Towards the digital future

According to this year's Reading the Future report, only 26% of UK book buyers had heard of a Kindle, only 41% knew what a Sony Reader was, and an overwhelming 70% said they had no intention of buying an eReader. From a South African perspective, these figures were an eye-opener, particularly in view of many South African readers' resistance to the concept of ebooks... Read more here

Focus on South Africa

The London Book Fair is now just a few months away, and there is considerable excitement in publishing circles here about the South Africa Market Focus that will be part of the fair.

In preparation for the event, the London Book Fair and the London organised a three-day workshop for representatives from South African publishers in order to prepare and orientate them for the event, as well as to guide them on how to maximise opportunities at the fair...Read more here

The Kindle arrives in South Africa

As of October, Amazon's e-book reader Kindle was made available to South Africans, and even the company's director of Kindle Books, Laura Porco, arrived in Johannesburg to announce the reader's availability...Read more here

Wrong side of the tracks?

For the past two years, an issue that has cropped up about the Cape Town International Book Fair has been the extremely high cost it involves for out-of-town publishers – and particularly small publishers - to participate in the event. In fact at this year’s fair the number of small publishers – whether from Cape Town or elsewhere in the country, was no more than a handful.

It was perhaps with this mind that independent Johannesburg-based Botsotso Publishing and NGO Khanya College teamed up to organise the Jozi Book Fair, which took place on August 8-9. Of course these two organisations did not have the benefit of two very powerful sponsors that the Cape Town Fair has – namely the Publishers’ Association of South Africa and the Frankfurt Book Fair – so it was obviously going to be on a far smaller scale – there were only 41 exhibitors – with fewer trimmings, bells and whistles.

Unlike the Cape Town fair, which takes place at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, surrounded by plush hotels, the Jozi Book Fair took place at Museum Africa in Newtown in downtown Johannesburg. This difference in location was not only indicative of practical financial considerations, but also of cultural if not political considerations. Indeed, the catalogue to the Jozi fair states that the event “is open to publishing houses which are committed to a social justice agenda and who feature contemporary and cutting-edge writing internationally and regionally”.

The two-day fair also hosted a number of seminars, launches and readings, and was preceded by a two-day workshop looking at establishing alternative means of distribution for small publishers in Africa.

On the opening of the fair itself, however, things got off to a slow start with the crowds coming in only about 11am, although the fair had officially opened at 9am. A key problem – which I heard about continuously over the next two days – was that promotion and advertising had not only been sparse, but last minute. As one bookseller told me, if he had been aware of the fair a month in advance, he could have advertised on his newsletter to customers.

Another problem was that the fair was situated on the second floor of the museum, and so visitors still had to find it, whereas the ideal would have been a venue where visitors would simply walk through the main doors to be in the exhibition hall.

Nevertheless, it was great to meet up and chat with some of my fellow small publishers again. It was wonderful to see Modjaji Books’ Colleen Higgs, Kotaz’s Mxolisi Nyezwa, Botsotso’s Allan Kolski Horwitz, Timbila’s Vonani Bila, as well as Chimurenga, Wordsetc and distributor Stephen Philips. Mid-sized independent publisher Jacana was there, as was art-book publisher David Krut Publishing. It was also good to finally meet Robin Malan of Junkets Publishing. There were also quite a few NGO publishers, and one or two publishers from other African countries.

As I said, by 11am the crowds started pouring in and at one point I had about seven people around my stand, which I was sharing with Deep South. Sunday, however, had only a trickle of visitors. Some of the exhibitors – including Frank Talk Press – did not even pitch up on the Sunday.

Some of the Jozi Book Fair’s critics described the event as a damp squib, if not a disaster. I think this criticism is a bit harsh. Plus small independent publishers in SA have for some time been talking about the possibility of having a separate book fair, as opposed to the large-scale commercial Cape Town event, and it is only natural there would be teething problems.

But we have to get the public in and so publicity and promotion is crucial.

(Published in The Bookseller September 25, 2009)

Cape Town Book Fair 2009: Finding its feet in Cape Town

With the word "recession" on almost everyone's lips, there had been some initial scepticism about the success of this year's Cape Town Book Fair in June, and 60 fewer stands in the exhibition hall added to that scepticism. However, from the first hour of the fair, the public began pouring in and by the end of the four days it was reported that a record 57,000 visitors had attended – an increase of 6,000 on last year....Read more here

Fair trade in South Africa

The Cape Town Book Fair, which will take place from 13th June to 16th, is now is its fourth year. Organised in collaboration with the Publishers’ Association of South Africa and the Frankfurt Book Fair, this year there will be a total of 250 exhibitors from 29 countries...read more here

South Africa unbowed

South Africa may have so far escaped the worst of the global economic crisis, but its effects are certainly being felt. Businesses are struggling and redundancies are on the increase. Late last year, the local book trade got a bit of shock when the Fascination Books chain went into liquidation. After all, with its 43 stores and 400 staff, Fascination was ranked the third-largest book chain in South Africa.

But one also has to contextualise the situation. First, Fascination Books was an independently owned chain and had been struggling financially for some time. Second, it focused on Christian and Afrikaans titles, thus aiming at a niche market. The books it stocked were also mainly remainders, with very few new titles. Yet while Fascination’s collapse is obviously not indicative of the state of the book market as a whole, some booksellers have viewed it as a wake-up call.

For the year ahead, local publishers are taking a cautious approach. Stephen Johnson, managing director of Random House Struik, says that there are no plans to cut back on existing projects, but new projects will be considered very carefully. Random House Struik has not seen a drop in sales of big titles, but as far as backlists are concerned, there has been a decline in orders.

Bridget Impey from independently owned Jacana Media takes a similar view in that while the publisher does not intend dropping the number of books it plans to put out, at the same time there can be no question marks about the success of a prospective title and there cannot be nice-to-haves. Whatever Jacana publishes this year has to work and there can be no risk-taking.

Impey does, however, point out that the book industry is protected slightly during an economic downturn, as while consumers will have to cut back on expensive luxuries such as overseas holidays, they can still buy books. “It’s the lipstick effect,” says Impey. “It makes you feel good and it doesn’t cost much.”

This cautious, but certainly not pessimistic, approach is also evident among the bookstores. Andrew Marjoribanks, managing director of the Wordsworth book chain in the Western Cape, says that bookstores in South Africa, unlike those in the UK for example, do not have to contend with competition from the supermarkets, so there is a bit of a cushioning effect.

Exclusive Books marketing manager Batya Green-Bricker also says that the national chain has not experienced much of a drop in sales. Book clubs are ordering fewer titles, but are definitely still ordering, and there has been an increase in sales of popular, bestseller-type titles. Book buyers are playing it safe, says Green-Bricker, buying well-known, established authors such as Wilbur Smith rather than new names.

So for most of the book trade, it looks like business as usual, but with caution required all round.


(Published in the print edition of The Bookseller, April 10, 2009)

Mega-merger for publishing in southern Africa

September has been an eventful month for the big guns of the South African publishing industry. The main news was the announcement of the merger between Random House SA and Struik Publishing, the case for which had been sitting with the Competition Commission since April.
The new company – called Random House Struik – is 50.1% owned by New Holland Publishing SA, with the balance held by the Random House Group in London. New Holland Publishing SA is fully owned by South African media group Avusa. Prior to the merger, Avusa had held 24% in Random House SA.

The new company aims to publish more than 1000 titles a year – that’s about 83 titles a month to be pumped into the market. About half of the books produced will be local titles, mainly nonfiction from the Struik, Oshun and Zebra Press imprints. Random House SA’s imprint Umuzi will continue to publish fiction and nonfiction, and though the Random House Group’s international network, local writers would be able to enjoy wider exposure.

The Random House Group will supply the balance of the output by providing Random House Struik with titles by internationally renowned authors such as Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, Salman Rushdie, Dan Brown and Bill Bryson.

In a podcast with Sunday Times books editor Tymon Smith, the newly merged company’s managing director, Stephen Johnson, highlighted that the various local imprints would be retained and that the distinct sales teams for the imprints would also be kept in place. If anything, he felt that autonomy of the imprints should be promoted more than ever before. There was also no aim to change the editorial policies of the units.

In the interview, Johnson also said that the merger would allow the combined entities to look deeper into the issue of digital publishing, especially publishing via mobile phones. He went further to say that the company would be looking into distribution overall, examining innovative ways in which to reach audiences. While in no way wishing to downplay the role of retailers – who are, as he pointed out, the ones who provide a publisher’s bread and butter – he felt that the traditional retail booksellers’ model in South Africa had “a sense of the moribund”.

I contacted Johnson to ask if he could elaborate on what he had in mind and whether he was looking towards a greater shift to online selling rather than through physical retailers. He replied that while there was no clear strategy in place at the moment, digital platforms would certainly be examined and that the company would soon be aggressively looking at new possibilities of distribution – in a nutshell, how the company would be able to make its books more widely available to readers.

This is exciting stuff, and it will be interesting to see what develops. However, another industry player says that he is sceptical of such ideas, since within the South African market it is unlikely that – in the short term, at least – publishers will be able to wean hoards of book readers away from the traditional bricks-and-mortar bookstore.

Another interesting piece of news in September was that The Mandela Rhodes Foundation had purchased a 25.1% stake in Oxford University Press SA, thus cementing a black economic empowerment deal with one of the top publishing houses in the country. The foundation says that it will use its dividends to fund scholarships at Oxford University and hopes to support 100 scholars a year by 2012.

It makes you wonder whether there will be soon be any more empowerment deals for the industry.

(First published in The Bookseller, September 2008)

Stories put to the text

South Africa faces the challenge of boosting a book-reading culture, but because new books are expensive, access to libraries in rural areas is limited and internet penetration is low, the task at times seems overwhelming. However, 80% of South Africans own a mobile phone, and an innovative concept launched in July looks set to bring short fiction to the masses via their handsets...Read more here

Pick n Read in South Africa

In a recent piece on The Bookseller, Graeme Neill reported that UK supermarket chain Tesco aims to double book sales to £200m within three years. Tesco has a 6% share of the UK book market by value and 10% by volume, which puts it close to overtaking Borders and becoming the UK's fourth-largest bookseller behind Waterstone's, WH Smith and Amazon.

In view of the aim to boost a book-reading culture in South Africa, I wondered what would happen if South Africa's national supermarket chain Pick n Pay started stocking books...Read more here

Three into one just about goes

The number of visitors to the third Cape Town Book Fair climbed by 1,000 on last year to 51,000 – a welcome increase, especially as the fair seemed to have got off to the slow start. This is encouraging, and so congratulations to fair director Vanessa Badroodien and her team.

The fair consists of three components: a trade fair for the publishing industry, a retail fair to the public (which started up only last year), and literary discussions and talks which can be enjoyed by writers and readers alike. This is a huge, challenging task which requires outstanding organisational skills, and it is hard to please everyone...Read more here

Cape Town Book Fair - Day 3

The wind was strong in Cape Town today, and I felt almost carried along as I walked down to the convention centre about 9.30am. With its being Youth Day, a public holiday, visitors started arriving in vast numbers from about 10am, and throughout the day the aisles were packed – very much like last year’s fair... Read more here

Cape Town Book Fair - Day 2

It has been a cold and overcast day in Cape Town and as I arrived at the book fair about 9.30am there were only a few visitors around. By about noon the numbers had swelled and by 4pm the aisles were very busy, and at least one ATM in the convention centre had run out of cash. But overall there has been a feeling that the fair has so far been quieter than last year, though one exhibitor did say this was preferable to last year's frenzy...Read more here

Cape Town Book Fair - Day 1

On arriving at the book fair at about 10am, my initial impression was that it was quiet with not too many visitors compared to previous years. After about two hours, however, the masses had flocked in and come lunch time I once again ended up sitting on a staircase with my tray balanced on my lap. And the trend is that the fair will become even busier on Sunday and Monday (a public holiday in South Africa)...Read more here

Cape Town - return to the fair

It’s that time of the year again, when publishers, writers and readers converge on the Cape Town Convention Centre for the annual Cape Town Book Fair. Now in its third year, the event – in partnership with the Publishers’ Association of South Africa and the Frankfurt Book Fair – looks set for another whirlwind four days of exhibitions and discussion forums from 14th to 17th June...Read more here

A high price

One of my favourite websites is ABEBooks.com, which operates as a sales intermediary for international stores specialising in used and rare books. Through ABE I have been able to obtain a number of titles from some of the small counterculture presses of the 1960s and 1970s, such as Writers Forum in the UK and Cherry Valley Editions in the US. I find the books to be reasonably priced and in good condition, although of course some titles are so rare that they might even cost a thousand dollars, which with an exchange rate of about R8 to the dollar, is a little bit over my budget...Read more here

Coming up short

In 1998, a curious incident took place in South African publishing. Writer and editor Chris van Wyk had met with a Danish organisation called South African Contact, which suggested compiling an anthology of short fiction by local writers reflecting their responses to the relatively new democracy.

Van Wyk contacted a number of writers, the stories were compiled, the writers were paid . . . and then the anthology couldn't find a publisher in South Africa...Read more here.

Profit before knowledge

As a teenager one of my favourite fictional characters was Gordon Comstock, the rather threadbare poet from George Orwell's Keep The Aspidistra Flying. I loved reading about the bookstore he worked in, and since then I held a belief that people who worked in bookstores were literary-minded, if not actually writers themselves.

In the past few years that illusion has been shattered - at least as far as South Africa's national bookstore chain Exclusive Books is concerned. Firstly, it was the experience of overhearing a customer asking a sales assistant at one branch if (oddly enough) 1984 was in stock, to which the assistant replied by asking:"Do you know the name of the author?" Then, at another branch, spotting Waiting for Godot stocked in the fiction section and finding a book of poetry located under western philosophy. A friend had enquired at yet another branch whether it had any travel books about Andalusia, and the assistant had replied:"What is that?" And just recently at a fourth branch I found a play that my own press had published displayed in the fiction section.

Granted, these could be dismissed as isolated incidents, and I admit that in the past year I did enjoy a chat with a sales assistant about Hunter S Thompson. But deteriorating product knowledge is becoming part and parcel of the retail sector in South Africa. For example, I recently encountered a sales assistant at a CD chain store who had never heard of Eric Clapton.

So, as far as bookstores are concerned, are we soon going to have sales assistants who do not know the authors of Sons and Lovers, To The Lighthouse, or Oliver Twist? This might be the case already - and I am too afraid put it to the test.

After all, South African bookstores, both large and small, are, with a handful of exceptions, not lovers of literature. Between a clothing store and a bookstore, the sole difference is the product. They are retailers in business to make a profit. It's not about the quality of the content, it's about the packaging and its potential to generate revenue.

But it is precisely product knowledge that enhances sales revenue, not ignorance. I've been amused by the reports that Waterstone's in the UK is looking into making their staff wear uniforms. I don't care about whether staff wear uniforms - all I want are staff who have a comprehensive knowledge of what they are selling and putting on the shelves.

After all, in a country such as South Africa, which is still facing a tremendous challenge in reducing illiteracy and is trying to develop a reading culture, bookstores, at the very least, should be setting an example.

(First published in The Bookseller, March issue)

A new elitism?

A few weeks back, the South African newspaper The Weekender carried a story by William Skidelsky called 'Bloggers throw down the gauntlet'. According to the story, there has been a bit of a war between newspaper book reviewers and bloggers in the UK, with figures such as academic and book reviewer John Sutherland criticising literary blogs as leading to a "degradation of literary taste". When novelist Susan Hill hit back at such remarks on her blog, a newspaper books editor told her that "no book either published or written by you will in future be reviewed on our literary pages"....Read more here

Publishers, review your support

A complaint frequently heard in South African literary circles is about the scarcity of book reviews in the newspapers. It's a complaint I often make too, but when you actually count the number of newspapers and magazines that carry book reviews, you discover that the majority of them do in fact carry such pages. The real problem relates more to the space allocated, the length of reviews, and the quality.... Read more here