The state of book publishing in Ethiopia has never been ideal in this country. Writing books, fiction or non-fiction, has never been a profitable job for writers. Even though publishers are the main beneficiaries, judging from their share from the sales of books, they too are not encouraged by the situation. Publishing has become a very expensive business for both the big and small publishers. The economics of publishing is obviously subject to the general economic law of demand and supply as well as the laws that regulate book prices and publishing at both local and global levels.
Price increases for printing inputs such as paper, ink, and other accessories had a direct effect on books and their selling prices. That is basically why Ethiopia is one of the lowest-ranked countries in the world for the number of books published every year, the number of readership and the business turnout from books sold in a given year.
It took me less than ten months to write a book called “Coronation Day” in Amharic and spent more than ten years to publish it. Sounds strange? Wait a little bit. The idea to write this book came to me one day or on many days. As they say, you start writing a book not at one shot, I mean, as soon as you get the inspiration, the idea or the magical first line.
Many writers find it difficult to find an idea for a book, fiction or non-fiction. I think I have no problem with getting the right idea that clicks. It usually comes to me quite unexpectedly, maybe because I am often or always thinking about writing something or about books in general. At one time, I found it difficult to think anything about writing and books, and it later on became an obsession with me. I found out there is nothing that interested me more than writing, which sort of became my obsession, my friend, and even my lover. Surprisingly, my love affair with books is not yet over.
There are at least two kinds of writers in this country, those who write for the pleasure of writing and those who write for publishing and getting royalties. Someone like me who has been writing out of obsession should be put in a particular category. Writing out of obsession was popular in the age of innocence when writing as a means of survival was not yet unknown and writers had the opportunity to support themselves by doing all kinds of odd jobs. The modern age of publishing does not make life for writers any easier.
As I said above, the economics of publishing does not support the economics of writing, that is to say writing as a means of earning a living. The late veteran editor and publisher Amare Mammo once noted that Ethiopian writers must be among the poorest in the world. He said this thirty years ago and the situation has now deteriorated. That is also why we don’t have a single professional writer in this country. At least I am not and if you know anyone please tell me where I can find them.
I started the above-indicated book, which is a slim novel of 114 pages, with great enthusiasm because I had the knack to write about my personal experiences that have a direct or indirect impact on society and the country at large. The setting of the story is the post-election 2005, which was a politically volatile process that led to some violence and controversies among the contesting parties. So this book can be described as a political novel. I wrote it fast and limited the number of pages for obvious reasons.
Writing that book was for me a kind of breathing exercise because it took the pressure off your chest and allowed you to feel freer. I spent most of the following year taking my manuscript from one publisher to the other. All the doors were slammed shut, and hope was slowly eroded and vanished at last. As the few big printing enterprises were state-owned or state-affiliated, their decision to shut their doors was understandable.
When all hope of publishing that book evaporated after a dozen of trials, I threw the manuscript on my shelf and started the day the ban on publishing books would be lifted and the price of publishing would be lowered. That day or year never came. On the contrary, the cost of printing escalated and printing became a very hazardous business. As I said above, the cost of printing was largely determined by economic events outside the country. At one point, there was talk in this country about the prospect of producing paper pulp locally in order to cut down the high cost of printing paper. Optimism seemed to rear its head at that time and every writer was dreaming about getting their manuscripts to private publishers.
However, this promise, like many other promises, remained unfulfilled. My manuscript continued to gather dust on the shelf. At one point, I decided to sit down with the manuscript and start the arduous work of re-editing or rewriting the book, adding fresh materials I could collect. The book became better, but the prospect of publishing it remained as gloomy as it was earlier.
Another election came and went but, the revised and improved version of my book continued to gather dust on the shelf. The only thing that changed was that I put the manuscript under a stuck of papers and books in order to make it invisible to me because every time I see it there was a powerful pain and a pang of pain that I felt right in my heart. This was not a solution. I rather think I was hiding my newborn baby from my own eyes and this created another form of anxiety. After all, the book was still living in my brain and there was no way of erasing it from my mind.
At one point, it dawned on me to give the unfortunate manuscript to some of my closest friends in the hope to creating a sense of having my small circle of fans that could encourage me to keep on writing. This strategy too was unsuccessful due to the lack of reading appetite among my friends who were disappointed by the events of the previous years and had not recovered from their depressive mood. In short, they did not want to see or hear anything that reminded them of those past events whose memories continued to haunt them. Comparatively speaking, I was in a better mental or psychological shape. I believed that writing my story served me as a catharsis that helped me shelter myself from the traumas of the events of the previous years.
A few years later, new publishing companies started to appear in Addis Ababa as a few former bookseller started to invest in joint publishing ventures. The biggest printing company came into being and created a sense of hope among many writers. The hope was soon dashed as the cost of printing was growing parallel to the appearance of new publishers. The growth in the cost of publishing never stopped and whiles the hope of producing pulp for paper soon became a sad memory. The fact that new publishers and printing were appearing indicated that publishing book had become a lucrative or a highly profitable business. Even the cost of paper increased in the international market, publishers and printing found ways of maintaining their profit margins and that was the main attraction.
What was always sad was that writers were increasingly marginalized because of their poverty, although a few of them had resorted to desperate self-publishing ventures that were not profitable. A new brand of writer-publishers had appeared, but the phenomenon was short-lived because of a shortage of working capital that could not be secured either from banks without collateral or from private money lenders, who, as a rule, have no confidence in the business of book publishing because the rate of return was slow and risky.
Meanwhile, my book celebrated its tenth anniversary on the same shelf where it found refuge ten years ago. Unfortunately, I don’t have Job’s patience. My patience wore thin, and I finally found the courage to publish it myself. What is surprising even to me was the fact that my zeal for writing had not diminished during all those years of trials and tribulations. My writing obsession increased as soon as my book celebrated its eleventh anniversary at a printing press where it saw the world for the first time. It was not a publishing success, although I was more interested in seeing my book in print than engaging in the business aspect of it.
Experience had taught me that no writer could be rich from publishing a book. However, the pleasure of seeing my book in print had a lasting effect. It fueled my writing obsession and my inspiration that kept my hope alive. Six years after the publication of that novel, I am working on a new one entitled “War of the Spirits”. The spirit of endurance is still alive in me. I have no idea how I will publish this work now that the cost of printing has skyrocketed. I take solace in the saying that, if there is a will, there is a way.
After many years, I recently visited a bookseller-publisher and asked him about the cost of printing books these days. “Don’t think about it if you have less than half a million birr in your account!” He told me with a derisive laughter. I thanked him for the good news and promised to return another day. Deep down, I knew that day would never come.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 13 JUNE 2025
