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International Insights For Indie Authors: Africa

International Insights for Indie Authors: Africa

For the next edition of the Alliance of Independent Authors International Insights hosted by Mark Williams of The New Publishing Standard, we’re finishing the regional spotlights. For part 7 of our introduction to the global book markets we have Africa in our sights, rounding off a series of posts that have looked at the key India and China markets in Asia, the Middle East North Africa markets, the Ibero-America markets, the Asia-Pacific markets and the European markets, and also a special edition on the English-language markets. This is international insights for indie authors: Africa

Mark Williams of The New Publishing Standard

Of course Africa was left until last because there’s not much to say. As we all know, Africans don’t read, there are no bookstores, the internet hasn’t got there yet, and this is going be the shortest post ever. And yes, all the above is true. Except when it’s not. Let me explain.

I’m writing this from The Gambia, West Africa, one of the poorest nations on the planet, so first-hand experience. When I moved here ten years ago I had to make daily trips to the tourist hotels to use an internet café with a dial-up-speed connection just to get online.

Bookstores? If we discount educational suppliers for schools and colleges then in this country I can count the bookstores worthy of the name on one…finger. Seriously. It’s not that people don’t read (there’s a thriving gray-market in used books the tourists leave behind) so much that there are so few books available. It’s hard to develop a reading habit when reading material is an endangered species.

Digital books? As an ex-pat with a pre-existing account I can easily download ebooks from the Kindle store. But if I sign out of my UK Amazon account the Kindle store is not only not accessible, but not even visible! Apple Books? Not a chance. Google Play Books? What’s that? Kobo? Only through the international US store where most titles are not available (territorial restrictions) and anyway you need a credit card to pay. Most people here are unbanked.

Ten years on and little has changed except now I have 4G internet (on a good day if the wind is in the right direction and the gods are happy), I can watch Amazon Video, Netflix and other video streaming services, I can use social media, etc, but there’s still no Kindle, Apple Books or Google Play Books for local people. And I’m one of just 442,000 people in the entire country that are online. Internet penetration here is at just 18.3%.

So yeah, Africa is a lost cause. Next!

But hold on. Africa’s a big place. And I mean big. The entire USA would fit comfortably inside the Sahara Desert! In fact the USA, China, India, Japan, UK, West Europe and East Europe (exc. Russia) would all fit inside Africa’s borders. Oh, and Africa has a population of 1.3 billion people, all of whom could be reading our ebooks if only the internet would arrive. But right now Africa’s internet penetration across the continent is at just 38.3%.

Okay, so when will Africa be worth us indies bothering with? When will the internet in Africa catch up with the rest of the world? How about…now. Right now. Because that 38.3% penetration equates already, in August 2020, to Africa having over a half billion people online. 526 million as this year began. And yes that does mean there are more people online in Africa than in the United States. 252 million more!

You see, Africa is a continent of contradictions. Everything I said about The Gambia is true, and yes, the Kindle store is invisible across most of the continent. There are no Apple Books anywhere. Google Play Books has just two localised ebook stores (Egypt and South Africa) across a continent of over 50 countries.

Bookstores? Travel to South Africa and you’ll find bookstores on par in quality, if not size, with the best in Europe or the USA. Many African countries have wonderful bookstores, make no mistake. But in others bookstores are few and far between.

It’s the same with book fairs. Some African countries barely have book fairs worthy of the name. Others have… well, let’s just say that not only are some of the biggest book fairs in the world in Africa, but one of those is THE biggest.

Morocco’s Casablanca International Book Fair regularly pulls in over a half a million booklovers each year. The Algiers International Book Fair (unsurprisingly in Algeria) disappointed in 2019 when it attracted “only” 1.1 million visitors. In 2018 2.3 million people attended the event. But both these events combined don’t match the Cairo International Book Fair in Egypt, which is the biggest literary on the planet, and in 2020 drew a crowd of 3.5 million.

So much for Africans not reading. But do they read digital books? Where are all these half billion internet users if they are not in The Gambia? Well. Angola, Cameroon, D.R. Congo, Libya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Senegal, Tunisia, Zambia and Zimbabwe all have more people online than New Zealand or Ireland, both vibrant digital book markets.

Cote D’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Sudan and Uganda all have more internet users than Sweden, the home of Storytel and Bookbeat and of course a leading digital books market. Algeria, Morocco and Tanzania all have more internet users than Australia. South Africa has as many people online as Canada. Kenya with 46.8 million people online and Egypt with 49 million are both bigger in internet terms than Spain, which has just 42.9 million people online.

And then there’s Nigeria, which with 126 million internet users has almost three times as many people online as Spain, literally twice as many as the UK, and is way ahead of Germany, Japan and Russia, coming in as the sixth largest country on the planet by internet users. So yes, the internet has reached Africa.

Digital books? Not so much. As already noted, the big western ebook and audiobook players we indies take for granted have yet to wake up to the Africa opportunity, and sadly our regular coterie of aggregators are behind the curve too. But expect that to change as this decade unfolds. A market of half a billion internet users is not to be lightly ignored.

There are a handful of digital opportunities available right now to us. By way of example, Exclusives (supplied by Kobo), Takealot and AudioShelf in South Africa, OkadaBooks in Nigeria and AkooBooks Audio in Ghana. There are any number of small digital players cropping up across the continent, and Storytel has committed to a Middle East North Africa hub which will embrace several of the North African markets as it builds.

There are some familiar names too. Penguin Random House South Africa has its own ebook store. Not much use to indies, of course, but a reminder that while many indies have been looking the other way, traditional publishers are getting ahead of us. OverDrive supplies the Kigali National Library in Rwanda, and Odilo has just this week launched a library app in Zimbabwe.

And then there’s YouScribe, the Paris-based aggregator and retailer that has shaken the global publishing community by not just launching a digital subscription service in francophone Africa but by picking up a half million subscribers. So yes, the internet is here, digital books are here, and rest assured I’ll come back on all this in future posts, with indie-relevant detail. But for now just to say that, as digital-first indies we should see Africa as an exciting if challenging opportunity, and look to explore every chance to get a foothold now in one of the least-competitive and fastest growing book markets on the planet.

And here’s a suggestion to be going on with:

At the end of October the Algiers International Book Fair will be held online as the pandemic ravages that country. That will be the same Algiers book fair mentioned above that usually attract crowds of over 2 million. And in September the Nigeria International Book Fair also heads online. Yes, the same Nigeria that has literally twice as many people online as the UK.

Online fairs and festivals are an easy way for indies anywhere in the world to watch, join in and connect with the reading public in these countries, from the comfort of our own desk. For all the destruction, suffering and misery the Covid-19 pandemic has wrought, one silver lining to this dark global cloud has been to force global publishing online in a way that was quite unimaginable as this year began.

Book fairs and festivals in far-flung lands that most of us would never give a second thought to as in-person events because of the costs and impracticalities of being there are suddenly golden opportunities to show just how internationalist we really are. Algeria and Nigeria right here in Africa are great places to start, but as I’ll show in future posts, these are just the tip of the iceberg of global opportunity drifting past us right now.

The global book market. It’s so much bigger than we think.

Author: Mark Williams

Indie and traditionally-published author and journalist writing beneath picture postcard blue skies in The Gambia, West Africa.

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This Post Has 10 Comments
  1. Well, this is an amazing opportunity for you to know about ZenPens.

    ZenPens is an online publishing platform where you can read, write and publish short stories, poems, articles and novels. Just register as a writer and start publishing or if you are a reader, read on!

    We also have a writers’ community where you can meet other writers and grow together.

  2. Hello Mark,

    Great post. Your post is really insightful and I agree with you on the need for the African publishing industry to be innovative.

    My name is Temitayo Fadojutimi, the founder at https://litireso.com. Litireso is a content distribution platform established to help independent African authors and publishers distribute their creative works across Africa. Authors and publishers can sell both their ebooks and print books on the platform and we can ship to anywhere in Africa at a low shipping fee.

    As a pan-African platform, authors can sell their books in 18 African currencies including USD, Euro and Pound Sterling. We also accept mobile money payments from 3+ African countries.

    We are solving the problems of high shipping fees from major international bookstores, the low literacy level in Africa and no access to quality books by Africans.

    I would like to schedule a virtual call with you to discuss our offerings better and see how international indie authors can take advantage of the platform to reach more Africans. We’ve also received a tremendous number of requests for books written by international authors.

    I can be reached via temitayo[at]litireso.com. I will be looking forward to hearing from you.

    Thanks. Regards.
    Temitayo Fadojutimi
    CEO Litireso.
    https://litireso.com

  3. Thanks, Mark.
    I have been trying to gain exposure for my debut book launched on Amazon/Kindle in Dec 2018 – ‘The Ivory Towers & Other Stories’. Not had much traction!
    As Amazon’s ‘print on demand’ facility is not available in Kenya (where the first short story in the debut book is based) and many other countries, including India, the paperback version of my book becomes exorbitantly expensive when shipping costs are added. I have managed, after almost 2 years to have an arrangement for Textbook Centre in Nairobi to stock the book. The covid lockdown has put paid to that proposal. I was born in Kenya and had hoped readers in my birthplace would have access.
    Any advice/tips/suggestions as to how I can break this impasse? The book is available on Kindle but that has not helped. Book fairs – can an independent submit self-published books? I thought book fairs were the traditional publishers’ domain!
    Hopefully, the sequel will be launched before the end of this year – the lock down in London/UK severely disrupted the deadlines – several breached!
    Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
    Many thanks
    Ashwin Dave.
    Author ‘The Ivory Towers & Other Stories’

    1. Getting POD books to anywhere outside the Ingram and KDP Print comfort zones is a big challenge right now, but expect that to change this decade.

      The best bet right now is, as you are d, identifying local players and coming to an arrangement. Alternatively, approach local publishers. If they see a potential return they may be willing to invest.

      For ebooks Kobo is the best bet but Kenyans will have to buy from the US store at whatever price you set for the US.

      A better option is to use a third party store like Smashwords or StreetLib where you can set a local currency price suited to local spending power. You’ll still need to get noticed, but this way you also get a much better royalty will make low prices worthwhile.

    2. Hello Ashwin,

      My name is Temitayo Fadojutimi and I’m the founder of https://litireso.com. We established Litireso to solve these problems that you are currently facing. Specifically, you can sell both ebooks and print books on the platform while we offer low-cost shipping across Africa. You can also sell your book in 18 African currencies including USD, Euro and Pound Sterling. Your readers from countries that support mobile money can also buy your book using mobile money.

      You can publish your book seamlessly by visiting https://litireso.com. However, if you need assistance or you want to learn more about how we can help push your books across Africa, I can be reached via temitayo[at]litireso.com.

      I will be looking forward to hearing from you and seeing your books on Litireso.

      Regards,
      Temitayo Fadojutimi
      CEO Litireso.
      https://litireso.com

  4. Mark,
    This is so cool✍
    When you are in the right place at the right time how can an amazing opportunity pass you by? You just have to listen keenly and search for the needle in the haystack.
    You have just done that with this expose on Africa.
    I have shared and book marked the blog post on international insights for indie authors for further reference.
    H Emma |http://thextraordinarionly.com

  5. Thanks guys for the great job your doing by highlighting and projecting the digital platforms for authors. We are happy to inform that we also have modebooks.org, which enables authors sell their books and readers can also but any book of their choice.

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