Mwazemba is off the mark, self-publishing worth the gamble

Three or four centuries ago, it did not make sense for writers to publish their own books.

The reason for this was simple. The process of preparing a book for publication was long, tedious, demanding and highly technical.

Back in the day, printers used wine presses to imprint type onto paper after which they bound the pages by hand.

This, by the way, is the reason why printing machines are called presses. It is also the reason why printing first flourished in regions where grapes were grown on a large scale.

Mass printing was not even part of the publishing vocabulary because each book had to be produced individually, like a Swiss watch.

Little wonder then that only those who had the courage to dash where angels feared to tread could venture into publishing.

Indeed, Benjamin Franklin, a pioneer printer in the US, warned that under such circumstances, the only person who could profit from publishing was the printer. After all, printers had the wherewithal to make and distribute pirated copies of the works submitted to them for printing.

DIGITAL TIMES

A lot has changed since especially with the advent of digital technology. Just like the curtain in the temple was torn in the time of Jesus, allowing Christians to commune directly with God, so has technology removed the veil from publishing, making it possible for authors to make their way to the altar of publishing without the need for intercessors.

Now, with only a computer, one can “typeset” a book, design the cover and dispatch the artworks to a printer or to an online bookseller like Amazon at a relatively affordable cost.

Should not take the risk

Despite the opening of this brave new vista, John Mwazemba, the Chief Executive Officer of Phoenix Publishers, would have writers believe that the world of publishing is more dangerous than the man-eating island in Yann Martel’s novel, The Life of Pi.

In two articles — one published in the Sunday Nation two weeks ago and the other in Exhibitor’s Magazine published by the Kenya Publishers Association in September — he argues that although it does not make business sense for mainstream publishers to produce works of fiction, authors should not take the risk to self-publish either.

“Publishing fiction is a dangerous, non-rewarding business,” he argues in the magazine article. “It is a Hobbesian state of existence where life can be solitary, nasty, short and brutish.”

And in his Sunday Nation article, he warned that “it is a bad idea to self-publish any work of fiction”.

True, self-publishing fiction is challenging, but so is crossing the Thika Superhighway, yet people do it all the time. However, unlike crossing the superhighway, self-publishing offers worthwhile rewards in the medium and long term.

A writer I worked with on a self-published book once said: “Now, even if I die, I will die a happy man. I have published a book and I have passed across my message at no cost to myself.” On the day he said this, he had just broken even.

BETTER SALES

For writers like myself, who have dabbled in both worlds, self-publishing offers more financial rewards, although I must acknowledge that it is also capital intensive.

About half of the works I have published with mainstream houses sell less than 100 copies a year, with the exception of The Man in Green Dungarees by Oxford University Press (Kenya) and Mwai Kibaki, Economist for Kenya by Longhorn Kenya, both of which have had robust sales in the last two years.

Among the titles that sell more than 100 copies, most earn me less than Sh10,000 annually, which translates to less than Sh1,000 a month on average.

In contrast, my self-published novel, Different Colours, has sold more than 450 copies in the last month or so. On average, the novel sells about 800 copies a year. The other titles sell fewer copies but on average outperform the titles sold by mainstream publishers.

Just to give a random example. Yesterday, I sold six books worth Sh2,100 to a national school in Kiambu County. The sum is Sh700 less than the Sh2,800 I earned as royalties for one of my books which sold 96 copies last year. (Royalties are mostly paid in the subsequent year after the sales.)

Before I went into self-publishing, I had no creative writing award to my name. Today, two of my self-published books have won and been shortlisted for both the Jomo Kenyatta and the Wahome Mutahi prizes and I routinely submit them for international prizes.

My anthology of poetry, This Land is Our Land, was the first runner-up in this year’s edition of the Wahome Mutahi Literary Prize.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I had submitted most of the poems to a publisher in 1994 but they could not be published because they did not “fit in the company’s programme” as the editor told me at the time.

Indeed, keen observers of the publishing industry will have noted that the most prolific writers, especially in the Kiswahili fiction market, began as self-published writers.

CREATING EMPLOYMENT

Some of them have won awards on numerous occasions and gone ahead to become publishers in their own right. Others like Kyalo Wamitila and Kithaka wa Mberia started off publishing their own works. Now, they are mainstream publishers.

Let us also not forget that authors like David Maillu, who is reputed to live solely on his earnings from creative writing, became famous when he self-published his racy novels, including After 4.30 and My Dear Bottle.

As secondary school students, we used to read these books under our desks during maths lessons, not knowing they were self-published.

Interestingly, during the recent book fair, he told a symposium that a novel he had submitted to a publisher in 2003 was published in 2013. Those were 10 years of income in abeyance. For a young writer in a hurry, a decade is a long time to wait for your book to be published.

Having said that, I always say that writing a good manuscript is tough enough. For writers who wish to self-publish, turning it into a superior book is even tougher. But the toughest challenge of all is marketing it successfully.

One last thing. The modest benefits from my leap of faith have not just been mine alone. In the run-up to and during the Nairobi International Book Fair, held at the Sarit Centre in Nairobi last week, I created part-time jobs for nine people.

I would like to hear their views on Mr Mwazemba’s assertion that self-publishing is dangerous, nasty, brutish and short.

Mr Mbugua is a journalist and creative writer. His poetry anthology, This Land is Our Land, was first runner-up for the Wahome Mutahi Literary Prize last week.