TAKING AFRICA'S BOOK DISTRIBUTION 
PROBLEM HEADLONG 
Without a local market for books, there is no future for 
African publishers. 
for their products. Educational 
publishing has a rationale relying 
largely on government educational 
policy (for example, in curricula), 
government procurement policy and 
government spending. This paper is 
concerned with general books and the 
specific challenge of readership and 
marketing. 
Firstly, let us be aware that the 
development of book markets has seen 
little systematic attention by either 
development agencies or governments: 
we could go as far as saying that this 
indicates an almost complete 
misunderstanding of the role of books 
as tools of national development. Above 
all, it is evidence of failure to appreciate 
how book industries function and 
develop. 
Diversity of output is the barometer of 
a healthy publishing industry, 
particularly when viewed from the angle 
of national book development. To 
achieve diversity in publishing you need 
many points of sale for reading material 
to reach as many potential book buyers 
as possible. General book output 
depends on the marketing network. 
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tools, which, correctly mastered, provide 
consistent access to a means of 
empowerment. Surely, national 
development means raising the ability of 
the population, at all levels, to make 
appropriate decisions and take action. 
Books, carriers of information, are 
therefore an irreplaceable tool of national 
development. 
At this point we must therefore ask what 
books? Carrying what information? 
African books, steeped in African 
philosophy, bearers of African history, 
vessels of African culture and view of 
life, providersof the technical knowledge 
needed in Africa? Or European books? 
American books? Is this essential tool of 
national development a mainly African 
resource or are we largely dependent on 
others for this resource? If it is the latter, 
let us be realistic: the supply of a strategic 
resource, vital for national interests is 
not in our control. 
The reason for raising the issue in this 
way is that a reading culture cannot be 
based solely on imported books. These 
books do help to broaden our outlook, 
but they do not create readers. Only a 
national literature performs that function. 
In Africa, books are a modern method of 
conveying our literature. Many changes 
in the past two generations have removed 
the social basis for oral literature. It still 
exists, but it is not the force it once was. 
Moreover, it cannot communicate the 
extent and accuracy of information 
required in our technologically-powered 
The narrow view, heard so often 
amongst bureaucrats that 'book 
security' can be measured purely in 
volume of production, is destructive. 
What is the function of 'the book'? It is 
a vehicle for knowledge, information, 
and culture. Even in a small country, 
literature, a thing that simply cannot be 
imported. 
Creating readership has tended to be 
seen as one problem. It is not. It is many 
problems occurring simultaneously. It 
is an economic problem, a cultural 
problem and an educational problem. 
Above all, it is not a theoretical problem 
but a practical one and it requires 
practical measures, applied in harmony. 
The educational problem, or issue, is 
where national educational planning has 
proved most deficient. As an ideal, books 
are the route to lifelong personal 
development. If the education of a nation 
is seen simply in terms of curricula, 
examination and certificate a huge 
potential in education is lost. Many 
ministries of education have a pitifully 
under-staffed and under-funded 
department of 'adult education'. What 
does adult education mean? It means 
throughout the nation there is literacy 
and access to books. A huge undertaking! 
Without underestimating textbooks, 
adult education is a major catalyst for 
national development and it relies on 
our so-called general books. It is a 
booming business in publishing 
industries of the North. It accelerates 
their technological progress in every 
conceivable way. 
The cultural problem has been partly 
dealt with. You need relevant reading 
material to create readers. But it goes 
deeper. Where in Africa is the book- 
51
buying ethos? The local community 
bookshop? Where are the parents who, 
naturally concerned about their 
children's well-being, buy books and 
read to their children? 
The economic problem could be itself 
divided in two ways: the ability to pay 
for a book out of a severely stretched 
family budget; and the economics of 
book distribution which determines the 
public' s access to books. 
The reason for rasing the issue intfais •way is 
t6at(irtdvngculture cannot Be Based solely 
on imported Books. These Books do help to 
This is a practical 
problem so let me be 
practical. I wish to 
describe to you how we 
have attempted to tackle 
these complex issues in 
the Zimbabwe Book 
Marketing Trust, and 
why. 
Firstly, we decided on 
fundamentals: we need 
broaden our outlook But they do not create 
readers. Only a national literature performs 
readers and we need 
books. We decided that 
access to books was the 
key to readership. Our 
thinking was simply that 
without this access the development of 
readership is an impossible task. 
Therefore, first solve the access problem 
and secondly look at the other problems. 
We discovered that this has a drawback, 
mentioned earlier, in that by the very 
nature of developing a 'book market' 
you face inter-related problems. They 
cannot be tackled one-by-one, but only 
as multi-faceted programme. Access to 
books remains the priority, but amongst 
a range of measures. 
Bookshops and libraries are the normal 
means of creating access to books. But 
in Zimbabwe bookshops require capital 
and must be viable to succeed. We 
could not set up bookshops all over the 
country. Therefore, we concentrated on 
alternatives to bookshops. 
We started to supply books by mail 
order. We advertised in the popular 
people. 
imt mm to create a consumer culture 
book for free. We are trying 
of books, which we realized 
can be devastated by free 
books. Once you have got a 
book free the idea of buying doesn't 
appeal. 
To confront the cultural problem we 
have adopted several successful schemes. 
We publish aquarterly newsletter, called 
the Grassroots Book News.Ittalks about 
books with articles from all angles. It is 
sent free to libraries, mail order 
customers, book clubs and many others 
in both rural and urban areas. Its aim is to 
generate an interest and excitemnt about 
what is happening in the book world. 
We have a project to take writers to the 
rural areas, literally to meet their potential 
readership. This has been a successful 
project and it has generated tremendous 
interest and excitement. When we take 
the writers out, we always take books - 
the two must go together. We have had 
national competitions, for example one 
called the Budding Critics Competition 
which called on people to write a critical 
local press, to the effect that through 
the post office you can get any locally 
available book wherever you are. 
And, we concentrated exclusively 
on local, relevant books. Although 
this project has grown painstakingly 
(because people are not used to mail 
order purchasing of anything) the 
extent of the response from every 
district in Zimbabwe has shown that 
books are needed and wanted by 
that function. 
We worked out, as an estimate, that 
around one per cent of Zimbabwean 
adults are book consumers (i.e. they 
purchase one book per year). We 
learnt that the immediate aim is not 
to have on hundred per cent 
readership, an impossible task, but 
to expand general book consumption 
from one per cent to, say, two per 
cent. In Zimbabwe, that would be no 
mean achievement, almost an extra 
one hundred thousand book buyers. 
We have plans on the drawing board 
to create mobile bookshops. The idea 
here is that if a permanent bookshop 
in a small town is not viable, what 
about a bookshop once a month? We 
have had mobile banks in Zimbabwe 
and we adopted a similar plan. 
Unfortunately, we have not been able 
to obtain funds to put this into 
operation, so this project remains on the 
drawing board. 
The book clubs project have tried to 
tackle the issue of affordability. We said 
to people, get together and form a book 
club. Buy books jointly and share the 
price. If there are six of you, the price is 
one-sixth each. To create incentives, we 
went further and asked the publishers to 
give a bigger discount to our book clubs. 
We also subsidized these 
mmmmmm books ourselves. Over forty 
book clubs have been 
formed in this way, but there 
are problems. The book 
clubs lack organizational 
skills. Book clubs are, in 
their way, hard work, and 
within the group somebody 
must take responsibility. 
Book clubs are in effect 
small informal libraries, run 
by their members. Our 
policy is never to give a 
52
essay on their favourite author or book. 
The response was impressive. 
We have supported the Budding Writers 
Association, a body of unpublished 
writers, for several years as a more 
general means of promoting the book 
culture. We have trained booksellers 
from Tanzania and also addressed 
meetings in Tanzania. We believe that 
in the long term the solution to many 
problems in book development lies in 
regional co-operation. We have 
supported the publishing of local books, 
such as the much-acclaimedZ)aiwf>i«feo 
Marechera: A Source Book on His 
Life and Work. 
One of Zimbabwe's pioneering 
bookshops, Grassroots Books, in 
Harare, and Bulawayo, has been 
associated with us since our inception. 
Grassroots Books, as a matter of policy, 
has promoted and stocked African books 
of all types from many countries. It has 
also been for a decade the primary source 
of all development literature in 
Zimbabwe, including political and 
social literature. It has made a major 
effort to promote appropriate books and 
intra-African book trade. 
Grassroots Books has, in Zimbabwe, 
pioneered the importation of books from 
other African countries including 
Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, Botswana, 
South Africa, Nigeria, Zambia, 
Mozambique, Mauritius and many 
others. 
We have also been associated with Anvil 
Press, a publisher devoted to the 
publishing of 'popular' books which 
serve the cause of reading. 
In our efforts to generate markets for 
Zimbabwean books we have developed 
Zimbabwe's largest book export project 
of books published by Zimbabweanowned 
publishers. About fifty thousand 
books have been exported to twentyone 
countries, but mainly in the region 
in the past eighteen months. 
As a specific project to develop new 
readers of Zimbabwean books in the 
'North' we developed the South-North 
project. This project is aimed at 
development agencies and educational 
institutions in the North and it promotes 
Zimbabwean books. As a special part 
of the South-North project, book packs 
- that is, small thematic catalogues of 
Zimbabwean books - have been 
devised. 
These activities as described form the 
main part of our marketing programme. 
They are all inter-related and have been 
designed that way. The principle is that 
African book development cannot be 
sustained without an expansion in 
readership and book distribution. 
Practically, to create readers requires 
four components, all of which you will 
have seen in our programme: affordable 
books; a book distribution 
infrastructure which creates access; 
reading matter which ordinary people 
identify with; information about books 
Obafemi Awolowo University Press 
presents: 
FAGUNWA'S LATEST TRANSLATION 
"Expedition to the Mount of Thoughf 
The third in the series ofthe late 
Chief D. O. Fagunwa's classical 
novels, Irinkerindo Ninu Igbo 
Elegbeje is now available in 
English. The new translation. 
Expedition to the Mount of 
Thought is the second 
[translation of Fagunwa into 
English after Wole Soyinka's 
translation of his first novel, 
Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo 
Irunmole as Forest of a 
Thousand Deamons published 
in 1968 by Thomas Nelson. 
Expedition to the Mount of 
Thought is translated by Dapo 
Adeniyi. 
Now available 
at 
Dapo Adeniyi 
outlets. 
and the promotion of books to new 
readers. 
We view this in the long term. Results do 
not come overnight. The challenge of 
creating book markets and generating 
new readers and book consumers is a 
huge undertaking. It will take a decade 
or more to achieve the results we desire. 
Ideally, it is a task the government should 
support in the national interest. 
Unfortunately, governments do not fully 
appreciate the issues at stake and 
therefore we struggle on as best we can 
on a scale that comes nowhere near what 
is needed. However, the point is to start 
because we believe you must start 
somewhere. 
Our efforts have confirmed over and 
over that our basic thesis is correct. The 
engine of book development is the 
creation of the book market and book 
consumers of African books. Without a 
market, there is no future for African 
publishers. IGRl 
Glendora 
Bookshop 
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