|
|
Kenya: Authors Have Little to Write Home About
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
The Nation (Nairobi)
25 April 2008
Posted to the web 25 April 2008
Benjamin Muindi
Nairobi
As the world marked Books and Copyright Day, Kenyan writers and publishers may have had little to write home about.
A young reader busy in a library. Many local authors lament about the low returns from their efforts. Many local writers have to do extra jobs for sustenance, while publishers have to engage in ambitious plans to fight piracy and ensure that the copies sell.
Meet Kinyanjui Kombani, the author of The Last Villains of Molo, children's junior biography of Wangari Maathai and life saver series on Aids We Can be Friends, for instance
Besides being a creative writer, Mr Kombani is a financial consultant at a city bank. Over six years His first manuscript for The Last Villains of Molo were accepted for publication by Acacia Publishers in 2002 while he was still a student at Kenyatta University. However, it took over six years to release the book, he recalled, as the world marked the Books and Copyright day on Wednesday.
Being an impatient writer, I was taken aback by his resilience and asked why it had taken that long to get the book ready. Shook his head He shook his head and replied: "The publisher said it was not the right time to release the book because it highlighted a lot of ethnic and cultural tensions in the country."
The book was released early this year and depicts the ethnic roots embedded in our society. Such, is a frustrating reality for many creative writers the world over. "Creative books do not sell, unless they are declared secondary school set books, and many writers, who are in it for money, become a frustrated lot," Mr Kombani says.
"I write because I have a story to tell and not because of the money," he adds. Writers in Kenya get a 10 per cent commission after the distributor has shaved off 30 per cent of the cover price. "It is like a conspiracy between the publishers and the distributors," he says.
Because of lack of funds, many writers fall in the hands of unscrupulous publishers and sign up for contracts that have little in it for them. "In most cases, the writer does not know how many books have been sold at the end of the agreed period. This becomes a challenge since you are just presented with a cheque," says Kombani. "Many books don't go past the 1,000 mark and writers get a meagre percentage of the cover price."
Take for instance, The Last Villains of Molo, retailing at Sh350 and gets a 12.5 per cent commission. Considering 30 per cent for the distributor, Mr Kombani takes home only Sh29.
"Unless your book is used as a set book, then you cannot compare Kenyan writers to J.K. Rowlings, who clinches a deal of $6 million as initial amount before the book hits the streets," he says.
Even when a book becomes a set book, with hopes of selling more than 1,000,000 copies, the writers and the publishers still suffer in the hands of the pirates in Nairobi's River Road.
"But the Government has come to the rescue of the industry," he says.
Last year, a police squad was formed to deal with book piracy and crack down on illegal photocopying of original materials.
The officers now work with the Kenya Publishers Association and the Copyrights Board of Kenya to ensure that authors and publishers earn revenue for their work. KPA has said that writers and publishers lose Sh6 billion annually through book piracy and illegal sale of other copyright materials with universities ranking high among those who photocopy books illegally.
During his message to Kenyans on World Books and Copyright Day, Mr Barrack Muluka, the director of Mvule Publishers, said that Kenyans should invest in books. "The shortest route to the mind of others is through reading books," Mr Muluka said. "We should spend our time and money on good books and pass them on to our children and neighbours."
The police squad last month arrested three people in a crackdown on printers involved in a multi-million-shilling book pirating racket.
Found selling
The printers were pirating two set books currently being used in secondary schools by literature students. They were found selling them in bookshops in Nairobi's River Road area. The books were The River Between by Ngugi wa Thiong'o and An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen. Mr Kombani notes that some pirated books even look better than the original.
|
"Technology has made the situation even worse," he says.
It was after a search by officers from the Copyright Society of Kenya, with the assistance of the police, that the books were found in the two bookshops. They were identified as not the original copies from East African Educational Publishers Limited, who are the only authorised publishers of the books.
The sales and marketing manager, Mr Mutua Nzioki, said the company had lost over 40 per cent of the market share to pirates.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 The Nation. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
