How
lucrative is it to be a writer in Nigeria?
By HENRY AKUBUIRO (akuhen@sunnewsonline.com)
Sunday, November 18, 2007
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Wole
Soyinka
Photo: Sun News Publishing
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Like a musician or an actor, the mainstay of a creative writer
is his intellectual property. More than other artists from
the arts, creative writers have brought more joy to Nigeria,
with literary giants like Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka,
to mention a few, winning international renown and prizes,
having their bestsellers translated into many foreign languages,
and thereby promoting our cultural heritage.
Compared to the Nigerian musician or actor, the Nigerian writer,
despite his intellectual edge, is taking the backseat as far
as financial fortunes are concerned. Today, you can’t
talk of any new Nigerian writer, whose books sell in thousands
like, say, the hip-hop albums of Tuface Idibia or the B-rated
movies of Nkem Owoh, aka Osuofia.
Are there some things our musicians and actors are doing well
that our writers aren’t doing? Is it that they are telling
the African story better than the writers? The answers to
these questions will surely diepart from the affirmative.
Several reasons have been adduced for the down hill publishing
creative works has been steadily going in the country, which
has made most of our writers glorified paupers.
The 1950 and 60s have been described as the golden era of
Nigerian/African literature. The publishing giant, Heinemann,
capitalizing on the reception and profitability of Achebe’s
classical novel, Things Fall Apart, worldwide, created the
now-rested African Writers Series, exploiting the abundant
reservoir of talents from the country and the continent, which
led to the emergence of new writings by Wole Soyinka, J.P.
Clark, Cyprain Ekwensi, Flora Nwapa, Ngugi wa Thiong’o,
Peter Abrahams, T.M. Aluko, Ayi Kwei Armah, Kofi Awoonor,
Mariama Ba, Mongo Beti, Okot P’Bitek, Dennis Brutus,
Bernard Dadie, Buchi Emecheta, Bessie Head, Aubrey Kachingwe,
Mazisi Kunene, Alex La Guma, Taban Lo Liyong, Naguib Mayfouz,
Gabriel Okara, Christopher Okigbo, Yambo Ouologuem, Ferdinand
Oyono, Elechi Amadi, Chukwuemeka Ike, among others.
Taking a cue from the blossoming book market in Africa, the
London-based publishers, Longman and Macmillan, joined the
fray, publishing a new generation of African writers, including
Jared Angira, Efua Sutherland, Bode Sowande, Ama Ata Aidoo,
Meja Nwangi, Ben Okri, Odia Ofeimun, Lauretta Ngcobo, Aminata
Fall, Isidore Okpewho, Festus Iyayi, among others.
In the 1980s, Heinemann and other small presses like Malthouse,
Ibadan; University Press, Ibadan; Book Craft, Ibadan; Kraftbooks,
Ibadan, Fourth Dimension, Enugu, etc., continued to publish
Nigerian writers. This era witnessed the emergence of new
literary heavyweights in Nigeria: the Osundares, Osofisans,
Ojaides, Nwankwos and Enekwes.
Between 1950s–1980s, it is said that these publishing
houses tried as much possible to pay royalties to writers
they published, no matter how negligible the amount, and it
was easier for writers to follow the number of sells from
their books.
As the 1980s wore on and the tragic economic placebo, Structural
Adjustment Programme (SAP), was introduced by the military
junta of General Ibrahim Babangida publishing creative works
became a risky venture. The frontliners, like Heinemann, Longman
and Macmillan, began to relax on publishing creative works
in preference for academic textbooks, which, they said, record
more sells. Small publishing houses that centred on vanity
publishing began to emerge. Today, most of the noteworthy
creative works published in the country are published by the
Ibadan-based duo of Book Craft and Kraftbooks. In children’s
literature, Lantern Books, Lagos, has emerged as a leader.
Nevertheless, Nigerian writers have continued to complain
of non-payment of royalties.
Following the successes it recorded by publishing the Nigerian
editions of Chimamanda Adichie’s award-winning first
novel, Purple Hibiscus, and Sefi Atta’s novel, Everything
Good Will Come, in 2004 and 2005, Kachifo Books, Lagos, has
emerged as a force to reckon with in publishing of creative
works in the country. It has since added the versatile writer,
Tanure Ojaide, on its stable. While other publishing houses
are complaining of low sells, Kachifo Books is selling its
authors’ book in thousands. Its welfare package to writers
is second to none in the industry. One of the criticisms against
Kachifo Books, however, is that it thrives on ready-made writers
instead of discovering and publishing unknown but good writers,
which has made the M.D., Muktar Bakare, to charge new Nigerian
writers recently to send good manuscripts for consideration.
Disturbed by the downturn in publishing creative works in
the country, a new writers’ collective, New Gong, was
formed two years ago in Lagos, headed by Adewale Maja-Pearce,
a former editor with Heinemann, Nigeria. This group leverages
on the support of members to publish their works. The marvel
of New Gong’s initiative is that works of writers it
has published – Adewale Maja-Pearce’s Remembering
Saro-Wiwa…, Maxim Uzoatu’s The god of Poetry,
Dulue Mbachu’s War Game, and Isidore Uzoatu Vision Impossible
– are available on the popular book website, amazon.com.
Maja-Pearce told Sunday Sun in a recent interview that New
Gong is getting offers from all over the world.
Last year, Cassava Republic Press, announced its entry into
the publishing industry in the country with emphasis on creative
works. Already it has published the novel, 26A, by Diana Evans,
and the Nigerian editions of Helon Habila’s works, Waiting
for an Angel and Measuring Time. The Yenagoa-based Publishing
outfit, Treasure Books, is also encouraging the publication
of creative works in the country. Aboki Publishers, Cel-Bez,
Wusen Books, Delta Publications and Oracle Books, based in
Makurdi, Owerri, Calabar, Enugu and Lagos, respectively, are
also publishing new writers, but how far their books go is
another thing.
There are hundreds of other printing houses masquerading as
publishers where ambitious new writers take their manuscripts
for printing. Often times the production quality of their
works is nothing to write home about. In some rare cases,
we have works of above average and good productions. After
the printing of these books, marketing and promoting them
become a big problem. Hence, we now see writers published
by the vanity press complain of hard sells.
Jude Dibia, author of two recent outstanding novels, Unbridled
and Walking with Shadows (2006 and 2007), published by Blacksands,
Lagos, have interestingly sold out his first prints. Ken Ike-Okere,
author of the poetry book, The River Died, informed Sunday
Sun, too, that he has also run out of demands for his second
prints by self-marketing. But, for many writers in the country,
self-marketing does not translate into huge sells.
Nigerian publishers are not helping matters, too. For most
of them, their work stops at the point when the books are
rolled out from the press. They do little or none of promoting
and marketing their authors. A few of them who attempt doing
this only rely on book reviews on newspaper arts pages instead
of advertising their books as is the norm in the western world.
How much royalties are Nigerian writers paid? Except the Lagos-based
poet, Adolphus Amasiatu II, author of Diary of a Poet, it
is rare to see a Nigerian writer who will admit receiving
a dime from his publisher (s). At the 2007 Nigeria Book Trust
Foundation Book Fair in Lagos, in May, the Ibadan-based writer,
Tony Marinho, complained bitterly of being reaped off by his
publishers. Niyi Osundare told Sunday Sun in 2005 that, despite
his many award-winning books and bestsellers, he was yet to
reap from the fruit of his labour. These are not isolated
complaints.
Denja Abdullahi, General Secretary, Association of Nigerian
Authors (ANA), is of the view that “a writer may not
make much money from royalties or from self-marketing of his
books, but there are allied benefits he can use his creativity
to achieve”. Like elsewhere, royalties for creative
works are maximum of ten percent from the money realized from
selling a copy, but “even getting the ten percent is
always a problem, because publishers always short-change writers,”
said he.
Writers, in Nigeria, today, he noted, are just publishing
to get known. The way forward, according to him, is for writers
to explore alternative publishing, that is, writers-friendly
publishing outfits that will give them good contracts.
Prof. Chukwuemeka Ike belongs to the Chinua Achebe generation
of writers and was the founding president of the Nigeria Book
Trust Foundation. He told Sunday Sun that a writer who is
lucky to have his work(s) recommended to schools will have
more sells than others, but how many new writers get this
opportunity nowadays?
He has identified the lack of promotion by Nigerian publishers
as another setback to Nigerian writers, “otherwise creative
writing should be more profitable than it is now”. He
has never depended solely on the royalties from his works.
“So, whatever comes in is an addition to my income,”
he said. “In the UK, you get advance royalties for your
works,” he informed.
Chukwu Eke, a writer and a stringler with The Source magazine,
echoed the view that publishing creative works in the country
is not profitable. The author of the poetry volume, Rhythm
of a Pathfinder, he lamented that the book has not sold like
his published instructional materials.
“If you don’t hawk your books, nobody will go
to a bookshop to buy them, except they have heard your name
somewhere.
Achebe published Things Fall Apart in 1958, and he made money
and has continued to make more money. Maik Nwosu’s works
are comparable to the Achebes’, but he hasn’t
made much progress with them. The delimma of a Nigerian writer,
whether self-published or published by big publishers, is
that he cannot depend on the sells or royalties from his books.”
Hyacinth Obunseh is currently ANA’s assistant secretary.
He doubles as the CEO of Hybun, a publishing outlet that has
published many new Nigerian writers.
He attributed the cause of our writers not making money to
the fact that publishers themselves are not making money.
“For instance, if you publish a book at N150 and sell
it at N250, your gain is N100. But, if you take it to, say,
a bookshop somewhere in Surulere [Lagos], it is going to take
you 20 percent of the money to be there and another 20 percent
for distribution cost. That leaves the author with 60 percent.
Often you spend so much time, energy and money, and it takes
longer time to pay him; it is not deliberate.”
Omale Allen Abdul-Jabbar chairs ANA Plateau State. His opinion
isn’t different: “Publishing creative writing
in the country is no longer profitable”. He has seen
several instances where authors have struggled to get published
only to have their works either dumped under their beds or
autographed to their friends and relations. “I am yet
to see any writer who has received any royalty,” he
lamented. According to him, the downward trajectory in the
publishing industry in the country is “ a reflection
of the changing times in the country.”
Big names like Achebe and Soyinka also make extra money from
public speaking. Depending on the occasion, they may collect
up to 20 thousand dollars, said Maxim Uzoatu, a poet and a
literary activist. But, can we talk of the richest writer
in Nigeria? Uzoatu suggested that it could be Achebe, because
his Things Fall Apart has sold over 10 million copies worldwide,
the highest figure by any Nigerian writer. However, he cautioned
that “books, especially literature, should not be reduced
to Nollywood’s grossing”, which is to say that
the worth of a writer cannot be measured in monetary terms.
Judging from the foregoing, the creative writer in Nigeria
is only a few steps removed from becoming an endangered species.
But, if what Obunseh said that “what is happening in
the music and film industries will soon happen in the book
industry” has an echo of possibility, smiles will soon
return to the famished faces of most Nigerian writers. Let’s
hope this won’t be like waiting for Godot. |
