Business Daily (Nairobi)
Mwenda Wa Micheni
24 March 2008
In the last three months or so-after eruption of violence in some parts of the country -readers have thronged bookshops in search of some crucial books.
This is in search for answers to historical questions. But even as the demand rose, most of the titles in demand are still missing from the shelves.
The titles include: The Kenyatta Succession by journalist Philip Ochieng' and Joseph Karimi; Jomo Kenyatta's Suffering without Bitterness; Tom Mboya's speeches and essays in The Challenge of Nationhood and even the ever popular Not Yet Uhuru by Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.
Other important books that tell the story of this country, but are no longer in print are Roots of Freedom by Bildad Kaggia in 1975, the Myth of Mau Mau published by Transafrica, Wolff's Britain and Kenya 1870-1930 and even The Nandi Campaign against the British 1895-1905 written A.T. Matson.
Britain's Gulag by Caroline Elkins, which kicked up a storm when it was released, is also out of stock despite continued demand especially by researchers and academics.
Besides political/historical books, there are other popular titles that have also disappeared from the shelves.
Initially published under the African Leisure books as an answer to the romantic Mills & Boon series, Bless the Wicked by PG Okoth alias Malimoto who was the then Drum editor has also gone missing. Ciugu Mwagiru's The Day the Music Died and a romantic tale called Love and Learn by Mary Kise published under Afro-romance series of Transafrica have also disappeared from catalogues despite the interest they attracted.
"When a book is published, it acquires its life," explains John Nottingham, who is the publishing director at the Transafric.
"Some books have a short life, others have a long life. That is why some are out of print; they are not out of circulation."
Without specifying when they might be available on the bookshelves, the publisher says that many of the books are important and will soon find their way back into circulation.
Nottingham, who has been in the local publishing scene for over four decades, says that small publishers like Transafric, have many challenges and have to balance so many variables to remain afloat.
According to Kamau Kiarie of East African Educational Publishers, most of the books out of stock either make little business sense or sell very fast.
Kiarie is the publishing manager at EAEP, which specializes in schools textbooks that have a ready market and only publish general readership books as a by the way.
Though very popular in their heydays, books penned by David Maillu are also no longer on the shelves. Maillu says that he was forced out of publishing.
When Comb Books- an indigenous publishing firm he owned -released three notorious titles, they became instant hits; provoking unending controversies and debates in the literary circles.
Some of these titles were After 4:30, Not Fit for Human Consumption and My Dear Bottle.
With their alluring flair, the books' sales were also impressive. Within the first eight months of its publication, Not Fit for Human Consumption had sold over 5000 copies. A reprint of 20,000 copies followed and in six months it was out of stock again.
My Dear Bottle sold over 30,000 copies within a span of less that one year. Only four and half decades later, these titles are difficult to find in libraries and even bookshops.
Informed by popular belief that Kenyans love reading stories they can easily identify with, Comb Books was founded to publish popular Kenyan works.
With its ambitious plans, the family business borrowed capital from a parastatal, only to plunge into crippling financial and legal troubles.
"I had to close down and revert to the English publishers who had earlier forced me to form my own publishing company," says Mailu who refused to sell his rights to other publishers who were keen on publishing the popular titles.
Now Mailu has cleared the legal hurdle and plans to reissue the titles before the end of this year. "I believe in giving readers the right material. That way, they will buy and read."
"This industry is still very small in Africa," says Barrack Muluka of Mvule Publishers. "There is a lot of duplication of efforts that occasion unnecessary competitions instead of looking for mergers to benefit from economies of scale."
Saying that the industry has refused to explore means of reducing running costs through mergers, the former chairman of the Kenya Publishers Association says that the only way out for the fledgling publishers is to embrace each other.
When Mvule Publishers was launched, one of its dreams was to bring to life some important titles that had disappeared.
So far, the company has resurrected Miriam Were's The Boy In Between, the Eighth Wife and even The High School Gent. Hillary Ngweno's intriguing Man from Pretoria, which is a story of the disappearance of a South African scientist and the young reporter who tries to find out what happened, has also seen the light of day again.
Arguing that the industry needs to take a new direction, Muluka says that a new generation of publishers must take over from the traditional publishers who have stuck to their old ways so that they can publish the books they want to read, they way the want them.
Besides having popular titles that are not available, there is also the issue of publishers holding onto very good manuscripts for too long before releasing them.
There is also the issue of failing to pay royalties promptly.
Inspired by an event in the last century, The Last Villains of Molo-a contemporary Kenyan novel- narrates a familiar story of a dramatic ethnic clash fuelled by inequalities emanating from a history.
It's a novel that creatively interweaves two distant worlds of love and hate, managing to bring out the best out of an apparently bad situation.
Unfortunately, you may not read this book written by Kinyanjui Kombani soon because the publisher is still struggling to roll it from the press.
After years of waiting for the book to land onto the bookshelves, Kinyanjui's optimism has also dimmed. In January, the author cum banker wrote to the publisher, Jimmi Makotsi, explaining his intention to terminate their contract due to delay in the publishing The Last Villains of Molo.
Another author, Dr Ezekiel Alembi, has contacted a lawyer to take Acacia Publishers to court. The author alleges that the publisher has failed to live up to the publishing contract.
According to Alembi, who teaches Literature at Kenyatta University, Acacia Publishers has not paid his royalties since 2000. The publisher has also not sent any statements to him in the same period.
"My records show that I have not paid Dr Alembi his royalties since 2004," concedes Makotsi. "And he is not the only one I have not paid."
According to him, the business has been struggling to remain afloat.
"Because of the amount of business I generate versus constraints I face, it becomes so difficult to pay all the royalties due at once.
"I sell books. But what I get out of the sales is still not sufficient to sustain a vibrant and lucrative publishing business. I wish my authors would understand and be a bit patient"
Some of the titles by Alembi published by Acacia are Understanding Poetry, which is one of the most popular poetry books in secondary schools, Appreciating Drama and a children's book titled The Cry of a Goat.
In total, Acacia Publishers has a total of 15 titles. It is one of the few publishing houses that accept works by unpublished creative authors.
On the delay to publish Kinyanjui's title, Makotsi says that it has a lot to do with business strategy. "Creative works can easily die away if they are not birthed into the world in the right way."
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