New Nigerian publishing house, Masobe, launches out

Masobe Books, a new publishing house, has officially announced the flagging off of its business activities this week. Formally announcing itself to the world in a release, the Lagos-based publishing company said its dreams are, to support writers, significantly improve readership, and possibly revolutionize publishing. This it does through its four imprints: ‘Masobe’, for publishing […]

Masobe Books, a new publishing house, has officially announced the flagging off of its business activities this week.

Formally announcing itself to the world in a release, the Lagos-based publishing company said its dreams are, to support writers, significantly improve readership, and possibly revolutionize publishing. This it does through its four imprints: ‘Masobe’, for publishing mainstream fiction and non-fiction, ‘Keriku’ for self-publishing and printing services, ‘Oremaha’ for children’s literature, and ‘Bookchasers’ for book distribution and marketing.

Masobe Books also aims to tackle and surmount the typical challenges in Nigerian literature. These include, poor distribution and marketing, mediocre production, especially for self-published books, readers’ apathy and scepticism, and writers’ disillusionment with securing commensurate publication, reward, and exposure for their work.

Founder of the publishing house, Othuke Ominiabohs, who is author of two novels, ‘Odufa: A Lovers Tale’ and ‘A Conspiracy of Ravens’, said he had personally encountered these challenges, being a writer and avid reader. “So, I and a dedicated team of like-minded people, decided to do something about them. We created Masobe Books, which is a platform to protect, project and promote our literature. We like to think of Masobe Books as a family. We believe that together, as writers, readers, and publisher, we can surmount these challenges and do big things in the publishing space. Together we can read, write, create magic, and live dreams,” he said.

Masobe means ‘Let us read’ in Isoko, the language of the Isoko people from Nigeria’s Niger Delta.

Masobe Books is the publisher of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) text, ‘Sweet Sixteen; A Coming of Age Story’ by Bolaji Abdullahi among other books. Their list of authors and forthcoming books will be released in August 2019.

Also, Masobe Books has recently put out a call for submissions from June 1, and closing on June 30 2019, for writers who have new and exciting stories to tell. More information can be found on its website, www.masobebooks.com.