How 21st Century Nigerian authors sell or distribute their books

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It's the 21st century and renown authors like Cyprian Ekwensi or Chinua Achebe may not have had the same opportunity that young Nigerian authors have nowadays as at the time they first published their books. Achebe was a bit luckier however as some of his recent books made more sales as a result of being listed on newer platforms that helped in distributing them to the world. I particularly liked his last book titled " There was a country".

In the good old days, most Nigerian authors could only distribute and sell their works through existing local publishing houses who were mostly limited to West Africa but in modern times, they can now distribute their works to a much wide audience using the internet.

I thank God that Nigeria has a lot of learned and educated writers and some of them go to the extent of sharing their knowledge through book writing which I have to say is not an easy thing. Writing a book in Nigeria or anywhere else in the world is hard work which requires creativity and I've noticed that it's the shorter story books that tend to tell Nigerian stories that become best sellers and timeless works.

You could imagine how hard it is to write an essay containing 200 to 500 words as a student in class but if you were then required to multiply that effort by 50 times to get a short book, it could take months or hard work and dedication. When a book's manuscript has been finally written, the next thing that would be required is for the author to sign up with a book publishing and distribution company or self publish it himself. Many authors who have little or no capital or don't want to get distracted with the business of book distribution tend to go for the former option and this allows them to focus their creativity on just writing books and getting paid a royalty payment for sales made for the publishers.

However, there are authors who might not be able to get a publishing deal with a big company or would rather not want to give up some of their rights and so they tend to go for the latter option of self publishing their books themselves. In the past, self publishing a book in Nigeria tended to be non profitable and unattractive but nowadays, it's gaining a wider patronage as it's becoming a quicker and more profitable way to get one's books to the world.

21st Century Nigerian authors can now sell or distribute their books to a much larger audience and in several ways. Books can now be distributed not just in hard cover or paper back but also in digital/electronic form. The digital form of book publishing seems to be growing faster as it works on most electronic devices such as laptops, tablets and computers and which also seems to be a greener alternative to traditional book publishing that kills trees.

When it comes to digital book publishing, more and more Nigerian books are published on foreign platforms such as Amazon's KDP and local platforms such as Okadabooks and the writer gets paid a royalty for it.

For books distributed in hard copies physically, they can also be published by the author directly or by the traditional publishing companies. Some of these publishing houses can be local or foreign but many Nigerian authors tend to self publish their physical books but it tends to leave them weak and defenseless to pirates even though it allows them keep all their sales revenue.

Some Nigerian authors who sell their physical books locally tend to distribute them by dropping them at physical stores or listing them for a commission at online platforms such as their own websites, shopping websites like Konga or Jumia and online book stores.

Distributing through the web and through established local or foreign publishers is the way most modern Nigerian authors tend to go after having written their book and they tend to prefer signing off a bit of their rights in order to get paid a royalty on sales by those big time distributors. Authors, however are no longer limited by those big time publishing deals as they can now do self publishing and still be successful at it. Self published books can be sold physically or electronically through social groups or networks that the author has been able to attract and the more social power they have, they more sales they'll be likely to make.

Posted by Felix Okoli on Wednesday March 11, 2015 at 9:55:55: