By Damian Otugbua Cassava Republic is counting down to the day of release of A Small Silence. The publisher is releasing a short excerpt from the new novel, every day, to whet appetite for the book. Every excerpt, christened ‘A Sneak Peek’, is rounded off with a footnote that screams: Pre-order Now! The price of […]
By Toyin Akinosho Sylvester Onwordi was in Nigeria early in June 2018. It was his second trip to the country in the year. “I have come back four times since my mother’s death in January 2017- and will be here again at the end of July”, he tells me, over drinks at Rhapsody’s, a smart […]
By Lola Akande, PhD Introduction I thank the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) for inviting me to deliver a talk on “Literary Agency and the Promotion of the Author’s Craft and Business” at the 2018 INTERNATIONAL BOOK FAIR AUTHOR’S GROVE taking place in the University of Lagos. The topic is a very important one because it […]
In Nigeria’s book industry, the Literary agent can be described in the strict meaning of the Latin phrase: Persona Non Grata, to go by the opinion of Lola Akande, novelist and University lecturer. That phrase is commonly used in a context different from its meaning, which is “person not appreciated”. “Nigeria had (and still has) […]
By Fred Akanni, in Lagos University Press Limited has stopped on its three year downward revenue track and returned back to profitability. The Nigerian maker of pre-primary, primary and secondary school textbooks and distributor of World Bank titles, earned a total revenue of ₦1.608Billion, at least ₦130Million, or 9% higher than its total earnings in […]
It is probably Donald Trump’s fault that so few recent works of fiction have become events, in the way that “A Little Life,” by Hanya Yanagihara, did in 2015, or “The Underground Railroad,” by Colson Whitehead, did a year later (or “Cat Person”, by Kristen Roupenian, did in December 2017). By event I mean: lovingly […]
Europe’s book publishers say that their industry is the continent’s largest cultural industry.
Although nowhere in a newly released report by the Federation of European Publishers, is a comparison of business figures in the publishing industry with those of other cultural products, the sales statistics produced in the report, the first attempt of its kind-according to the authors- to collect such a wide range of data focusing on book publishing, are quite staggering. Read more
Predictions that print books would disappear within a few years haven’t come anywhere near reality, according to Henrique Mota, President of the Federation of European Publishers (FEP), writing a foreword to a new, continent wide report on Europe’s publishing industry. “The main reason for this seems simply to be that people mostly prefer reading in print […]
