‘E-books are the
literary world’s version of fast food’ – Alexander Nderitu, Africa ’s first digital
novelist
‘An eBook is considered
by the industry intelligentsia to be a book that is in electronic form. It is instantaneously
distributed over the Internet within seconds; Gutenberg would be impressed.’ - How E-books
Work, www.enovel.com
‘Where the electronic
novel really scores is in the features that elevate it beyond the limitations
of a traditional printed book: at the click of a key, it will go into Large
Print format, a boon for the poorly sighted and for tired eyes. Ultimately the
reader, not the publisher, will select the font and size with which he or she
is comfortable reading …Electronic books are smart. They can remember where you
got to, so no more dog-earing, or losing bookmarks. They have all the search
and find features of a word processor – enter a word or phrase and you will
find the passage instantly.’ - Horror writer Peter James speaking at a
conference. (See Ray Hammond’s DIGITAL
BUSINESS: Surviving and Thriving in an Online World, www.hammond.co.uk , Published in book form
by Hodder & Stoughton)
In 1998, history was made when the e-novel Angels of Russia was chosen as one of the five finalists for the
prestigious Booker Prize. Angels of
Russia was a historical novel written by
Patricia Le Roy and distributed over the Internet by Online Originals. This
marked the first time that an on-line (Internet-published) book had been
nominated for a major literary prize.
In 2000, Stephen King’s first e-book project experienced a hiccup when the
servers were inundated with orders, stretching them to 100% capacity. The book,
entitled Riding the Bullet, had had
been made available only in e-book format on such websites as Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.
Stephen King’s initial impression:
‘While I think that the
Internet and various computer applications for stories have great promise, I
don’t think anything will replace the printed word and the bound book.’
Stephen King went on to participate in other e-book projects. His next
e-book, The Plant, was sold in
installments through an ‘honour system’ whereby downloaders promised to pay for
their copies. 76% cent of readers fulfilled their promise.
In 2001, my first thriller, and probably Kenya
Also in 2001, India
Let’s fast-forward to a
few years later:
October 25, 2007: Article
entitled ‘Internet a Boon for Books’ appears in the Daily Metro (Nation Media House). According to it, the Internet has
provided new ways of marketing, experimentation and reaching readers. Penguin
has launched a web-based novel-writing competition in partnership with Amazon
and Hewlett-Packard. Elsewhere, Pearson - which publishes travel books - has
been digitally coding all its travel-related content so that said content can
be utilized over Web and mobile phone applications.
2007: Journalist
Otieno Amisi[1],
secretary of the Kenya Association of Poets, launches a poetry e-book entitled Back to the Future at the Nairobi Book
Fair.
November 2007: Amazon.com
launches the Kindle e-book
reader. Amazon founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos appears on the cover of Newsweek, holding up a Kindle. Headline:
‘Books Aren't Dead. (They're Just Going
Digital.)’
December 2008: StoryMoja teams
up with well-known e-commerce website Mamamikes.com so as to sell books to the
Kenyan Diaspora (in addition to locally). Payments can be made via PayPal,
credit card, MoneyGram, PostaPay among others. (StoryMoja later enables
manuscripts to be uploaded to them directly through their website).
December 25, 2009: Amazon e-book
sales overtake print for one day for the first time on
Christmas Day.
February 29, 2010: E-books become
the single bestselling category in American publishing for the first time,
according to a report from the Association of American Publishers, compiling sales
data from US publishing houses. Total e-book sales in February amounted to
$90.3 million, overtaking paperback sales which stood at $81.2 million.
2010: Sony - which
also deals in e-books - announces that second quarter 2010 e-reader sales had tripled
over the previous year.
March / April 2010: Apple launches
the iPad
and the iBookstore.
August 23, 2010: Amazon releases
a statement announcing that, for the first time, the sales of Kindle e-books
exceeded sales of hardcover books on its site in the second quarter of its
fiscal year. For the period of April through June 2010, Amazon sold an average
of 143 e-books for every 100 hardbacks; the figures for June were 180 e-books
to 100 hardcovers.
January 29, 2011: ‘eBooks’ is one
of the trending topics on Yahoo!
January 2011: Kindle e-books
overtake paperback books to become the most popular format on Amazon.com. By
May of 2011, the company announces that e-book sales are outstripping hardcover
and paperback books - combined.
January 2011: Barnes &
Noble shifts focus from hardcovers and paperbacks to e-books. The influential
bookseller tries to re-invent itself as a seller of book downloads, reading
devices and apps.
March 2011: ‘The
future is digital,’ says Kenya Literature Bureau CEO, Eve Obara as KLB launches
e-books into the local market ‘ahead of any of the other players in the
business.’
In 2011, the rise of
e-books is believed to be the main cause of the demise of the giant bricks-and-mortar
bookseller, Borders
(which took too long to join the e-retailing and electronic book markets). The
liquidation of Borders Group sends shockwaves across the book world. Even its main
rival, Barnes & Noble, gains little from the folding of the fabled Borders
book chain. Barnes & Noble operates 717 superstores and owns the popular
Nook e-book reader. Borders had over 400 stores.
2011: E-books become
the hottest topic among major publishers, booksellers and other book industry
stakeholders. Are e-books
‘cannibalizing’ print? Will bricks-and-mortar bookshops
end up selling to the rats? Or are e-books
overrated? Do traditional bookstores need to make some adjustments in order
to
survive in the eBook Age?
2011: E-book versions
of popular books like The Da Vinci Code
and Rich Dad, Poor Dad proliferate Kenyan
computers. They are free, or very cheap, downloads. A blog known as Nairobi
Ebooks (http://nairobibooks.blogspot.com
) sells e-books at just Kshs.10 a pop!
October 2011: When
the Whirlwind Passes and The
Moon is Made of Green Cheese make their Amazon Kindle debut.
2011: Amazon shakes
the world of literature yet again by launching its own imprint, AmazonEncore.
According to the online giant: ‘AmazonEncore is a new program whereby
Amazon will use information such as customer reviews on Amazon.com to
identify exceptional, overlooked books and authors with more potential than
their sales may indicate. Amazon will then partner with the authors to re-introduce
their books to readers through marketing support and distribution into multiple
channels and formats, such as the Amazon
Kindle Store, Amazon.com
Books Store, Audible.com,
and national and independent bookstores via third-party wholesalers. ‘Amazon gives the self-published a second
life,’ says USA Today
Amazon's major rivals, Barnes & Noble and Borders, list AmazonEncore
titles on their websites and say that, depending on demand, they may carry them
in their physical stores as well.
2011? : Charles Karia,
a Kenyan schoolteacher and blogger, publishes an e-book entitled A
Weed in Paradise . In related news Publishing Editor Barrack Muluka
says e-books are picking up (in Kenya
November 25, 2011: Article in The East African Standard newspaper
talks of local government departments and libraries digitalizing their
documents (‘Libraries and publishers go digital to increase efficiency’). Digitalization
involves scanning books, reports and other documents and placing them in an
electronic retrieval system. With e-books, libraries will be able to offer e-lending
services.
Late 2011: A school in
Kilgoris, rural Kenya
December 9, 2011: Article
entitled ‘Smart phones to drive up sale of e-books’ appears in the Daily Nation. According to it,
affordable smart phones could enable a boom in e-books sales.
Internationally, e-book sales grew by 116.5% while print fell. By 2014, the
article went on to say, 50% of all phones sold are expected to be ‘smart’.
Ministry of Information to procure cheap tablet for high school students.
Former Apprentice Africa contestant
Joyce Mbaya’s e-book, Gibebe, to sell
on Amazon
Kindle. Master Publishing MD, Agatha Verdadero, is quoted as saying e-book trends
as seen in the West are expected to reach Kenya
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