Daily Independent (Lagos)
Yemi Adebisi
5 January 2009
interview
One of the most outstanding publishing houses in Nigeria today is Kraftbook Publishers, going by the number of literary awards their books have consistently won since 1992. The chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Kraftbooks, Steve Shaba, in this interview with our Literary Correspondent, Yemi Adebisi, explains how the company got to its enviable height, the challenges and plans for years ahead. Excerpts:
What are the secrets behind the making of Kraftbook Publishers going by your records in the literary awards?
Retrospectively, the journey into the making of Kraftbook started while I was in Heinemann. I worked there for six years. I joined Heinemann as an assistant editor in November 1, 1984. By May 1990, I had to leave because I wanted to actually develop, articulate and sharpen the skill and promote my own vision of literary publishing. While in Heinemann, I developed a number of literary series with the then chairman Sir Aigboje Higo, Heinemann Educational Books now HEBN publishers. I had a very strong urge, what I would like to call driving passion. Our relationship is good, of course we still relate with people in Heinemann. Simply put, the whole journey started from Heinemann. I gave birth to my dream and ideal literary publishing after my exit. When I left Heinemann, I had to work with UNICEF as a publishing consultant for about six months. So 1991 to 1992, I was preparing a blueprint. By late 1991, I had received a manuscript that I wanted to work on.
How did you come by the name Kraftbook?
The word 'craft' comes from the German word strength. It's a combination of creativity and strength. So Kraftgriot came as a literary imprint of Kraftbook Limited. The original idea was for me to actually do books on literature, language and the arts. But over the years, I have published textbooks on Economics, Psychology, Computer Science and some aspects of medicine. Really, I will say my interest in publishing is fired as a result of my interest in criticism. I studied drama but specialize in literary theory and criticism. While in school, the late Professor Joel Adedeji and Dapo Adelugba played major influence on my skill today. You can't be a successful publisher without being a literate. You must be well read. You must know the mechanics of the language itself. And having studied theatre, the people who applied the language itself, it helps. Adelugba made sure that we read a lot of books. Not now that people are not really reading. You find out that for just a single course under him, he could recommend about 10 books and you have to buy a minimum of eight. He would see that you had the books. It all looked like a lot of hard work then but that was the preparation apart from having a natural bent for looking at the written works critically with the few to bringing out errors. That was how I started. When I went for interview in 1984 in Heinemann it was so easy. I spotted errors from the written tests. I was among the last three shortlists. While in Heinemann, I published a couple of books that won awards like Niyi Osundare's The Eye of the Earth, the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. I also published Professor Femi Osofisan's writing, under the pseudonym Okimba Lanko and a couple of other books. The prizes have started coming in right from 1992 with Olu Oguibe's work, A Gathering Fear that won the All Africa Okigbo Prize for Literature. By 1993 to date, we have been winning prizes. We have published over 300 titles with two-third of them coming under the broad spectrum of literature comprising drama, prose, poetry, short stories and children literatures. In all of them we won awards though these awards' recognition goes to the authors. The honour also comes to us in a way because people recognize that we publish these books. What have really edged us on is the desire to actually make sure that we are the leading publisher of literary works in Nigeria maybe sometimes Africa. With the way we are going, there are times we bring out about four or five books in a month. We have done over 80 titles under poetry, 46 drama titles, 12 for children literature, 25 for fiction and for short stories, we have done about 10. In all, we have about 180 literary works cutting across the various genre of literature.
What would you ascribe as the secret behind your regular publications?
We have an eye for good books. We also publish books that don't win awards because we have a philosophy that if you write you should be published. You deserve to be heard. It's a sort of encouragement that you have written and when it is published, some day you might write a best seller. It doesn't have to be your first book that will win an award for you. Ahmed Yerima, as a dramatist, wrote several books until 2006 when Hard Ground won both the ANA NDDC/ J.P CLARK drama prize and the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Nigeria Prize for Literature. By 2008, I have been recognized personally. At the 50 years Things Fall Apart in Nigeria, the University of Ife honoured me with the presentation of a plaque on June 18 2008. Then on the September 16, 2008, I was also given a merit award, a student choice award, by the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Adekunle Ajasin University chapter because they read a lot of books published by Kraftbooks and actually wanted to see who is this man. On the day of the award, I asked them to put a big collection together. I would edit it and at the end of the day, come out with an anthology of poems by the students to encourage them and sharpen their own literary skill too.
What is your priority in book publishing?
Basically we believe more in the content of the work than the marketing. Though the marketing is very important, our emphasis has been to have quality editorial staff with some kind of in-house training. I can't do all the works alone definitely. We have graduates of English language, Mass Communication, and Theatre, working as in-house editors in Kraftbooks. We also give some of our works to external assessors to read for us and make input and we churn back this work to the authors for further works before we publish.
Did you ever nurse the ambition of becoming a publisher when you were in school?
No. I actually wanted to be a teacher or rather a lecturer. That informed why I returned to university immediately after my first degree for my masters degree. I used a post graduate scholarship. I would have continued with a Ph. D but backed out because I wanted to help in raising my younger ones to go to school. I found myself working with Aig-Imoukhuede of the National Council of Arts and Culture in 1984 as a performing arts officer who would read plays, look at them and direct them for schools. I wasn't sufficiently challenged with the kind of background I had in Ibadan. I had to take up Heinemann job which was intellectually challenging. My boss, Sir Aigboje Higo was a great company. We brainstormed over books, tore apart manuscripts, and looked at them all over again. It was really challenging.
The kind of zeal that people like you had is commendable. Don't you think same is going into extinction today?
I don't think so because we are all looking inwards. There are no jobs. There are a lot of people out there who are challenged and they want to look out what publishing is all about. When they go into it, they found out that it is not a joking matter at all, it's a serious business. You've got to work. It's not a place for non-professionals. If you are not sound, if you come into publishing you will fall out very easily. This is because for instance, when you publish 10 books, eight of them have errors from page 1 to the end and then a scholar's reviewers and critics tear you apart, you have to make a u-turn and get to do something else. I don't think it's going to die but my only regret is that a lot of people who don't really have interest in publishing are coming into the business to make ends meet not because they are really interested in growing Nigerian literature or making an impact or impacting the educational sector with books the way they ought to be published.
Let's talk about your challenges. Do you have any as a Nigerian publisher?
The challenges are legion but I'll just talk about few of them. One is the problem of finance. When I was in Heinemann we published 3,000 copies of Niyi Osundare's book, The Eye Of The Earth that won the Commonwealth prize, we published 3,000 copies. It took several years to exhaust the copies. This was a big Heinemann that has offices all over Nigeria. People are not ready to buy books that are not recommended. Two, when the books are recommended, because of the purchasing power of most Nigerians who ought to read, they will rather attend to their tummy first. You take care of your stomach before what you read. Some years ago, I taught postgraduate students of University of Ibadan, Language and Communication Department on publishing. Then I talked to some undergraduates. I found out that for some courses, they didn't even have a single textbook. Yet they were carrying expensive phones, wearing very good and designer dresses. I asked myself, were these students in the university or they just wanted to read and pass or to acquire knowledge that would help them in future? It's a pathetic story. People are not ready to buy books. When we bring out books, we have to really push them into the system by giving out free copies, promotional copies. So when the lecturers found it useful we ask them to recommend. We give them a trade discount so that they can sell. But along the line, we also have to involve those who are writing financially into the production of their books so that at the end of the day, when those books are sold, they get their money back. We don't compromise a work in terms of the content. What we are dishing to the market must be relevant. It mustn't be offensive. By and large, with the records of our awards over the years, we are publishing relatively good works. We can do better. We can do more than this. We also recognize the facts that some of the books we are publishing here ought to win awards outside. What have been happening is that we don't actually have a record of most of these external awards. By the time we move into 2009, we will try and find out the prizes and the time works are to be entered for them so that we will not limit what we are doing to African market.
Why do we have some Nigerian books not crossing over abroad?
Most writers are in a hurry. Managing their stories is another thing. How do you manage it? Do you sound convincing? You know you are competing with people with their indigenous language so you need to be careful and thorough. It's a big problem. Some people have broken the barrier. I salute their efforts. These are people like Ben Okri, Biyi Bandele and the rest of them. We print our books on 70, 80 grammes in Kraftbooks. We sew our books before they are bound. The books don't crumble. We are on top of the range in terms of quality here.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 Daily Independent. 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.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
