, but the lesson here is that all digital formats are soaring as consumers discover the digital advantage.

Novel about the journey of Livingstone's corpse wins Chautauqua Prize

Re-orientating our understanding of western myths

As a British ex-pat and lover of all things African I have a foot in both camps when it comes to viewing the history of this vast continent, and no question my early learnings about the European exploration of  the "Dark Continent" was a romanticised one that left much unsaid about the colonial era.

Fair to say my early childhood reading of our "brave explorers" discovering places Africans already knew existed helped develop my love of the continent and its people, its geography and its societies but also helped me understand the conflict within the African historical tradition.

Not least the one that seeks to blame all the continent's ills on the "white man" while conveniently overlooking the continent was colonised by Arabs long before the Europeans got past Cape Bojador.

By the time of Livingstone's death hundreds of years later the African coast was known to Europe, and when Livingstone died is body was escorted back to the Indian Ocean coast.

That journey is the subject of the novel Out of Darkness, Shining Light, which just won the 2020 Chautauqua Prize for author Petina Gappah.

Brittle Paper explains:

The Chautauqua Prize has been awarded each year since 2012 to “a book of fiction or literary/narrative nonfiction that provides a richly rewarding reading experience and honors the author for a significant contribution to the literary arts.”

The Chautauqua Institution is an educational center in New York, historically known for supporting the arts and providing flexible educational opportunities to women, low-income students, and students living in remote rural areas.

Gappah will receive a prize of $7,500 and give a public reading at the Chautauqua Institution’s Online Assembly.

The event will be announced at a later date this summer.

The Chautauqua Institution’s President Michael E. Hill has this to say about Out of Darkness, Shining Light:
Deeply informed and richly written, Out of Darkness, Shining Light completely reorients our understanding of one of the most lasting myths of Western culture. Comical one moment, and sobering the next, Petina’s writing is illustrative and instructive, and the cadences and voices she gives her characters are distinct and compelling — truly indicative of a masterful writer. We’re honored to award her The Chautauqua Prize, and to celebrate this book that pulls its story out of the darkness of history and shines a light on the many voices of our shared humanity.

For more about the book by Zambia-born Zimbabwean author Petina Gappah  including that she learned Swahili to write the book, check out this post from the Guardian earlier this year.

“A perfect moment for ebooks." – Bloomsbury

“Increased demand for our digital resources, audio and e‐books”

From TNPS:

Bloomsbury Publishing defied Covid-19 expectations, with revenue down just 3%, thanks to robust print sales and a 52% rise in digital. Talking to the UK trade journal The Bookseller, Bloomsbury CEO Nigel Newton said that books were still reaching customers, highlighting supermarkets, the Hive and Waterstones’ website, along with Amazon and sales of e-books.

A 190% revenue growth in audio during the year was not sustained during the lockdown period, although audiobook sales were described as “okay”, but it was ebooks that Newton reported on most positively:

"This is a perfect moment for e-books. Our strategy of expanding and leveraging our digital rights and products means that we are well placed to benefit from increased demand for our digital resources, audio and e‐books"

Morocco’s National Library goes digital as country locked down

The digital ascendancy

 
Morocco is among the many countries closing libraries to help contain the Coronavirus threat, and as elsewhere, it is turning to digital to ensure services are not halted.

The National Library of Morocco in Rabat (BNRM) is among numerous Moroccan public institutions shifting to a work-from-home policy and a commitment to providing digital content in lieu of physical products.

Morocco’s schools closed a week ago, in stark contrast to the UK, which only closed schools this weekend, and the USA, where the government continues to send out mixed messages, leaving governors and mayors to take the lead and protect lives.

But like many countries across the Middle East and North Africa, the belated realisation of the value of digital means the transition from physical, in-class education and social support to online is a slow and cumbersome process.

Morocco World News reports that the BNRM says it will,

offer online administrative services to its subscribers, and access to electronic documents including legal deposits, manuscripts, magazines, books, and more.

The library will adopt a work system that doesn’t require its employees’ physical presence, opting instead for video chats to carry out administrative meetings.

Remote educational activities will replace lessons and classes, allowing students to stay at home and continue studies.

The move by the national library came almost a week before the Moroccan government declared a state of emergency (March 20) and put the country under total lockdown.

Details of how Moroccan public libraries, booksellers and publishers are faring remain sketchy at this point, but the total lockdown will accelerate further Morocco’s engagement with digital across all sectors.

As and when the pandemic crisis finally subsides, Morocco, like most other countries, will be a more digitally-aware society and the publishing industry will have to adjust to a new reality where digital is in the ascendancy.

New global subscription service for English-language Manga publishers

A great way for Africa's comics publishers to  extend their reach

From TNPS:

The iOS-only launch of a new Manga subscription service may hinder its reach, but on the other hand its focus on legal English-language titles will give it an edge in the global markets.

Mangamo offers two-month trial for unlimited access to what will be over 300 legal titles split across 1,000 volumes, with new chapters added daily.

Initially some 11 publishers, including North Star Pictures, Toppan, Kodansha and Comicsmart, will be providing backlist and newly translated material to the service, which will cost $4.99 per month once the trial period expires.

In a press release, Mangamo CEO and founder Buddy Marini said:

I grew up reading Manga and watching anime as a child in Japan, and I’m inspired by the global rise of this treasured Japanese form of entertainment.

Mangamo offers something I’ve always wanted as a fan: an easy and affordable way to read a ton of new Manga while giving back to the publishers and creators so they can continue to make the Manga I love.

Per the website, 

Every Manga available on Mangamo is curated by our editorial team, professionally localized, and licensed from publishers legally.

The TNPS report concludes,

While the Mangamo service purports to be accessible worldwide, there are exclusions, namely China, Japan and Korea.

The website makes no allusion as to whether an Android app might be coming, but without that the claim to be accessible worldwide is a weak one.

The bigger question, perhaps, is whether in the post-pandemic world there is room for a niche subscription service like this with relatively little content. The $4.99 price tag will work in its favour, of course, but as subscription services continue to proliferate in a depressed global economy a subscription market adjustment is inevitable at some stage in the next year or so.

For Mangamo the waters are muddied still further by the relatively slow take-up of digital comics and Manga outside the core Japan and Korea markets.

The two months free trial during the pandemic will no doubt see a high volume of trial subscribers. The real test will come as the trial period expires just as the harsh economic realities of the pandemic hit home hardest.

Ghana's 2020 International Book Fair cancelled rather than prolong uncertainty for publishers

An African book fair shows its wealthier counterparts how it should be done

Scheduled for August 27-30 this year, Ghana’s International Book Fair is now officially cancelled due to the coronavirus threat, and is expected to return August 26-29 2021.

Chairman of the Ghana International Book Fair, Asare Konadu Yamoah, issued a statement this week explaining that the steady growth of the coronavirus in Ghana left them no choice.

We have, therefore, taken the difficult decision to wait no further but act now to enable both indigenous and international exhibitors and visitors as well as the general public to rethink their plans.

Summarising the statement, News Ghana said the GIBF organisers hope to hold a National Book Exhibition in Accra and two other satellite regional book fairs in Kumasi and Koforidua within the last quarter of the year.

The full statement on the  Ghana International Book Fair site raeds as follows:

THE 18TH GHANA INTERNATIONAL BOOK FAIR POSTPONED TO AUGUST 26 – 29, 2021

This is to announce that the Planning Committee for the Ghana International Book Fair (GIBF) has postponed the 18th edition of the Ghana International Book Fair from August 27 – 30, 2020 to August 26
– 29, 2021 after a meeting held on Monday 27th April, 2020.

The Committee considered the current circumstances regarding the pandemic Coronavirus and its
devastating global effects on life, health and the economy of all sectors. Quality human health is of outmostpriority and upon critical assessment of the situation, the outbreak of the disease will have adverse effects on the success of the Book Fair should it be held on the original aforementioned date.

We have therefore  taken the difficult decision to wait no further but act now to enable both indigenous and international exhibitors and visitors as well as the general public of Ghana to rethink their plans.

When the disease is fully contained and all restrictions on social gatherings are lifted by the government, the Committee intends to organise a National Book Exhibition in Accra and two other satellite regional book fairs in Kumasi and Koforidua within the last quarter of the year to give Ghanaians the opportunity to buy new textbooks for KG to Primary 6, SHS textbooks and supplementary readers for all levels. The date for these regional book fairs will be announced later.

We encourage the Government of Ghana and all the global institutions that are leading efforts to stem the pandemic to continue their vigorous programmes to save lives and ensure that the basic economic
conditions are not eroded.

The Ghana International Book Fair is an annual event organised to celebrate the rich Ghanaian culture through books. The main goal behind organising the Book Fair is to bring together all book industry players (both local and international) including publishers, editors, authors/ writers, designers, illustrators, printers, librarians, booksellers, students, teachers and a host of allied organisations, to showcase innovations that have occurred in the publishing industry, to share ideas, foster strong links, explore business opportunities and enhance the visibility and recognition of players in the book industry.

The fair aims at exposing readers to a wide array of books and other educational materials, thus creating literacy awareness and inculcating into the general public especially children and young adults reading and writing habits through impactful reading programmes held annually.

We encourage everyone to follow the laid down protocols announced by the government to ensure that we all stay healthy and safe. Any inconvenience caused is very much regretted. Thank you. 

Asare Konadu Yamoah
Chairman, Ghana International Book Fair

With 11.7 million people online in a country of 31 million, Ghana is potentially on digital reach parity with Sweden, the home of Storytel, but as yet digital books are still in their infancy in Ghana.

The Ghana International Book Fair organisers understandably did not want to go down the road of Nigeria's Ake Arts & Book Festival (Nigeria has 126 million people online) and try put on a digital event in lieu of the real thing this year, but it should be looking at the way other book fairs around the world are now adopting a hybrid in-person and virtual book fair model for the future, getting the best of both worlds.

We'll be taking a closer look at this model in the next edition of Publish Africa.

“Severe and lasting damage” as 2/3 of French publishers miss out on the 30% digital surge during lockdown 

Lessons for Africa's publishers

From TNPS:

French publishing has for the past decade or more proudly stood firm against the trend to embrace digital, determined to give French consumers what publishers felt they wanted: Printed books sold at high prices in bricks & mortar stores.

And when the coronavirus crisis arrived French publishers were hit hard.

Of course that’s been a story retold around the globe to some degree, but few if any other countries appear to have been hit quite as heavily as France, with the national publishing body warning of “severe and lasting damage” as it appealed to the government for assistance.

But it’s hard not to see the message from the French Publishers Association (SNE – Syndicat National de l’Edition) as an appeal to rescue the industry from its own shortsightedness, while declining to seriously address certain key issues, among them digital and Amazon.

Consider: The results of an SNE survey of “132 publishing companies or groups representing around 250 publishing houses” shows a bleak picture across the French publishing landscape, with 18 publishing houses expected to fold, and 57% of respondents experiencing cash flow issues.

The SNE report singles out bookstore closures as a reason for the national publishing industry’s plight, and cites insufficient funding from government in assisting the industry to ride out the pandemic, but declines, for example, to mention the role the closure of Amazon’s warehouse may have played in preventing online sales meeting demand.

Rather, SNE argues, without any evidence offered beyond the fact that bookstores were closed, that readers had priorities other than books during this difficult time.

If so that would put France, a nation of booklovers by any measure, at odds with pretty much the rest of the world, where demand for books rose significantly during lockdown, driving readers to look to online delivery or digital delivery to fill the gap bookstore closures left.

SNE spends as little time as possible dealing with digital, noting that sales of ebooks rose by 30% and audiobooks by 8%, but that only 30% of respondents offered digital titles in the first place.

But in its conclusions, where the SNE outlines its proposed solutions, the suggestion that French publishers might spend a little more effort in putting in place a digital safety net, or building on the 30% surge in digital sales that the few publishers that did make an effort with digital experienced, is notably absent.

Read the SNE report in full (in French) here:

For more detail from the SNE report in English, try The Bookseller or Publishing Perspectives.

For publishers, it’s a reminder that France is behind the curve with digital compared to some other markets, and that should be borne in mind when considering investment strategies (time, effort and cash) for French translations.

Don’t for one second think France is a no go area for digital. Far from it. But do be aware that mainstream French publishing has done little to encourage consumers to adapt during the last decade

Many African publishers will be publishing in French as their primary output language, so the situation in France with digital engagement is a both a hindrance and an opportunity.
 

Thieves in Rwanda steal books from a primary school...to rip out the pages

Contextualising African publishing challenges

When this post ran on TNPS the headline raised a lot of eyebrows among the publishing community in the wealthier parts of the world, but hopefully I managed to contetualise the headline when I re-told the story for TNPS readers.

You can judge for yourself:

When it comes to protecting the countryside, many African countries have been ahead of their counterparts in Europe and North America. The use of plastic bags, for example, has been outlawed in Rwanda for almost two decades.

But while paper bags or sacks are widely available, many turn to old newspapers or even books to provide material to make bags or envelopes for vendors.

That’s more significant than westerners might imagine, because in emerging markets where most people shop daily and buy just enough for one use, small packaging is essential.

Consequently unsold newspapers from the wider world are imported to countries like Rwanda, or here where I’m writing this in The Gambia, on the other side of the continent, and used by market vendors, street-sellers and small shops, to wrap or provide envelopes or bags for goods.

Often books that have seen better days end up being torn apart for their pages, and improbable though it may seem to us in the rich west, these ripped apart books can help feed a family.

Back in the rich west “charity shops” or “thrift shops” often have old books donated that have no commercial value back home, even in the secondhand market (just how many used copies of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code can any second-hand bookstore need?), and these end up being sold off by the tonne to exporters who send them off to “Third World” countries where occasionally book resellers will pick them up for resale to booklovers, but mostly the books will be valued not for reading (the imported books may not even be in that country’s language) but as raw material for vendors.

It is with that background that we come to today’s Start the Day Global story, from the east African country of Rwanda, where it seems some people found the demand for raw paper for packaging lucrative enough to be worth risking a jail term for.

Two youths were arrested after being caught red-handed by National Police in Bugesera in Eastern Rwanda, stealing 31 books from a primary school.

Chief Inspector of Police Hamdun Twizeyimana explained:

This morning, the school neighbors alerted us after seeing the suspects breaking the windows of the school. We found them redhanded; they were packing the books from one classroom.

They confessed that they wanted to use the books’ papers to make envelopes that they would sell to retailers in their hometown who use them to cater for clients.

Books are provided to schools free of charge by the Rwanda Education Board (sadly not the case here in The Gambia where pupils have to buy the books they need) but the loss to the school is incalculable.

But thankfully examples of theft of books from schools are few and far between.

Via Kigali Today. (OP in Kinyarwanda.)

Simon & Schuster Q1 revenue up 4%, driven by 16% growth in ebook and audiobook sales

And how Big Pub deliberately depressed ebook sales, redux

From TNPS  (see OP for further links to quotes):

As part of ViacomCBS the Simon & Schuster management, like HarperCollins, understands the value of digital.

Said ViacomCBS in its Q1 report:

Domestic streaming and digital video revenue – which includes streaming subscription and digital video advertising revenue – grew to $471 million, up 51% year-over-year.

Content licensing revenue grew 9%, fueled by growth in original studio production for third parties. Paramount Television Studios, CBS Television Studios and Cable Networks’ studios all benefited from strong content deliveries during the quarter.

While it’s fair to say ViacomCBS has never given Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy full reign to explore the potential of digital publishing, and of course Reidy has to balance existing print interests, the Q1 results at a time when many publishers are negatively reporting the early-stage impact of the Covid-19 crisis, are testament to the value Reidy placed on digital options in the previous decade, that have acted as a safety net as the new decade unfurls.

Simon & Schuster sales rose to $170 million, from $164 million, in the period, while earnings were flat at $19 million.

Perhaps most significant in the detail, as explored by Jim Milliot over at Publishers Weekly, is that Reidy reports that the early dip in audiobook sales as commuters stayed at home soon grew again.

Significant because the dip had been seized upon by the digital nay-sayers as evidence digital was no panacea in the era of the coronavirus.

This narrative gained steam when a Tor editor posted on Facebook in early April that,

people mostly, almost 100%, listen to audio books while they commute to work. Sales of audio books collapsed about three weeks ago. Fortunately, there isn’t a physical supply chain there, so theoretically that business can restart immediately upon resumption of commuting.

Curiously Simon & Schuster had no need to wait for commuter resumption to see audiobook sales pick-up. In fact it may well be these same commuters found they had more time to listen to books at home.

The same Tor editor explained that ebooks were an insignificant part of the book revenue streams.

First, you need to know that the vast majority of our business remains in hardcover and paperback books. Hard copies, physical objects. The second strongest sector has been audio books. Ebooks are a distant third.

This in the context of a sweeping assertion that,

publishing is in so much trouble right now.

The argument was not without merit.

Selling books is a very long and complicated supply chain. Ignore editorial – writers and editors can work at a distance and electronically. It really starts with the paper.

Storing paper for the big presses takes an enormous amount of warehouse space, which costs money. Printers don’t store a lot — they rely on a “just in time” supply chain so that when a book is scheduled to go to press, the paper is delivered to the printer. Most of that paper is manufactured in China. Guess what isn’t coming from China? Anything, for the last three months. Some of it comes from Canada. Guess what the Trump administration put a big tariff on at the beginning of the year?

So, we don’t have adequate paper supplies. Then consider, big printing plants are not “essential businesses”. There are only a couple printers in the US that can handle the book manufacturing business. One of them shut down last week. Covid-19. We started rescheduling books like mad to deal with that.
But supposing we had paper, and a printer and bindery, the books have to be shipped to the warehouse. Again, non-essential movement. The freight drivers moving books? Staying home, as they should. Not all of them. I hope they remain healthy, because dying to get the latest bestseller to the warehouse doesn’t seem quite right to me.

Now then, our warehouse. We have a gigantic facility in Virginia. Lots of people are working there, bless them, but it’s putting them at risk. There they are, filling orders, packing boxes, running invoices. Giving those boxes to the freight drivers who take the books to the bookstores and distributors. Again, truck drivers risking their lives to bring books to the bookstores.

But think again. The bookstores are closed. The distributors are closed . No place open to deliver the books to. Some bookstores are doing mail order business, bless them, but they aren’t ordering very many books from our warehouse. Amazon isn’t ordering very many, either — because they have (correctly) stopped shipping books and are using their reduced staff to ship medical supplies and food.

So the books that distributors and sellers ordered months ago are not being printed or shipped or sold. And because of that, they aren’t making any money. And because of THAT, they are not ordering any books for months from now. Plus they aren’t paying for the books they got from us last month and the month before. Cash flow has ground to a halt.

The problem with all this being that this is just one company’s experience.

Sure, other publishers have similar issues with their print sales right now, but many publishers have spent the past decade or more developing print whilst also embracing, not dismissing, the advantage digital confers.

Ebooks are a distant third in sales?

Not to question that statement, for this particular publisher.

But might it just be possible that this is due more to publisher policy than to consumer demand?

Does this editor seriously believe that consumers who at one stage back at the start of the 2010s were creating triple-figure ebook growth – far higher than anything we’ve seen more recently from audiobooks – suddenly decided they didn’t like ebooks after all and reverted to print?

Or might it be that by deliberately raising prices to protect print and thumb noses at Amazon’s attempt to control ebook pricing, publishers artificially dampened ebook demand because it suited them to do so.

We only have to look at how well digital-first publishers were doing, before and during the lockdown, to see how that policy has backfired spectacularly.

Take the digital-first publisher and distributor OpenRoad Integrated Media (OR/M).

In a press release in February OR/M CEO Paul Slavin said:

We had another terrific year! We have helped more book-hungry consumers discover more wonderful books than ever before. Our websites and newsletters are thriving with a mix of original content and books, our unique technology is making the user experience seamless and helping our marketing team scale our efforts into the stratosphere. Our data and analytics teams are without peer, working to help us uncover important trends and needs of our consumers. Everything is up, from advertising sales, to content sales, to library sales. Our Ignition partners are seeing well over 100% increases in their revenue. Overall our revenue increased just shy of 24% year over year, EBITDA grew 130%. We are profitable and thriving.

This pre-pandemic, so it will be interesting to see how OR/M has fared since lockdown began.

Staying with pre-pandemic reports, there’s Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited, the exclusive ebook arm of KDP, which caters for self-publishers and micro-presses, that alone paid out over a quarter billion dollars in royalties in 2019.

Amazon’s ebook subscription service Kindle Unlimited paid out over a quarter billion dollars in royalties to KDP authors for second year running

That’s quite apart from regular ebook sales on Amazon for this sector, and quite apart from the sales of APub.

If some publishers chose to deliberately slow down their ebook sales last decade, for whatever sound reason, still it is disingenuous to suggest that the format is at fault.

At which point let’s wheel this discussion back to Simon & Schuster, a company that did take digital seriously, not just with regular ebook and audiobooks but also in its Pimsleur division, which offers audio teaching aids for language-leaning, including a subscription option.

CEO Carolyn Reidy, reports Publishers Weekly, said Pimsleur saw a “big jump”, while ebook sales were up 13% in Q1 and running at 50% higher than YOY in early April as lockdown got serious.

From PW:

Print sales began to soften at the end of March and took a major hit in April, Reidy said, as most bookstores across the country had closed by that point. Some print sales have shifted to outlets like Walmart, however, and online sales have also risen.

As Stephen Page, CEO of Faber told The Bookseller,

Publishers who have broad publishing programmes and sell across a range of retailers, including digital, are faring better than those reliant on high street visibility or sales.

NOTE: Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy has since passed away. She was a legend in the western publishing arena and will be sorely missed.

Sierra Leone digital platform Poda-Poda calls for submissions

Elevating the art of the short story

Poda-Poda stories is a short-story digital platform for Sierra Leone authors to reach a global audience.

The must-read African literature news website Brittle Paper reports that Poda-Poda, founded by Leonean author Ngozi Nicole to showcase stories, poems, essays & critical thought pieces, short films and featured photography, is looking for written submissions as follows:

• Short fiction (1000 words maximum)
• Non-fiction (800 words maximum)
• Book reviews (600 words maximum)

Brittle Paper advises that,

Writers are to ensure that their work has been thoroughly proof-read for errors and clarity. Plagiarised work, as well as writing that contains elements of harmful stereotypes, will not be accepted.

The Poda-Poda website’s About page says,

Poda-Poda started as an idea to have a central digital space, where Sierra Leonean stories will be curated. As a digital publisher, Poda-Poda gathers rich stories from Sierra Leone and the Sierra Leonean disapora.

Poda-Poda?

For those who’ve never had the pleasure, poda-poda is the term given to the public transport mini-buses that enable Leoneans to get about, and a must-do experience for the visitor.

For those less familiar with this delightful country, a post in the essays section of the Poda-Poda website makes for sobering reading, and provides a reminder that barely twenty years ago the country was at war with itself, and the scene of unimaginable atrocities.

Today Sierra Leoneans fight a different battle, against Covid-19, where the plague arrived late but is taking its toll.

Amid which it’s good to see the writing community still focussed on life’s pleasures.

YouScribe launched in Burkina Faso

You can't put the digital subscription genie back in the bottle

For those who learned their geography in the last century, Burkina Faso used to be called Upper Volta. A land-locked country on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert, population 20 million (twice the size of Sweden), and probably the last place you might expect to find an ebook and audiobook subscription service. But then, global publishing is full of surprises.

From TNPS:

With over half a billion Africans online it was always just a matter of time before digital subscription took off in Africa, and France-based YouScribe has led the way in spectacular fashion.

Last year YouScribe launched its digital books subscription service in Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Tunisia, Madagascar and Cameroon, to the mild bemusement of the few (western) industry commentators that even noticed.

Digital subscription in Africa?

It was only two years ago (January 2018 in fact) that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was famously asked “Do they have bookshops in Nigeria?”

In fact Nigeria is also one of a handful of African nations that has embraced digital books, alongside, of course, having regular bookstores.

Previous YouScribe launches have focussed on the more digitally advanced francophone nations of Africa, and we can welcome the Burkina Faso launch as confirmation of YouScribe’s inclusive vision for the continent.

Partnering with the telco Orange, YouScribe becomes a telco value-added service (VAS) that benefits from the reach (9 million users in Burkina) and carrier billing options (pay with your mobile phone credit) to deliver digital content in the most effective way across a continent where traditional book retail has always been challenging.

It’s a reminder, as Storytel has shown us elsewhere, with launches in tiny countries like Iceland and cash-strapped nations like India, that no country is off-limits to digital subscription.

And a reminder too that you can’t put the digital subscription genie back in the bottle.

Burkina is, as this newsletter goes live, under lockdown, being one of the hardest hit of the sub-Saharan countries in Africa, although as yet the numbers compare very favourably with the horrific scenes being played out in western Europe and North America.

For publishers with a digital-first focus it seems there is a shimmering silver lining to this very dark cloud that hangs over the world right now.

Much more on YouScribe in the next edition of Publish Africa.

Zimbabwe poet appointed UNESCO-Rila affiliate

The "Black Poet" gets his second UNESCO appointment

The Unesco-Rila affiliate artist project has appointed Zimbabwean poet and author Mbizo Chirasha as an affiliate artist to work towards refugee integration through languages and creative expression.

Bella Hoogeveen, for the University of Glasgow’s School of Education and UNESCO Chair of Refugees Integration with Languages and Arts confirmed the appointment as this month began, reports Zimbabwe’s NewsDay. In doing so Chirasha joins fellow Zimbabwean Chirikure Chirikure, who was appointed in 2018.

From NewsDay:

Chirasha, who is a Unesco-International Poetry certificate holder, is on record saying his “politically incorrect” artworks have attracted political persecution, adding that there was need for a better world free from hatred, violence and killings.

“It is not easy. We can use our gifts and talents for the best than to destroy lives,” he said.

Chirasha has worked with several non-governmental organisations and other institutions using creative arts as models of community education, information dissemination and dialogue.

In a recent interview with NewsDay Life & Style, Chirasha said he was not a rebel, but an innocent creative writer seeking a progressive Africa and his desire was to live freely in his home country.

“The problem in Africa is we lose time chasing the wind and blowing it instead of chasing dreams and great ideas. Where are we getting to? We cannot live so anciently that creative dissenting voices are victimised for apparently no reason. We need a civilised Africa where we enjoy varying opinions and views,” he said.

Read more over at NewsDay.

"A life saving growth of 300% in our D2C e-commerce sales during lockdown” – Verso

UK publisher's D2C strategy pays off during lockdown

While many publishers have this past decade continued to rely heavily on bricks & mortar bookstores as a buttress against Amazon’s dominance of the online print and ebook market, UK publisher Verso has long since put its efforts into building a D2C (direct to customer) relationship with its audience.

And that has paid off handsomely, not just with a 25% increase on global sales year on year, but a massive 300% increase in its e-commerce sales in 2020’s first quarter while other publishers were hit by lockdown closing bricks & mortar stores, UK distributors like Bertrams and Gardners variously operational or closed, and Amazon prioritising non-book goods distribution.

Verso MD Rowan Wilson, in conversation with the UK trade journal The Bookseller, explained:

Verso has spent years developing its D2C e-commerce business to its enthusiastic and supportive readers, so that last year it was already responsible for one third of our sales—it’s been key for our long backlist as well as our frontlist. As soon as the situation with the lockdown and the book trade developed, our marketing and publicity teams devoted all their energies to our D2C sales and we have seen a life saving growth of 300% in our e-commerce sales, and a consequent 25% growth on our sales from last year.

There's much Africa's publishers can build on here, both for domestic and international sales.

And a reminder that for D2C sales the regional issues of delivery need not be a problem as D2C sales of digital books mean any African publisher can reach any consumer anywhere in the world and instantly receive payments and deliver the goods from their own website or using a third party D2C-lite option that will give the publisher 85% of the list price.

This post first appeared in TNPS;

Bakwa Literary Festival, Cameroon

The French- and English-language festival went ahead despite the pandemic

This from the James Murua blog:

The Bakwa Literary Festival celebrated the best in Cameroonian writing from May 15-19, 2020.

Bakwa is a Cameroonian publisher of literary fiction, creative nonfiction, and translation that has published some of the most exciting established and emerging writers in Cameroon and across the continent. Bakwa’s newest initiative, the Bakwa Literary Festival, celebrated books and authors from Cameroon online via the Bakwa Books Instagram in May. Guests included Hemley Boum, Max Lobe, Dibussi Tande, Florian Ngimbis, Mutt-Lon, Babila Mutia, Clementine Ewokolo Burnley, Ejob Nathanael Ejob, Agogho Franklin and Djhamidi Bond.

For four days, the festival brought people together and provided a much-needed live forum where writers and critics engaged with bibliophiles. Conversations ranged from the role of the writer in times of conflict to discussions on recent and forthcoming books as well as book recommendations, literary translation among other things. For many watching from outside of Cameroon, it was a rare opportunity to experience the country’s literary community.

Refer to the James Murua blog for Instagram video of the event.

Sweden’s Nextory sees 94% revenue and 110% subscriber growth in Q1 

Nextory keeps its momentum as the pandemic hits

Storytel’s thriving while print-focussed industry stakeholders struggle is not a lone story in the pandemic era. Sweden’s Nextory also reported impressive figures.

But as per caveat earlier in this newsletter, do remember these are percentages with no baseline numbers, and without a base line the claims of 94% and 110% growth don’t tell us much other than as Nextory itself asserts, the company is the fastest growing subscription service in the Nordics.

That’s an enviable claim to fame, of course, but it leaves us none the wiser as to how well Nextory is actually doing.

Here’s the thing. If Nextory had 100 subscribers in Q1 2019 and 210 in Q1 2020 that would be 110% growth.

If Nextory has 1,000,000 subscribers in Q1 2019 it would be 2,200,000 subscribers in 2020 with the same 110% rise.

Safe to say Nextory has a lot more than the first example and a lot less than the second but beyond that the percentages, without context, tell us little.

Likewise for revenue. Did Nextory go from $100 to $210 dollars or from $1 million to $2.2 million or any of myriad other possible combinations somewhere between?

So while we can and should be excited by Nextory’s continuing growth, and kudos to Shadi Bitar, and while there’s no reason to doubt Nextory’s claim to be the second largest subscription service in Sweden after Storytel (Bookbeat has not disputed this), the latest press release, like so many before, doesn’t really tell us much other than that digital is riding the storm better than other formats.

More detail over at TNPS.

The James Murua Literature Blog

Exploring African literature

The James Murua literature blog is essential reading for anyone wanting to keep up on the literature side of the African publishing industry. Check out the Cameroon Bakwa Festival referenced earlier in this newsletter as an example.

Below, find links to recent posts by James Murua that will be of interest to all in the African publishing industry.

José Eduardo Agualusa at Afrolit Sans Frontières Season 3.

José Eduardo Agualusa wrapped up Lusophone day at Afrolit Sans Frontières Season 3 from Lisbon, Portugal on May 30, 2020. He was hosted by Kalaf Epalanga.

Afrolit Sans Frontières, a virtual literary festival for writers of African origin, started as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic international lockdown. It has had two iterations with Season 1 curated by festival founder Zukiswa Wanner in March and Season 2 the founder co-curated with Maaza Mengiste in April. Season 3, with curation by Mohale Mashigo and Zukiswa Wanner, features 16 writers from 13 countries streaming from 15 cities in English, French, and Portuguese. All sessions run on the official Afrolit Sans Frontières Instagram page twice daily from May 25 to June 1.

Read more here.
 

Mills & Boon launches unlimited subscription service

Africa's publishers need to be aware of the new world emerging

The last featured item for this edition of Publish Africa is a cautionary tale warning that “Big Pub”, as we affectionately call mainstream western publishing that relies on deep pockets, big names and a snail’s pace approach to change, is going to emerge from this pandemic stronger than it started.

Digital change was already accelerating before the coronavirus pandemic turned the publishing world on its head, and the crisis has done nothing to dampen that momentum.

Rather, digital opportunity abounds even more than berfore!

From TNPS:

Yippee is a new video streaming service for families with 2 to 10 year old children, rolled out to meet the needs of lockdown parents. The subscription model offers over 1,000 hours of curated content,

to appeal to kids who are interested in crafts, cars, animals, adventure and more (and includes) the first-ever car show for kids called Backseat Drivers.

Meanwhile Alamo Drafthouse Cinema has teamed with ScreenPlus and Vista Cinema to launch a new VOD platform as cinemas remain mostly closed across the USA.

While publishers are finding digital an invaluable safety net, few have made any bold moves to step up their digital game.

But among those that have is HarperCollins-owned Mills & Boon. Mills & Boon is no stranger to subscription – in fact many would argue subscription has been at the heart of its success, with both print and digital subscription packages long since in place.

Mills & Boon has risen to the challenge of the pandemic by taking the logical next step – an unlimited subscription service that leverages its backlist.

The move has received remarkably subdued coverage from the industry, historically dismissive of romance books and of subscription initiatives, but the logic behind the decision by HarperCollins to go down this road, albeit limited to the UK and Ireland, is worth rehearsing.

Already with a monthly UK readership of 1.3 million, says HarperCollins CEO Charlie Redmayne, the new unlimited subscription service is,

a brilliant opportunity for us to help our authors reach even more readers and to extend backlist e-book sales; given the current increased demand for positive escapist entertainment, now is the perfect time to launch this new service.

Okay, let’s remove the pandemic timing and look at what this really means, and its application for Africa's publishers:

Reach(ing) even more readers and extend(ing) backlist e-book sales.

This is where the unlimited subscription model really comes into its own, leveraging the digital backlist that if available through regular ebook retail may go undiscovered and that, because of the very real limitations of print distribution and retail, can never be matched in the paper & ink sector.

It’s the same logic that drives film studios to release their catalogues to VOD services, because they understand that the very act of maximising content availability attracts new eyeballs and drives new revenue streams.

Not every publisher will be in a position to emulate the HarperCollins Mills & Boon experiment, but of course there are existing subscription services that can be used, from Storytel to Scribd to 24Symbols to Bookbeat to Kindle Unlimited.

And while the latter, being Amazon-owned, may be a step too far for publishers that see Amazon as a necessary evil, there can be few arguments that will stand up to serious scrutiny when it comes to not participating at least with backlist catalogues in the other unlimited subscription services.

Yet ironically it is this very reluctance by – nay resistance from – publishers to participate in services like Scribd that keep Scribd from fulfilling its potential and becoming a major force in North American digital subscription.

Unlike Storytel, Bookbeat, etc, Scribd is readily available in North America and the UK, for example, but without the full participation of the big publishers its catalogue cannot attract the subscriber levels needed to take it to the next level.

In the pre-pandemic era the popular position of the big western publishers has been to dismiss subscription as something consumers are not that interested in, understandably wanting to protect their print interests.

But in the lockdown era digital has shown its true value.

The big question is, will publishers in the post-pandemic era include unlimited subscription in their “new normal” as that evolves?

For those publishers (and authors) still wedded to the pre-pandemic mindset that belongs, if not quite in the last century then at least in the last decade, it might be worth reminding ourselves of another VOD success story: Disney+.

Disney+, the unlimited subscription service from, you guessed it, Disney, is barely six months old, but in just five months hit 50 million paid subscribers worldwide, including picking up 8 million subscribers in India.

Disney+ launched in the US in November, expending into western Europe in March and in India in April.

Kevin Mayer, chairman of Walt Disney direct-to-consumer & international, said at the time,

We’re truly humbled that Disney+ is resonating with millions around the globe, and believe this bodes well for our continued expansion throughout Western Europe and into Japan and all of Latin America later this year.

The 50 million Disney subscribers come alongside and in addition to Hulu’s 30 million subscribers, Netflix’s 167 million subscribers and too many other millions of subscribers to too many other myriad VOD subscription services out there to count, that show consumers will embrace digital subscription wholeheartedly given a quality catalogue to buy into.

That’s something most publishers have consistently declined to consider, and it’s likely the near future new normal will not see that mindset change.

But publishers clinging to the past have, during the pandemic, been forced to take a step back and look again at how much the “This is how we’ve always done things” mantra has cost them in missed opportunities to ride out the current crisis.

I leave you with this summary of thoughts from Faber CEO Stephen Page, in the UK industry journal The Bookseller, where he explained Faber’s print sales were down 33% during the lockdown period but digital sales were rising.

Page said the company had “moved quickly” to close its offices a week before lockdown and had adapted “rather amazingly quickly to home working”. He admitted that it was “a challenge to get the company in the right shape and rhythm” for lockdown, but added: “As with many other businesses we’ve been surprised by how quickly we adapted”.

Africa's authors and publishers would do well to see the new normal emerging as an exciting opportunity to accelerate digital engagement both at home and aborad.

StreetLib CEO Giacomo D’Angelo participates in Abu Dhabi panel discussion

On the future of ebooks in the Covid-19 era

The Publish Africa newsletter is not intended as a vehicle for promoting its own publisher, StreetLib, but occasionally StreetLib news has a bearing on African publishing, so warrants an end-item inclusion.

From the StreetLib press release:

While Italy-based, StreetLib’s reputation as one of the foremost global players in the digital books arena was enhanced this week when the company’s CEO, Giacomo D’Angelo, joined a panel of publishing industry experts in an online discussion about the impact of digital publishing amid the coronavirus crisis.

Organised by the United Arab Emirates’ Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism (DCT Abu Dhabi) as part of a series of online seminars for the Arab and global publishing industry, the discussion was moderated by Salah Chebaro, General Director of Thaqafa and Founder and CEO of Neelwafurat, one of the largest online sales platforms for Arabic books.

Online alongside the StreetLib CEO were Seham Abdulla Al Hosani (e-Publishing Manager at DCT Abu Dhabi); Julia Balogh, Head of Foreign Rights at Austrian publishing house Ueberreuter Verlag GmbH: Steven Rosato (Manager, OverDrive Professional; and Octavio Kulesz (Argentinian publisher and UNESCO expert in digital creativity and artificial intelligence).

See the discussion on YouTube here.:

Explaining the reason for the discussion, DCT Abu Dhabi Publishing Director Saeed Hamdan Al Tunaiji said:

“Ebooks have witnessed tremendous growth even before the spread of Coronavirus,especially among young people, because it is the easiest way to reach the public around the world. The Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi is especially focused on digitisation and artificial intelligence because of the great role they play in the process of exploring the future of knowledge. They also enable us to develop the frameworks for creativity and innovation, by focusing on traditional print publishing and also e-publishing, including audio books.”

Seham Abdulla Al Hosani looked at the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.Noting that globally ebooks sales were up over ten percent, but it quickly became clear that in some parts of the world the numbers were much higher.

For OverDrive Steven Rosato noted that downloads had increased 30% in the first week of US lockdown, with children’s and YA titles seeing increases of 65%-75%, while publisher interest in OverDrive’s K12 (primary-school to college) digital library facility rose from an average 50-100 enquiries a week to 1,500.

For StreetLib, Giacomo D’Angelo shared that the company has seen a 30% increase in publisher interest in getting their catalogue digitised, while revenue for partners was up more than 50%, and across the StreetLib catalogue of 400,000 or more ebooks, print books (POD), comics, audiobook and podcasts downloads were up 90%.

“Not only are publishers rushing to digitise their catalogue more and more, but they are also starting to evolve their internal workflow in order to become leaner and faster, which will benefit not only their bottom line but also benefit consumers, ” he said.

Talking about the Arab markets, Steven Rosato said OverDrive, which supplies Sharjah and Abu Dhabi digital libraries, was seeing increased demand.

On the negative side, Julia Balogh raised the issue of publisher pricing for ebooks acting as a deterrent to sales, with many publishers charging the same, or close to, for an ebook as for a print book.

For StreetLib, Giacomo D’Angelo made the point that many of the international retailers like Amazon, Kobo, Apple and Google Play, where they offer ebooks internationally, do so at US prices (as set by the publisher), which artificially depresses demand and discourages interest in ebooks in the emerging markets.

While all participants shared the perspective that the digital boom during the pandemic will not fade away as the crisis recedes, some expressed concern that a handful of big players so dominate the market that development might be limited by their actions or lack thereof.

Giacomo D’Angelo for instance made the point that Amazon had not opened a new Kindle store in more than five years, leaving much of the world without access to the Kindle store.

But he stressed that numerous smaller players were rising to fill the void and that digital reading – not just regular ebooks but “online reading” as we are seeing in China and across Asia – showed the enormous demand for digital content that many western publishers were missing out on.

The issue of piracy could not be ignored in a discussion like this, but the suggestion that ebooks were particularly prone to piracy was quickly dismissed, with OverDrive’s Steven Rosato making the point that most piracy in the emerging markets involved print books having their spines ripped off, pages scanned, and PDFs being sold online. Other respondents agreed that quality ebooks, sensibly priced, would help solve the piracy problem, not make it worse.

StreetLib CEO Giacomo D’Angelo ended the discussion on a note of high optimism, saying that the pandemic crisis had brought about a renewed focus on the advantages digital offers publishers and the opportunities digital brings to the table, saying there has never been a better time to be a digital publisher than right now.

Further Reading

The Links Bulletin

Along side the many global publishing stories that pass my desk every day are many more that have relevance to the industry but are not directly related to book publishing. Later this year TNPS will be launching The Links Bulletin - a weekly round-up of key links from within and beyond the world of international book publishing that industry stakeholders in Africa might want to check out.

Here's a few to end this edition of Publish Africa.

“Digital platforms are what are getting a lot of attention”: Magazines are pivoting, to engage a dramatically larger audience.

French billionaires raise stakes in defence of publisher Lagardere.

The future of libraries already looked increasingly digital, then came the coronavirus.

Enjoy reading National Geographic Magazine from India now on Magzter.

How the lockdown (and then the cyclone) caught Bengali language publishing on the wrong foot.

Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi hosts virtual roundtable discussion on the future of e-books.

Digital Rights Trades: Brazilian Publishers Open an App With Matchmaking.

Tencent Is Now The Biggest Shareholder Of Marvelous.

Vault Comics Add Returnability And Discounts for Comic Stores.

“We Were Created for a Moment Like This.” How Harvard Business Review Is Forging Ahead During a Pandemic.

Denver’s Publishing Institute Will Go Online This Summer.

Pandemic-Caused Austerity Drives Widespread Furloughs, Layoffs of Library Workers.

Penguin and Ladybird Announce New Partnership.

Thanks for reading 

The next edition of Publish Africa will be along soon

That's it for this edition of Publish Africa. A bit longer than usual to make up for the lost time during the early stages of the pandemic.

As this newsletter starts hitting inboxes its easy to get the impression the pandemic is all but over, with lockdown being eased in many countries, but the reality is we're nowhere near the end of this, with over 7 million coronavirus cases reported globally, and lockdown easing bringing new challenges.

For the rest of this year and likely much of next year we'll still be figuring out what the new normal is and how we need to adapt. Nowhere is that clearer than watching the Frankfurt Book Fair- the almighty Buchmesse - as it struggles to find its new role in the pandemic era.

I'll leave you with a link to a TNPS report on how the Big 5 are already pulling out of the Buchmesse - not due to take place until October.

We are experiencing a paradigm shift in global publishing like nothing conceivable as this year began five short months ago.

Be under no illusion there are challenging times ahead for all of us, whether mainstream or indie, corporate, micro or individual author, whatever continent we may be on.

The best - and the worst - are yet to come.

I've been Mark Williams, writing from The Gambia, West Africa, saying on behalf of everyone at StreetLib, our publisher, thanks for reading, and wherever you are, stay safe, and be sure to check out the next edition of Publish Africa when it comes along.