Category Archives: Distribution

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Caine Prize signs with Nigerian publisher Lantern Books

There’s great news for all of you who will be at the Ake Festival in a few days. The good folks at the Caine Prize have signed a deal with Nigerian publishing company, Lantern Books, to publish the 2014 edition of the Caine Prize anthology, The Gonjon Pin and Other Stories. Lantern Books have committed to printing 5,000 copies of the anthology which will be available at Ake Book Festival on 18-22 November in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria.

Lantern Books, an imprint of Literamed Publications, joins ten other publishers already selling Caine Prize anthologies in Europe and Africa. The Caine Prize anthology of short stories, which includes the five stories shortlisted each year, alongside stories written at the workshops, is published annually by New Internationalist in the UK and publishers in eight different African countries. They are amaBooks (Zimbabwe), Bookworld Publishers (Zambia), Cassava Republic (Nigeria), FEMRITE (Uganda), Jacana Media (South Africa), Kwani? (Kenya), Langaa Research and Publishing CIG (Cameroon) and Sub-Saharan Publishers (Ghana).

Now usually Lantern is a children’s publisher but this is an opportunity only the foolhardy would pass up if it came along. The company’s MD Tunde Lawal Solarin on the announcement on the deal, clearly delighted stated; “Lantern Books is excited that we have been given the opportunity to enter into collaboration with New Internationalist to bring you the Caine Prize collection.”

Commenting on the new partnership, Caine Prize Director Lizzy Attree says, “We’re delighted to be working with Lantern Books in Nigeria this year to publish The Gonjon Pin, ensuring that all 17 short stories are widely available to Nigerian readers, from a local publisher, and at an affordable price.”

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What is happening with Bookpoint in Nairobi?

Bookpoint is one of the most iconic bookshops in Kenya having being with us for decades. The book shop, situated on Moi Avenue, has been a first point of call for many book lovers in the capital city Nairobi.

The only weird thing about the bookshop was that the shop would it promptly at 1pm and open at 2pm which would be frustrating for those who want to take advantage of their lunch hour to shop.

For the last few days however, those who visit the shop will be surprised to learn that the bookshop doesn’t just close at 1pm but the whole day. A visit will see a locked door with a sign stating

“We will remian closed from 1/11/2014 till further notice. For emergency only, For emergency only call Dipak 0733448405 or Ashwin 0731377057.”

Rumours have swirling around the Interwebs with some speculating that the old man who ran the shop passed on and his sons are currently in a battle for the control of the shop. We shall keep you posted as and when news is immediately available.

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Kenya’s Maktaba Award (Library of the Year Award) 2014 in September

The 5th edition of the Maktaba Award (Library of the Year Award) in Kenya organised by the Goethe-Institut Kenya, the Jomo Kenyatta Foundation and the Kenya Library Association will be happening in September. In 2013 the overall winner was Catholic university.

The Award, modeled on the German Library of the Year Award, aims to recognize excellence in the provision of library and information services in Kenya. It hopes to inject more professionalism, creativity and innovation in the library scene in Kenya.

This award is very good for lovers of African literature as libraries are still the place that readers can get many of the books that they seek especially if they are up to date.

This year has witnessed 80 libraries enter the competition which is a record number. A panel of judges has analyzed the library profiles and is visiting all the libraries for assessment. The judges will then compile the results of the libraries assessed and a decision will then be made on who the winners in the different categories and the winner of the overall prize are.

The Awards Gala shall be held on Friday, 19th September 2014 at the Louis Leaky Auditorium of the Nairobi National Museum. Winning libraries will receive cash prizes, book donations, trophies and recognition certificates on that day.

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6 options for buying and selling by Kenyan and African books online

How to get your African fiction online.

They say that it has all gone digital. If you want to get the books you can also go online and buy the books in physical as well as virtual form as e-books. Buying books online is simple as long as you have a credit card that allows you to make purchases online. If your bank doesn’t allow this then you have several options like the Nakumatt Global Card or the Nation Hela card. These prepaid services allow you to make your purchases online.

Now that you want to make purchase where does one head? The biggest name in books online is Amazon.com which allows you to buy a large variety as long as you have a credit card which can make Internet purchases.

What about the ones who want to use companies with a a more local focus of books? For those who want to buy books in Nigeria there is a brilliant post you can find here. For the rest of us here are a few options to look for books for purchases. Some aren’t very good for buying books but they give an opportunity for authors to sell their books.

1. OLX

OLX has branded itself as the biggest marketplace for Kenyan products with a marketing blitz on all media. If you haven’t heard of OLX you have not been sampling any media content in Kenya in the last year truth be told. So when you visit the site you would expect to find books on there. The first search I made online was for books here;

http://www.olx.co.ke/nf/search/books

The first books I saw there were in actual fact portable computers; HP Pavilion Sleekbook, PowerBook G4 Apple laptop, HP Pro book there were a few others but very few books in the sense of the written word. There was one listing of 3 novels by Booker Prize winning novelist Margaret Atwood @ 150 which allowed me to realise that there was a Books –CDs-DVDs section in the site which I immediately clicked to. Here I found three pages of several types of books including Pulitzer winner John Updike at 150 again and Nuruddin Farah by a user called LitFan who seems to list all the really good stuff, a recipe book, a dictionary and other such books.

The selection of books leave a lot to be desired and I wouldn’t recommend it for a person looking for books regularly. There are some bargains (Noviolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names at Kshs500 bro!) in there if you want to look but I doubt if you will get too many of your favourite books.

If you are an author looking to sell your book this is not a bad place to place your titles as it is heavily advertised in Kenyan media. The payment is between the seller and buyer.

2. Text Book Centre

The Text Book Centre is the biggest book store chain in Kenya with seven branches around the country. To buy their books you can visit the company’s website where you can have your book delivered as long as it is costs more than Kshs1,000. This shouldn’t be too difficult seeing as many books cost around that figure when new in this town. So you just go on there and click in a book like say Taiye Selasie’s Ghana Must Go then add to cart then fill out the form and make your payment and wait for your book. The advantage here is that they have quite a large variety of books our friends at Text Book Centre.

For those who would be bothered filling their house with books then Text Book Centre allows you to download E-Books at their E-Kitabu portal. The books on there as far as I can see are quite diverse; academics, art and architecture, biographies and memories, health and fitness etc. Also in there is a literary fiction section with books such as… OK I didn’t seem to be seeing any books by Africans on the first page which really upsets me. They say that that there are on there so there must be Africans in the catalogue. Wait, Chimamanda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun on page 2 at Kshs1,230; breaaaathe.

Great for buying. For selling your book you have to go through the company to have your book listed. Typically the margins for books are 30% by the book seller and the government taking 30% of list price. So when you list your book you are only going home with 40% of list price which explains why so many books retail at above Kshs1,000 in this town.

You can buy using Mpesa as well as credit card in this case.

3. Rupu.co.ke

These are the guys who have branded themselves as Kenya’s discount and deal website. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any books in their options.

However this site would be pretty useful to get the buzz about your book at discount prices. The website has advertisements offline and online making it a quite well known online space in Kenya

The buying/selling options are Mpesa and credit card.

4. Jumia.co.ke

The one year old website is one of the biggest online marketplaces in Kenya so you would expect to get quite a few books on there. Unfortunately, all that is categorized on there are travel and project management books. And its only the travel section that has books at the moment with guides to East Africa in there.

The Nigerian version of Jumia is much better that its Kenyan counterpart as it have a large variety of books including biographies, business and finance and of course my favourite fiction. The only problem with that fiction section is that a search for your usual suspects like Jude Idibia, Chimamanda Adichie, Noviolet Bulawayo, Zukiswa Wanner, Aminatta Forna and the rest you get no returns. This is a website that is not talking to publishers clearly.

The Kenyan arm of Jumia is potentially very useful to book sellers as it doesn’t have too many books on there and the company has a lot of brand equity with advertising online.

The buying/selling options are Mpesa and credit card.

5. Ekitabu

Ekitabu, Swahili for Ebook is a website which allow you to access many books at different prices. There is a section for free ebooks as well as a section dedicated to only Kenyan books. The free books are fourty in number and include Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights . The Kenyan books are 90 and a diverse group of book types from fiction like Stanley Gazemba The Stone Hills of Maragoli to motivational like David Waweru’s Champion and other non fiction like Contemporary Psychiatry in Africa by David M. Ndetei, Christopher Szabo, S. Gichanga, E. Shitohi A. Muhindi. Unfortunately the list of books is not very exciting for the fiction fan. However you can search a few of the usual suspects in African literature aminatta forna, Chimamanda Adichie and Noviolet Bulawayo and you can find them too.

For the potential author you will have to contact Ekitabu to get your book on their platform.

The buying/selling options are Mpesa and credit card.

  1. Kalahari.com

South African based Kalahari.com is probably the best website for African books I found when I was searching. Searching within the website for the usual suspects of African writing Binyavanga Wainaina, Jude Idibia, Chimamanda Adichie, Noviolet Bulawayo, Zukiswa Wanner and Aminatta Forna found me getting direct hits on all the names.

Its the best by a long mile for contemporary African fiction as far as I can tell with payments made using credit cards.

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The Text Book Centre now at the Thika Road Mall

The first Text Book Centre (TBC) bookshop opened in 1963 on Nairobi’s Kijabe Street. Since then it has grown to become chain of retail sellers of text books, stationery and other learning materials with has six branches in Nairobi and a branch in Kakamega.

This weekend the 5-6 July the new TBC at Text Book Centre Thika Road Mall in Roysambu was opened to the public with a focus on younger readers thus there were students and pupils from around the area. More importantly, those who love the written word can now access the books at the new store. Here are images from the event at the new bookstore.

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Eva Kasaya in Western Kenya book tour

Storymoja’s Muthoni Garland with Eva Kasaya.

Kenyan writer Eva Kasaya came to the notice of many literature commentators when she debuted with her book Tales of Kasaya. The book published by Kwani Trust in 2010 with a lot of help from Jackie Lebo is a memoir of a young woman who dropped out of school in rural Western Kenya at 13 years of age. She goes to Nairobi city to work as a domestic worker and the book goes on to give the tribulations she goes through in earning a living. It is harrowing at times but the thing that sticks with this reader is the indefatigable spirit of the author as she goes from more drama to drama without any loss of enthusiasm. It is a vital read to understand how people in Kenya’s domestic scene have to cope in their careers.

The book was received quite well and even went on to win the Jomo Kenyatta literature award for the youth category in 2011.

The good writer has been doing a tour of the Western part of the country to promote her book in the last few weeks. These include talks at various institutions including Lion secondary school in Kisumu, Kakamega high School journalism class as well as the Masinde Muliro university journalism class. Here are images from her Western Kenya tour courtesy of our friends from Kwani Trust.

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Kenyan libraries to be awarded at Maktaba Awards

 We don’t have too many libraries in Kenya. In fact at a speech that was given to us by the Storymoja Hay festival boss Muthoni Garland boss over the weekend only 2% of Kenyan schools have a library on site. This is why we need more of them to ensure that more Kenyans have access to the written word and the reason for the Storymoja Start-a-Library initiative.

There is another library initiative that is aimed at ensuring that libraries get their place in Kenyan society; The Maktaba Awards. The awards started in 2010 and are shaped along the lines of the German Library Awards with the best libraries getting a trophy and a cash price. They are driven by the German embassy; Gerd the husband of the former ambassador Margit Hellwig-Boette Bwana is a librarian by profession so this doesn’t surprise me. Also in that organising the awards mix is the Kenya Library Association.

The awards have been pretty well received by the folks in the business over the years and supported by organisations like the Radio Africa Group and the National Museums of Kenya.

This year the awards will be at the National Museums tomorrow evening – Thursday 26th September – at 6pm. If you want to know which are the best libraries in Kenya you want to mosey on to that gig.

Similar links

:: Maktaba Awards at the National Museum – 2011

:: Kenya Methodist University wins the 2012 Maktaba Awards – 2012