Diary of a Nigerian Author

DIARY OF A NIGERIAN AUTHOR

I did read the Harry Porter story, and how that it took rejection from twelve publishers for Joanne Rowling (popularly called JK Rowling) to get the story out there. Terrible experience, we must admit, and more so for a woman. But, welcome to Nigeria.

Rejection by publishers is the least of the worries that any author might have. There are no publishers who are ready to stake their money on you, so you don’t even have the pleasure of worrying about them accepting your work. With your money, you will sure find more than enough book printers in the publishing guise who are more than ready to stake their time for your might-succeed work. Every, nay, almost every author in Nigeria is self-published.

And then comes the author that wants to outstand the rest. He chooses to get his book internationally published. Soon he finds that that is another fruitless venture he has embarked on. The international publisher also gets him to pay through his nose for his work to be published, and then gives him a paltry six copies, as Author’s copies. If he wants any other copy, he pays just like any other buyer, only this time, he’s given applicable 30%  authors’ discount depending on the number of copies he wants to print. Locally there is wahala, internationally there is brouhaha. Where is the refuge for this author?

Since he is a stubborn person who thinks the whole world must read what he has to say, he surmounts the obstacles, and still publishes the book anyhow. Then he soon found that, you may hand me your story in a book, but you cannot force me to leave my whatsapp chat to read it. The average Nigerian sticks to his social media with greater devotion than is required to create one.

In further attempts to promote his work, he organizes seminars and makes them absolutely gate-free. The hall is packed full, and his books are on display at every corner in the hall by the ushers, and on the stands. He made sure to refer to the book throughout his speaking and the programme. He even had special sessions to focus on the book. The programme ends, the people leave, and not fifty books are sold. Is this Nigerian supposed to be a writer?

Then suddenly he hears that schools might be interested in story books, the likes of which he writes. He rushes to a school principal with a copy of his book in hand as a sample, and as he rests his back for the conversation to begin, the principal snaps: “We already have that book supplied to us. Infact we just bought 500 copies yesterday.” He almost fainted. From who? Where? How?... Endless questions. The bug had caught up with him. The bug of piracy. After explaining his predicament and the struggles of his self-publishing to the principal, with his help, the pirate was trailed, and the police got involved. Two days into the matter, the officer advices the author: “Oga, just go settle with the man. You know man must eat now. Him ma na daily food he dey look for. Na only him you see, you no even know how many people dey pirate this book sef.” He tries to press further, and soon he discovers he was becoming a nuisance to the police. He leaves the matter in the hands of God.

He tries to launch his new book so he could at least gather enough money to offset the production cost. People will rather go for a birthday party than attend a book launch. And the few who came, less than half of them could afford to buy, and that few bought one copy each at the retail price. He was looking for money, he ended up spending more.

He came to the end of himself, sat down and called himself to account. Come to think of it, an author abroad will claim that he has sold more than ten million copies of a single book, yet no author in Nigeria may claim that he has sold more than five hundred thousand copies of a single book, apart from Pastor Adeboye’s Open Heavens, and Pastor Chris’s Rhapsody of Realities – for obvious reasons. So what is the problem? Is the problem with Nigerian books or with the Authors? He soon remembered that there are renown names in the country – those who ordinarily you might say should have written not less than thirty books each, but hardly would you find a book with their name to it. He reasons that, while writing several books abroad may be seen as a mark of expertise, not writing it here is a mark of wisdom.

He concludes, you don’t write a book in Nigeria because you could make money from it, you write books because you choose to. You write books because that is how you find expression for your gift, and that is who you are – a writer. By the way, this author is writing his twelfth book at the moment, and still counting.