As a way of churning out books that can meet international standards, Dr Bisi Aiyedun, author and chief executive of BCK International Limited has advised authors, particularly those into self publishing to always get their books properly edited.

He advised them to always make their books error free before publishing.

According to him, many authors do not want to die with their ideas so they resort to self publishing when publishers refuse to publish their book or delay in getting their books published.” In a recent chat with Daily Sun, Aiyedun spoke on his vision and challenges, his inspiration, Print on Demand (POD), and the messages in his works.

Biography
I am Dr Bisi Kay Aiyedun, a publisher and author. I have been in the publishing industry for quite some time now. I publish books on diverse subjects such as political development in Nigeria, management, leadership development, poetry among others. My aim of going into publishing is to transform society through reading.

Foray into publishing
Over the years, I have expanded my horizon by acquiring books and I believe that I have ideas that could make the world a better place. So I began publishing stories about poetry in Nigeria. When I later traveled to England, I looked at other aspects of publishing in human development and politics.

Vision
My vision is to help transform the society through publishing. Part of this is to influence people’s minds politically, religiously or through personal development and empowerment. Some of the books I publish deal with human life, politics, management and leadership enhancement.

Responses from the public
I have had so many responses from the people. For example, at the just concluded 8th Nigerian Book Fair, people who visited our stand commented on the scientific, theological and political aspects of our books. These responses were good and have made us to look at other areas that we can explore.

Print On Demand (P.O.D)
Print On Demand, is a system whereby we collate all the literatures that people have written on various topics, and put together in a book form on the internet and people can have copies as many as they like almost immediately. We equally want to help authors who would like to avail themselves of this opportunity.

Challenges
One of the major challenges that publishers have faced is the quality of books being published. Many bookstores are of low quality but there are lots of improvements as the quality of books being published. Lack of finance is another major challenge that a publisher faces in the industry. There must be sufficient funds before one can go into publishing. The area of book stocking is another area and one has to find ways of seeing how the published books could get distributed in other parts of the country. But printing and publishing on the Internet has solved most of these problems.

Why authors go into self-publishing
Authors go into self-publishing because some of them find it difficult to break into the mainstream publishing. Even when publishers collect their manuscripts, it may take longer time before the books are eventually published. Many authors wouldn’t want to die with their ideas, so they go into self-publishing. I would advise authors that would want to go into self publishing to get their books well edited before publishing them.

Inspiration
I get my inspiration by attuning myself to inner forces and I always find time to put these thoughts into writing so that I wouldn’t forget. Once I begin to put pen to paper, ideas begin to flow and I do set target when I would complete the book at hand.

Books published
Some of the books I have published include: The Ladoja Saga of Oyo Sate, Re-Re Run In Ekiti, Yar Adua’s Vision 2020, Mission Achievable? Awo @ 100: Centenary Celebration, Fajuyi; Sacrificial Ram For Paiko’s Wedding, Obaba:100 days.

Messages
I always discuss capacity building and human beings. The capacity of human beings to the world as leaders or managers and their ability to lead the society and manage the resources at our disposal to make the world a better place.