In this article, publishing means not the printing press in general but book publishing although advances in publishing technology are closely linked to newspaper industry. In the case of Ethiopia, publishing started with newspapers and later on included books as new technology was introduced in the printing business which was a government monopoly.
Printing and publishing do not denote the same activity. Printing is a general activity that includes newspaper, book and other materials that are produced by the printing press which is defined as, “machine by which text and images are transferred from movable type to paper or other media by means of ink.” while publishing means “sharing your writing with someone else.”
The following ideas are inspired by recent trends in book publishing in the Western world, the intention being a critical appraisal of publishing in Ethiopia as compared to modern trends in global publishing industry. What does the Ethiopian publishing industry which is stuck in stagnation as far as book published is concerned although modern printing technology has been introduced a long time ago or in the 19th century to be more exact?
In Europe, “book publishing was started in1455 and the Gutenberg Bible was the first major book printed in Europe with movable type and 20 years late the first book in English was printed. Then in 1640, the Bay Psalms book was the first book printed in the North American British colonies.” In other words, publishing means making content available to the public.”
Nowadays, the development of publishing has created two methods or ways of publishing known as traditional publishing and self-publishing. There is a difference between the two types of publishing. What is known as traditional publishing is publishing as we have known it for a long time. That is to say that there are two distinct actors in the traditional publishing industry. There are publishing houses on the one side, the printers who print the books and the writers who prepare the manuscripts and hand them to the publishing houses. If we leave aside the printers whose role is only technical, that is to say, to print the books with their printing presses, we are left with the two actors that are vital for the survival of the publishing industry: publishers and writers.
In Europe, publishers emerged earlier than anywhere else, followed by the United States where book publishing was not only a massive industry in its own right, but also the motor that drove the development of the economy and society at large. The intellectual flourishing that was evident in the 20th century triggered the need to publish and disseminate new ideas. This in turn fueled the culture of book reading on a massive level and pushed educational development at a momentum never seen before.
The growth of publishing in general and publishing houses in particular helped unprecedented growth in literature worldwide and brought about parallel developments in culture and the arts. In the old days, writers did their jobs on their own or with assistance from powerful and rich people from the ruling circles particularly in Europe. The 20th century gains in the development of printing and book publishing have, so to say, liberated writers not only from dependency on powerful people who helped them publish their books but also made them professional creators of ideas and stories.
This process helped writers gain professional independence but also offered unprecedented opportunities for them to improve their lives and become even prosperous. Nowadays, it is natural to talk about bestselling authors who struck it rich and became not only millionaires but also billionaires.
The second trend in global publishing, particularly in the West, is a phenomenon called self-publishing. When I first came across the term, I thought it meant that writers had started to publish their works by themselves, paying the printing houses the money needed for the job from their own pockets. However, I later on realized that I was mistaken in my assumption as I read more about self-publishing and then engaged in the self-publishing opportunity created by the American book trade conglomerate known as Amazon Books, owned by Jeff Bezos, the second richest man on our planet at present. Amazon has invented a new system that allows authors to publish their books by using the platforms of the company. This process is not only simple but also efficient as well as beneficial both to Amazon and to the authors who publish their books and earn royalties.
Authors at Amazon write and edit their books that are approved by editors and then given the green light for publishing. They use the templates provided by the publishers to upload, edit, and perform so many operations related to their books until they reach Amazon bookstores across the world for distribution. After this, the only thing they do is to wait for their royalties that are paid in accordance to the official agreements. In this way, authors can live and work at one end of the world sitting in the privacy of their homes and perform all the publishing process and collect their royalties from their local banks. Thus, the hassles of the traditional publishing system are now effectively overcome. How amazing if not miraculous is this!
This reminds me of the time when I first took my book manuscript to a local publisher back in the 1980s and all the ups and downs, the editing, and waiting for a year or more to collect your tiny royalties. Back then, the couple of publishers that were operating in Addis Ababa, namely Ethiopian Book Centre and Kuraz Publishing had a similar system of sharing the income from the sales they printed and covered all the printing costs.
First they collected their printing and distribution costs and then share the profits between themselves and the writers on the basis of 65% and 35% sharing agreement. At that time, writing books or publishing them was very demanding and the prospect of self-publishing was unthinkable. We had to take our handwritten manuscripts to the young typists around Piazza and then submit them to the editors who returned them with so many corrections and then you have to recopy the manuscripts and take them back to the typist and so on until you work is finally approved and sent to one of the printers in towns.
Amazon has indeed revolutionized publishing in general and self-publishing in particular thanks to the amazing technological advances of recent decades and the parallel expansion in global book distribution and marketing in general. Yet, this does not mean that Amazon has created the perfect condition for authors as far their incomes are concerned. The few biggest publishing and distribution companies are controlling the production and distribution of books and royalties are fixed by them. Authors have no power or right to negotiate the level of royalties.
Until the end of the 19th century, Ethiopian church scribes and writers were using only their hands to work on parchment to write their books that were largely church liturgy. This was the only method for preparing manuscripts that lasted for hundreds of years. Although a certain Elen Sankrean, a Portuguese historian was quoted as indicating that religious books were printed as early as the 17th century, this was not confirmed by anyone who wrote on the history of printing or publishing in Ethiopia.
In more than 100 years, printing in Ethiopia has grown considerably both in terms of technology and the capital circulating in the industry. Starting with government-owned printing press, we now have private printers with varying capacities operating in the country. In contrast to this the book publishing industry has not grown at a pace many industry analysts would expect. There are various reasons for this lagging; some of which can be indicated as follows.
What drives the publishing industry is believed to be investment in the sector as well the proliferation of literature, the growth of a literate public, the number of people involved in the writing business. Book publishing in this country could not grow for these and other reasons. There are also other discouraging factors that are not conducive to the development of the publishing industry. Printers import most of the raw materials used in book printing such as paper pulps and ink. The absence of companies that produce pulps that goes into the production of printing papers.
To be fair or realistic, we can say that the above factors have been discouraging to the growth of the book publishing industry in Ethiopia. After more than one hundred years, the situation in book publishing as a business has not made considerable advances and Ethiopia remains one of the countries with the lowest number of new books published every year. The reading public is very small even by African standards and there are no professional writers, who can earn their living from writing and selling their books.
While the rest of the world has accessed the post-modern stage of publishing technological advancement, Ethiopia is still lagging or trailing behind and the actors and factors that drive the industry unfortunately seem indifferent and without initiatives to change this deplorable or unacceptable situation.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD WEDNESDAY 21 FEBRUARY 2024
In this article, publishing means not the printing press in general but book publishing although advances in publishing technology are closely linked to newspaper industry. In the case of Ethiopia, publishing started with newspapers and later on included books as new technology was introduced in the printing business which was a government monopoly.
Printing and publishing do not denote the same activity. Printing is a general activity that includes newspaper, book and other materials that are produced by the printing press which is defined as, “machine by which text and images are transferred from movable type to paper or other media by means of ink.” while publishing means “sharing your writing with someone else.”
The following ideas are inspired by recent trends in book publishing in the Western world, the intention being a critical appraisal of publishing in Ethiopia as compared to modern trends in global publishing industry. What does the Ethiopian publishing industry which is stuck in stagnation as far as book published is concerned although modern printing technology has been introduced a long time ago or in the 19th century to be more exact?
In Europe, “book publishing was started in1455 and the Gutenberg Bible was the first major book printed in Europe with movable type and 20 years late the first book in English was printed. Then in 1640, the Bay Psalms book was the first book printed in the North American British colonies.” In other words, publishing means making content available to the public.”
Nowadays, the development of publishing has created two methods or ways of publishing known as traditional publishing and self-publishing. There is a difference between the two types of publishing. What is known as traditional publishing is publishing as we have known it for a long time. That is to say that there are two distinct actors in the traditional publishing industry. There are publishing houses on the one side, the printers who print the books and the writers who prepare the manuscripts and hand them to the publishing houses. If we leave aside the printers whose role is only technical, that is to say, to print the books with their printing presses, we are left with the two actors that are vital for the survival of the publishing industry: publishers and writers.
In Europe, publishers emerged earlier than anywhere else, followed by the United States where book publishing was not only a massive industry in its own right, but also the motor that drove the development of the economy and society at large. The intellectual flourishing that was evident in the 20th century triggered the need to publish and disseminate new ideas. This in turn fueled the culture of book reading on a massive level and pushed educational development at a momentum never seen before.
The growth of publishing in general and publishing houses in particular helped unprecedented growth in literature worldwide and brought about parallel developments in culture and the arts. In the old days, writers did their jobs on their own or with assistance from powerful and rich people from the ruling circles particularly in Europe. The 20th century gains in the development of printing and book publishing have, so to say, liberated writers not only from dependency on powerful people who helped them publish their books but also made them professional creators of ideas and stories.
This process helped writers gain professional independence but also offered unprecedented opportunities for them to improve their lives and become even prosperous. Nowadays, it is natural to talk about bestselling authors who struck it rich and became not only millionaires but also billionaires.
The second trend in global publishing, particularly in the West, is a phenomenon called self-publishing. When I first came across the term, I thought it meant that writers had started to publish their works by themselves, paying the printing houses the money needed for the job from their own pockets. However, I later on realized that I was mistaken in my assumption as I read more about self-publishing and then engaged in the self-publishing opportunity created by the American book trade conglomerate known as Amazon Books, owned by Jeff Bezos, the second richest man on our planet at present. Amazon has invented a new system that allows authors to publish their books by using the platforms of the company. This process is not only simple but also efficient as well as beneficial both to Amazon and to the authors who publish their books and earn royalties.
Authors at Amazon write and edit their books that are approved by editors and then given the green light for publishing. They use the templates provided by the publishers to upload, edit, and perform so many operations related to their books until they reach Amazon bookstores across the world for distribution. After this, the only thing they do is to wait for their royalties that are paid in accordance to the official agreements. In this way, authors can live and work at one end of the world sitting in the privacy of their homes and perform all the publishing process and collect their royalties from their local banks. Thus, the hassles of the traditional publishing system are now effectively overcome. How amazing if not miraculous is this!
This reminds me of the time when I first took my book manuscript to a local publisher back in the 1980s and all the ups and downs, the editing, and waiting for a year or more to collect your tiny royalties. Back then, the couple of publishers that were operating in Addis Ababa, namely Ethiopian Book Centre and Kuraz Publishing had a similar system of sharing the income from the sales they printed and covered all the printing costs.
First they collected their printing and distribution costs and then share the profits between themselves and the writers on the basis of 65% and 35% sharing agreement. At that time, writing books or publishing them was very demanding and the prospect of self-publishing was unthinkable. We had to take our handwritten manuscripts to the young typists around Piazza and then submit them to the editors who returned them with so many corrections and then you have to recopy the manuscripts and take them back to the typist and so on until you work is finally approved and sent to one of the printers in towns.
Amazon has indeed revolutionized publishing in general and self-publishing in particular thanks to the amazing technological advances of recent decades and the parallel expansion in global book distribution and marketing in general. Yet, this does not mean that Amazon has created the perfect condition for authors as far their incomes are concerned. The few biggest publishing and distribution companies are controlling the production and distribution of books and royalties are fixed by them. Authors have no power or right to negotiate the level of royalties.
Until the end of the 19th century, Ethiopian church scribes and writers were using only their hands to work on parchment to write their books that were largely church liturgy. This was the only method for preparing manuscripts that lasted for hundreds of years. Although a certain Elen Sankrean, a Portuguese historian was quoted as indicating that religious books were printed as early as the 17th century, this was not confirmed by anyone who wrote on the history of printing or publishing in Ethiopia.
In more than 100 years, printing in Ethiopia has grown considerably both in terms of technology and the capital circulating in the industry. Starting with government-owned printing press, we now have private printers with varying capacities operating in the country. In contrast to this the book publishing industry has not grown at a pace many industry analysts would expect. There are various reasons for this lagging; some of which can be indicated as follows.
What drives the publishing industry is believed to be investment in the sector as well the proliferation of literature, the growth of a literate public, the number of people involved in the writing business. Book publishing in this country could not grow for these and other reasons. There are also other discouraging factors that are not conducive to the development of the publishing industry. Printers import most of the raw materials used in book printing such as paper pulps and ink. The absence of companies that produce pulps that goes into the production of printing papers.
To be fair or realistic, we can say that the above factors have been discouraging to the growth of the book publishing industry in Ethiopia. After more than one hundred years, the situation in book publishing as a business has not made considerable advances and Ethiopia remains one of the countries with the lowest number of new books published every year. The reading public is very small even by African standards and there are no professional writers, who can earn their living from writing and selling their books.
While the rest of the world has accessed the post-modern stage of publishing technological advancement, Ethiopia is still lagging or trailing behind and the actors and factors that drive the industry unfortunately seem indifferent and without initiatives to change this deplorable or unacceptable situation.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD WEDNESDAY 21 FEBRUARY 2024
