Every rainy season in Ethiopia usually offers a better opportunity for the publishing and distribution of more books and the surge in reading. As schools close down for the long vacation and many people stay at home due to the rains, book reading often becomes the most comforting alternative to fight not only the cold but also isolation or voluntary confinement at home. This was at least the tradition as far as my own experience is concerned. The rainy season is also the time for libraries to be more crowded with readers who choose to spend their time acquiring knowledge or entertaining themselves with good books.
This was also the usual time for the publishing industry to witness a real boost as publishers came up with new titles so that they could meet the demand for new books. The rise in demand was usually accompanied by a fall in the copy prices of many books, thereby encouraging more titles to come to the market to meet the needs and demands of the reading public. Yet, at one point, this reality was completely changed, and book publishing did not become the enjoyable activity it used to be but one facing many threats, such as the steep rise in the cost of publishing.
Adverse economic conditions, both at home and in the international publishing industry, slowly started to change the previously promising scenario and introduce unexpected difficulties. The rise in the cost of publishing became the single most compelling challenge for the industry in Ethiopia, which was still small, weak, and struggling against the odds. The promising years of the 1970s and 1980s were fast changed into the difficult years of the 1990s and afterward. During the boom years of publishing, the average cost of books did not exceed 10 or 20 Ethiopian birr. At the time of this writing, the average price of an average-sized book has exceeded 200 birr.
The ever-rising cost of publishing remains one of the most formidable challenges not only for publishers but also for authors. It has always been a formidable challenge even in the early years of the publishing industry. One of the main causes has been identified as being the country’s inability to produce the necessary inputs that go into producing print paper that is still imported at high costs and with foreign currency that has always been in short supply. Since books are often considered luxury goods, they are never given priority in the allocation of scarce resources.
It is against this background that we should look at the further evolution of book publishing and distribution in Ethiopia which is not yet a very developed activity. This is mostly an activity that is often undertaken out of love for books or with other selfless and honest intentions. When the industry started to take shape slowly, it was exposed to chaos as there was no clear demarcation or a clear division of labor between publishing and distribution.
Individual publishers also become distributors, thereby undermining the emergence a clear-cut division of activities. Many people joined these activities with the expectation of fast profits and continued to invest their money in individual publishing ventures. They were both publishers and distributors, often without permanent addresses or shops.
Some of them made the transition from informal book publishers to formal and established ones thanks to their hard work, and persistence in the face of various difficulties. Others had established themselves as conventional publishers, built their own printing shops and emerged as success stories of the industry. Still others failed to follow suit and catch up with the momentum as they were driven out of the industry sooner than later.
It was at this moment that a phenomenon seldom known in the brief history of publishing in Ethiopia started to emerge. This was a phenomenon that went under the name of self-publishing, that is to say publishing by the authors themselves and with their own money. The authors were also publishers and distributors. They carried stacks of books from one bookshop to another, negotiated prices and handed them over to the shop owners at prices fixed after long and complex negotiations.
The trend of self-publishing emerged for many reasons. The first was that the limited number of publishers that could accommodate all the manuscripts they received from authors. The second reason was the wrong assumption that publishing at that time was perceived as a “lucrative business” that could even help the authors makes the leap into professionalism. Yet, that was a dangerous illusion because many authors borrowed a lot of money and invested in publishing projects that often flopped.
The authors subsequently failed to pay back their borrowings, thereby incurring losses that caused a lot of heartache or frustration. The few authors who managed to emerge from that ordeal unscarred chose to return to the fold of the few publishing houses operating in town. However, the publishers lacked the necessary financial muscle to accommodate many of them.
From the hundreds of new manuscripts they received from authors, publishers gave the green light to only a handful of them and rejected the rest. Even the books that were published under those straining conditions belonged to well-known or popular authors. They were paid laughable royalties that were determined by the publishers themselves without consulting the authors in any way.
The alternative to self-publishing by authors thus started with a big bang thus ended up in a whisper. It was not however totally abandoned or dead. A few courageous writers with enough money to withstand the high cost of publishing were trying to revive their hopes in self-publishing. These were the few courageous writers who were ready to pay any price to quench the thirst of seeing their names printed on the cover of their books, those authors whose guiding motto could be summarized as “publish or perish”.
Self-publishing may be an untenable alternative in this country, but this trend is also observed in other countries with advanced technical and financial means or resources. Many publishing houses are promoting self-publishing in another form. They usually accept manuscripts from authors, read and edit them, and decide on whether to publish them or not.
In case the manuscripts are accepted, they ask the authors to cover a certain share of the publishing cost while the company covers the rest under a legal agreement. Depending on their agreements other small publishing companies offer another alternative. They may request the authors to cover the cost of publishing entirely while they cover the costs of advertising, promotion, and other related costs.
There is also what is known as ‘vanity publishing’ where the author pays for the cost of all services, but also signs a restrictive contract which usually involves surrendering significant rights. Another alternative is known as hybrid publishing whereby the publisher and author collaborate and share costs and risks. In return, the author may be required to surrender some control and/or rights in return for the publisher’s financial and other contribution.
Amazon has lately introduced a new model of self-publishing. The company allows authors to take care of their manuscripts and load them on its publishing platforms, apparently to be read by editors. Then the books that meet the publishing standards of the company are considered for publication.
The authors do not incur any publishing cost while Amazon covers all the costs of distribution and advertising. The authors receive royalties for their works on the basis a legal agreements ratified by the company. This model may be attractive at first sight but many authors are expressing their dissatisfaction because royalties are slow to come, mainly books by famous authors enjoy high sales figures.
Works by unknown or less-known authors often languish on the shelves in total obscurity due to the stiff competition and little promotional work. The competition is triggered by the fact that all aspiring writers are trying their hands at publishing and millions of titles are handled by the company every year. This model is unique in the sense that is not only a pioneering publishing model but also a huge technological and financial investment that no other country has so far managed to duplicate it.
However, Amazon’s publishing model may not be described as a strictly self-publishing venture because authors have no cost to cover. Wikipedia defines self-publishing as, “The publication of media by the author at their own cost, without the involvement of a publisher. The term usually refers to written media, such as books and magazines, either as e-book or as physical copy using print on demand technology.”
Although it is a huge country with vast potentials, Ethiopia as a developing country has a highly underdeveloped publishing infrastructures and resources. It has not yet made the transition from what we may call conventional publishing to modern publishing alternatives that we have briefly described above.
There are no professional writers in this country. Authors in Ethiopia earn very little or no income from their labors and cannot venture into self-publishing which is also risky and requires big capital outlays. Thus, they are forced to wait for better times to see their dreams come true. The waiting may be long and tiresome. So is the fate of being a writer in this country, living and working in obscurity, with little recognition and no personal benefit. Most of them live and die in abject poverty with only their unpublished works and their ungratified labors as the only consolations.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 27 JUNE 2024
