How glut of manuscripts made me a publisher – Steve Shaba

Bookshelf: How did you delve into publishing? Steve Shaba: I started out with Heinemann in 1984 and by May 1990 I had to pull out to pursue my dream of doing what I consider as real literary publishing in Nigeria. I discovered that we had a manuscript glut. We say oil glut when there’s so […]

Bookshelf: How did you delve into publishing?

Steve Shaba: I started out with Heinemann in 1984 and by May 1990 I had to pull out to pursue my dream of doing what I consider as real literary publishing in Nigeria. I discovered that we had a manuscript glut. We say oil glut when there’s so much of it, but this time around it was too many manuscripts. When I read some of them informally, there was so much talent and artistry. Even though Heinemann had started a new series, the Heinemann Frontline Series conceived in three levels, they would not still be able to handle all the scripts. I realised that if I pursued a dream in literary publishing I would have a leeway. But while I was thinking over this, I had a call after I left Heinemann to become a publishing consultant on contract for UNICEF. So I was with them for some months. When I pulled out, I started my publishing company, Kraft Books, in 1993. 

Bookshelf: What did it take to set it up?

Shaba: I had the intellectual and human knowledge about publishing, but infrastructure and the money wasn’t there.

Bookshelf: So how did you handle this challenge?

Shaba: I started from my house. After eating I’ll clear the table and bring my manuscripts. If I have to see the editor, the printer or buy printing materials, I’ll lock up my house and put a notice there on when I will be back. That was how I started, – one man publishing.

Bookshelf: What kind of publishing are you doing?

Shaba: We are doing all three kinds of publishing. There’s no way people don’t pay to publish. It depends on the kind of publishing. Every publishing house has its own publishing philosophy and programmes and you are guided by that. If you are into educational publishing of primary or nursery school materials, you can source for a loan from the bank, go into contract publishing where you put your authors on contract and pay them royalties. But also, you can navigate from contract publishing to subsidy or author finance. You can move from author finance to contract publishing. We operate all of these. 

Bookshelf: So, in other words, you are into both traditional and self-publishing?

Shaba: We call it author finance publishing. When you say self-publishing, it means that the publisher will just print what the author has handed over. We don’t just print, we read everything we publish. Even if you have millions to pay me and your work is not good I’ll not publish. I will rather tell that person after reading it that I’m not a business man who has gone into publishing without knowing the rudiments. I have taught publishing at the university level. For literary works we look at scene, plot, characterisation, style, technic and so on. Are there elements of plagiarism? Why are you deviating? Will this book sell? We ask ourselves a whole lot of questions. If you have messed up with tenses, we resolve that with you. 

Bookshelf: What marketing challenges do you face?

Shaba: We attend conferences, at times at our own expense and it doesn’t pay. Imagine travelling to Port Harcourt for a book conference and at the end of the day, hypothetically, I make eighty thousand naira from the copies sold and I have spent over two hundred thousand naira to go there-transportation, accommodation, feeding and so on. So, we have to do that because we want to promote our authors and get people to know what we are doing. We partner with other organisations, including African Books Collection, London. They sell our books.

Most conferences are academic and literary based conferences. People who attend are literate and some of them teach, so they buy some copies, read and call us. They tell us about the book they have read and say they will like to use it. We tell them we can get copies. But maybe the book in question was financed by the author or we subsidised its publishing, a situation where there was fifty-fifty payment between us and the author. He or she paid for five hundred copies and we did the same. So because more than five hundred copies are needed, we link them to the author. Some authors may ask that the terms of agreement should be changed and ask for a contract where he or she can get royalties. So the whole thing is fluid. The basic thing about publishing is that one has to know what it takes to publish. A publisher is different from a printer. He contracts a printer to print a book. So when some authors give books directly to the printer, the books are messed up. For example, some content pages start from the left hand side instead of the right, she same for pagination. Some again don’t have respect for aesthetics of the book. They write stories for adults and the font size is fourteen points, which is for children’s books. Books like these go out and people don’t even know. But those abroad, immediately they see it, they know it is from an amateur or a hacker. 

Bookshelf: One of your books, ‘Iredi Wars’ won the Nigerian Prize for Literature in 2014. How has it fared in the market so far?

Shaba: It’s doing well. Happily, the book came out shortly before the prize. Even before the award of the prize it was already doing well. It belongs to a special genre, folkist drama and Professor Ukala is a specialist in that area. He is an authority. So, of course students were using the book. We put our books in reputable bookshops that will sell and remit money to us. 

Bookshop: If you are to advise someone who is interested in setting up a bookshop, what will you say in a few words?

Shaba: You must know the basic rudiments of publishing. Also, with a degree in English, an eye for spotting mistakes, an avid reader who is passionate about publishing, taking it as a life-long career and not a place to earn an income, one can succeed. 

Bookshop: There’s this notion that Nigerians don’t read. What do you have to say about this?

Shaba: Nigerians read. I have given a lecture on this. What we have is a shifting emphasis hitherto; people will read the published book because we have just a few channels for people to do so. But right now, you can read on your computer, your note pad, iPod, on TV and so on, because there are electronic books. Magazines were not many but now you have so many. People are reading. But a lot of people are also reading junks. If you look at the student enrolment, the increase in the number of institutions, both private and public, the number has ballooned.