By Alex Nderitu
'Even though
Kenya has East Africa's strongest economy and a population of 44 million, the
country enjoys just 61 public libraries. Run the math, (David) Risher says, and it
turns out Kenya has about one public library for each 700,000 people. That's
less than one-twentieth the library density of the U.S., even though Kenya's
literacy rate isn't that much lower than American norms.'
Worldreader
CEO David Risher addresses the 2017 Summit
The Digital Reading Summit is an
annual gathering that takes place in Accra, Ghana, and Nairobi, Kenya. The
purpose of this year’s gathering was ‘to learn how the strength of communities
and the power of digital are helping to promote a culture of reading in and
beyond the classroom’. The theme of the event:
‘THE POWER OF DIGITAL IN LEARNING’. I actually learnt quite a bit during
the two-day event (at Weston Hotel in Nairobi) but the following 10 insights
are the ones that impacted me the most.
According the new Chair of the Kenya Publishers Association, Lawrence Njagi, there are 38 million Kenyans with mobile phones. Thanks to new technology, such as the free Worldreader app, those devices can now also double-up as digital libraries. There are many advantages of converting mobile phones into libraries. One is cost-effectiveness: even commercial e-books cost much less than their paper equivalents. And another is the sheer convenience – you always have your phone with you! ‘Thanks to technology,’ says Worldreader’s EA Director, Joan Mwachi, ‘reading is an activity that can now take place anywhere.’
Joan
Mwachi (left) and Carol Williams, Worldreader’s East and West Africa Directors
respectively
‘I will be so happy if we can have
digital reading in the village,’ Lawrence Njagi said at the opening of the
Summit. ‘The villagers of today are not the villagers of five years ago. They
are using mobile phones to market their produce. How can we enter that
space?... How do we entice the general public to take their phones and read –
even if it is a page a day?’
KPA Chair Lawrence
Njagi addresses the delegates
To convert your Android phone into a digital
library with access to over 40,000 titles, follow these simple instructions:
Step 1: Open the Google Play Store
Step 2: Search for:
Step 3: Tap ‘Install’
Step 4: Enjoy reading thousands of books for free!
- AFRICANS LOVE ESCAPISM!
In the Worldreader digital library,
the most popular genres in Africa are Religion,
Fantasy and Romance. The
story-books that have been accessed the most by African children include The Girl With the Magic Hands, a fantasy
YA novel by Nigeria’s Nnedi Okorafor (A winner of the Wole Soyinka Prize for
African Literature); Broken Promises,
a YA romance by Ros Haden; Sugar Daddy
also YA romance by Ros Haden; and The Sex
Lives of African Girls by TaiyeSelasi. The Bible and other religious
materials are also quite popular. You might say there is a connection between
African reading habits and their movie-watching habits as evidenced by the
continentally popular Nollywood flicks (West Africa-based low-budget movies
usually centering on romance, crime and superstition).
Some
super-popular e-book titles
Incidentally, a couple members of
Worldreader’s own staff collaborated on an experimental project some time ago,
writing up their own fantasy novella and placing it on the ‘open library’ (no
promotion, or strategic visibility). The experimental e-book, entitled Beauty and the Billionaire Vampire Prince,
has so far been read over 60,000 times!
- A LEADER DOESN’T NEED A TITLE
‘A worthy leader has foresight and
insight. He sees the writing on the wall, reads the signs of the times and
senses the trends and tendencies at work in his surroundings.’ – George Kaitholil, Make Leadership Your Target
David Risher
David Risher, the co-founder and CEO
of Worldreader, is a former Amazon.com executive with a calm demeanor and ready
smile. You would be hard-pressed to identify him as the ‘Big Kahuna’ of the now
world-famous Worldreader organization (You know you’re world-famous when you
are being covered by Forbes and Publishers Weekly magazines!) Seeing him
tamely attend Worldreader sessions and casually interact with publishers and
authors, you might mistake him for a New York literary agent looking to
negotiate some international rights! ‘Reading is our only vaccine against
hopelessness,’ he often says as he travels internationally, promoting a reading
culture that is in tune with the times. He himself grew up and avid reader. His
mother was an encyclopedia salesperson so he has been around books all his
life. ‘Books are like life-instruction manuals,’ he said. ‘Books and reading
are absolutely critical.’
His demeanor reminds one of the
famous Robin Sharma title, The Leader Who
Had No Title. The famous book contains such pearls of wisdom as: ‘Victims recite problems, leaders provide solutions.’
The book also highlights an important point: some of the best-loved or
best-known leaders had no official title. Think of Mahatma Gandhi (India),
Wangari Maathai (Kenya), Nelson Mandela (South Africa) or Martin Luther King Jr
(US). Mandela, for example, was world-renowned long before he became president
of a united (post-apartheid) South Africa and he only served one term in
office. By contrast, he spent 27 years in prison for opposing an oppressive,
racist regime. When he died, over 100 heads of state converged in South Africa
to pay tribute, sealing Mandela’s status as the most respected leader of his
time. In 2016, David Risher and Colin McElwee appeared in a Business Insider list of 12
Entrepreneurs Who are Changing the World.
Even as a tech man, David achieved quite a lot, as evidenced by this piece of
biography from Worldreader.org:
‘In 1997, he left Microsoft to join Amazon.com as
its first Vice President of Product and Store development. Under his
leadership, Amazon’s revenue grew from $16 million to over $4 billion. He later
served as the company’s Senior Vice President, US Retail, overseeing the
marketing and general management of Amazon’s retail operations.
David left Amazon in 2002. At the very bottom of
Amazon.com’s store directory, a perpetual easter egg link leads to a tribute to
David written by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.’
David Risher began his address at
the 2107 Digital Reading Summit by saying, ‘I wonna talk about how everyone
here is changing the world,’ deflecting attention (and glory) away from
himself. The last time he was in Kenya,
two years ago, David visited Kibera School for Girls where he launched an e-reading
programme which turned out to be a great success. As Joan Mwachi asserted, ‘It takes courage
and conviction to try and convince people who have been doing the same thing to
try something different.’
More about the David Risher can be
found here: https://www.worldreader.org/david-risher/
- PARTNERSHIPS ARE LIKE BOOSTER ROCKETS
We have all heard the phrase, ‘If
you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others.’
Partnerships are like booster rockets – they help you go to places you would never
have reached by yourself or achieve things that make you look superhuman.
Worldreader has achieved incredible milestones (eg. reaching 6.1 million
digital readers in just 7 years of existence) because they ‘go with others’ as
opposed to trying to be a lone hero. The current goal is to reach 1 billion
readers over the next 10 years.
Carol Williams, a Worldreader
official in West Africa:
‘We want people reading in the bus,
in the library, in the classroom. It’s a daunting task because we are targeting
1 billion people. But we are not afraid because we have partners.’
There are over 515 schools and
libraries working with Worldreader. ‘Be a friend to the community, not a
stranger,’ Mary Kinyanjui, a Kenya National Library Services librarian advised
delegates. ‘Transformation calls for community support.’ Debborah Odenyi, the
headmistress at The Kibera School for Girls, said that her strategy hinges on
four 4 C’s: ‘Collaboration, Communication, Creativity and Critical Thinking.’ In
Kenya alone, Worldreader has partnered with 146 schools, 64 libraries and 17
publishers. Ms.Williams said that she had noted ‘a wonderful cross-pollination
of work’ between East and West Africa and hoped that the ‘digital ecosystem
would continue to grow.’
A screenshot on partnership from Worldreader's Instagram presence
- TECHNOLOGY – NOT POLITICS OR DEMAGOGY – SOLVES PROBLEMS
‘(In parts of Somalia) it is cheaper to
buy a gun than a novel. I want you to imagine that.’
–
Nurrudin Farah, African novelist
‘Hate has created
many problems but is yet to solve a single one.’
– Maya Angelou, famous
poet
While vacationing in Ecuador with his family some years ago, David Risher came across an orphanage with a library that was permanently padlocked because the custodians felt that the books therein needed to be protected. David asked to see the library and when he was told how difficult it was to acquire new books there and how high the cost was, the idea of Worldreader began to form. Having worked with Amazon Kindles that could each hold a virtual library, David came up with a vision: to distribute free e-book readers loaded with e-books to all children who didn’t have access to libraries. In 2010, along with Colin McElwee (ESADE Business School’s Director of Marketing), David co-founded Worldreader in Barcelona, Spain.
An Instagram testimonial from a satisfied Worldreader user
Kenyan publishers have been fighting
the profit-gobbling monster called ‘piracy’ for many years now but their latest
attempt to curb the rampant vice is distinctly technology-driven. Steps that
they are now taking range from attaching holograms to electronic tags into
their books.
According to Valentina Morroti,
Worldreader’s Digital Assets Specialist, ‘Digital books are more vulnerable (to
piracy) than physical ones. The solution in the publishing industry is Digital
Rights Management. DRM is used in the digital ecosystem to protect content.
It’s a lock that prevents other people from using the content.’ Different
companies such as Apple, Barnes & Noble and Amazon create their own DRM but
the overall concept is the same: locking on the content such that it won’t work
unless one has the right key. For example, a purchased e-book might work on
your device but if you share it with others, it fails to open on their devices.
(There are even digital libraries where one can ‘borrow’ an e-book for a
limited time. When the expiry date reaches, the e-book no longer works on the
e-reading device anymore!) On the question of whether publishers should release
the e-book or the print version first, one participant opined that, ‘Digital
distribution is a great way to test interest beyond first market.’
- BE DYNAMIC – ESPECIALLY IF YOU’RE A PUBLISHER
‘Emotions are running high because the
publishing industry is being radically reshaped by the same disruptive forces
that have transformed all sorts of industries from travel and insurance to
newspapers and music. Change is scary, and the publishing industry is changing
at light-speed. If you want a parallel with music, I think it’s akin to going
from vinyl straight to MP3.’ -
JJ Marsh, 'The
Industry View - Amazon vs Hachette' (article)
‘The ship has sailed –
the entire world has gone digital.’ - Joan Mwachi, Worldreader (East Africa)
According to David Waweru, CEO of
Word Alive publishers, ‘We need to accept that technology is very disruptive
and only those businesses that adapt will survive…We need to have digital DNA.’
David went on to say: ‘Internet penetration in Africa is at around 60% but
growing by 9% per year. There is also convergence between mobile and Internet
penetration. The businesses that succeed will be the ones that know their
customers and respond to their needs…Those (publishers) who are too cautious
will find themselves with no content (when mobile reading expands).’ After all,
Mr. Waweru observed, ‘Millennials were born in the age of technology.’
David Waweru (in grey suit) participates in a panel discussion. On the far left is Worldreaders' Bhanu Potta
‘This (affordability) is one of the
advantages that mobile has,’ Bhanu Potta, a Worldreader executive based in India,
said. ‘It is harder for print publishers to slash costs…E-books can be
affordable, and micro-payments can be made, making piracy unnecessary.’ Other
advantages that digital books have over paper books is that a lot of feedback/data
on their use can be collected, in real time, and later used for decision-making
purposes.
On digital book formats,
Valentina Morroti - Worldreader’s Digital Assets Specialist - said that E-PUB
3.0 was the new industry standard and
can support media such as movies, audio and hyperlinks (unlike previous
versions of E-PUB that resembled a slightly more advanced form of Microsoft
Notepad).
You can use the links below to
download e-book conversion (E-PUB 3.0) software for free:
- Sigil (a multi-platform EPUB ebook editor): http://www.techspot.com/downloads/5797-sigil.html
- Calibre (a powerful and easy to use e-book manager): https://calibre-ebook.com/download
- ADD SOCIAL MEDIA TO YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY
‘Social media can be overwhelming,’
Nancy Brown, a Senior Manager of Publisher and Author Relations at Worldreader,
said. ‘It’s better to use one or two (platforms) and make that your home.’ More
tips:
- Select a home for your community eg. Facebook, Twitter, blog
- Develop a weekly schedule of topics, to stay consistent, and post frequently
- Use free software apps such as Hootsuite and Buffer to schedule and automate posts, as well as track engagement data
Before creating a digital strategy,
Ms. Brown said, you need to have your metadata and other details in place as
key building blocks for success.
A
display concerning social media’s new 'live event' features
- CONTENT IS KING BUT CONTEXT IS QUEEN
There is no one-size-fits-all
approach to publishing content for the world. There is a famous saying in media
that, ‘All news is local.’ That means that unless you can show a local
connection, even to international events, your audience won’t care. One way to
connect with an audience – in any form of mass communication - is to use local
languages. For example, Worldreader’s content for India contains books in Hindi
as well as English. Carol Williams spoke of Worldreader being interested in
material that is ‘culturally relevant’. Worldreader’s digital library currently
contains books in 12 Kenyan languages. ‘Understand your target reader before
publishing your digital content,’ one speaker said during the plenary session. ‘Content is king but context is queen.’
Video of an Indian lady
reading on her mobile phone
In addition to that, different age
groups usually have different information needs and different levels of access
to information. While adults are allowed unfettered access to reading material in
most countries, Pre-Readers and Early Readers (pre-school and school-going
children) usually have restricted access to various types of content,
especially educational material meant for schools. The current trend among
publishers is to align their digital content meant for schools with the
curriculum/authorized syllabus. One publisher revealed that they had adapted
their materials to conform to the Rwandan school curriculum in order to sell
textbooks there.
- PEOPLE DON’T READ BOOKS, THEY READ AUTHORS
‘We always view the author
as the brand...The publisher’s name does help ...If you wonna get on major
media, if you want to get reviewed in the newspaper, who's publishing it (the book) really
does matter...But for now, we put the author out as the brand.’ - Brian Murray, President and CEO of
HarperCollins Publishers, on 'Content Creators as the Brand'
‘Everybody has a favourite book,’
said a speaker at the Summit before reading some passages from a popular book titled
Growing Up, about going through
puberty. David Waweru – himself an author besides being a veteran publisher –
put things into even sharper perspective when he said: ‘Many people don’t read
books, they read authors.’ As an example, he talked about the queues avid fans
will form to get their copies signed by their favourite authors. ‘It is fascinating
to go somewhere where there is a long line of people with an author at the end.
Some people will even buy the book just to get the author’s autograph.
How can we recreate this in the digital world?’
Led
Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page addresses fans in an Indigo Books store (Toronto,
Canada) during a book signing for his autobiography.
Incidentally, digital literature has
been a boon for authors. Not only do they have many more options of getting
their work out than previously in history (eg. Free E-book and Print-On-Demand
platforms) but they now have more rights to sell (digital rights, territory
rights etc) and they stand to earn higher royalties due to the reduced cost of
manufacture. ‘We give authors more for their digital content,’ Evans Rotich
from Longhorn Publishers revealed. ‘We also expose them to digital tools (to
help create their materials).’
- METADATA IS A SECRET BOOK PROMOTION TOOL
‘Before search engines can find your
book, robots have to find it,’ said Nancy Brown, Senior Manager of Publisher
and Author Relations at Worldreader. She stressed the importance of metadata - information
about your content, including ISBN
number, book title, description, key words, and rights territory (eg.
worldwide). This additional data about your content may be tiring and boring to
submit but it is absolutely critical because:
- Search engines, like Google, crawl over data using ‘spiders’ and store the information
- When a potential customer makes a query, the search engine returns a list of results, ranked according to the ‘keywords’ entered
- Complete metadata signals to search engines that your content is worth discovering
‘You know your book better than
anyone else so it is important that you give this information,’ Valentina Morroti
said. ‘The digital ecosystem is very crowded. If I have a gadget, I have
everything there. Metadata is important in order for your book to be found.
Otherwise (to search engines), it’s like a physical book with no, author, no
title and no content (just blank pages).
A section
of the audience at the Digital Reading Summit in Nairobi city
The writer is the Deputy Secretary-General of
PEN Kenya Centre; a Poet, Playwright and Novelist. For more information: www.AlexanderNderitu.com
#DigitalReading
#Wordreader #ebooks
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