By PRISCA SAM-DURU
Uk-based Gersy Ifeanyi Ejimofo is the founder of Digitalback Books, an e-book subscription service with a catalogue of comprehensive collection of African stories. With a BSc (Joint Hons) from the University of Birmingham and a Masters from the London School of Economics, Gersy left her career in the technology industry and launched into the world of digital subscription service that offers instant and unlimited access to literary works from across Africa and the Diaspora. Gersy who has worked on many projects for global publishers developing and implementing digital strategies internationally, spoke to Sunday Arts. Excerpts.
What is Digitalback Books all about?
Digitalback Books was launched in December 2014 and is an e-book subscription platform which offers a comprehensive collection of books written on Africa by African writers from across the world. We work with publishers from across the continent and the diaspora, to get content from them to make sure they are easily accessible. We have books from Kachifo, Z Books, African collectives and the idea behind it is that we Africans need to be more proactive about creative content. We have great writers here, great publishing houses and we have companies like Etisalat Nigeria which sponsors and encourages writing but we have a big problem around distribution as well as piracy in the country. For me, having a digital library that people can access on their mobile device and choose subscription to enable them read the book, is something exciting. That is, to use technology to circumvent all these distribution challenges that we have.
Isn’t this coming as a response to fears that hard copies may soon be history?
I think at the heart of, its really about finding a way to circumvent the distribution challenges that’s one thing but yes, people are moving towards digital reading in the West. Certain genre lend themselves better to reading digitally but I think in Nigeria and the continent, you can’t just walk into a bookshop and find the book you want to read, also ordering it is a challenge. So we are going digital to find a model that will circumvent the challenges. When exactly did you commence operation? Digitalback Books was soft launched in May till December 2014 and by soft launched, I mean that we launched first for a proof of concept. We wanted to show the market, that is the publishers that this is a product. With that you are not buying the books, you are buying access to a wide collection of books. So, since then we’ve been working really hard to get publishers to get more of their books. Now we have over 400 books and we are discussing with more publishers. Interestingly, we got shortlisted for the Etisalat Prize for Innovation and I’m so excited about it.
What informed your idea of a digital library?
Well I attended Federal Government College, Onitsha and I remember then that it was difficult to access books. Also during those days in boarding school, when people brought fiction books to school, people rushed to read, it was like gold. So, the challenge of getting books was something I remembered, it was frustrating even when we had fantastic books out there. Also, the kind of books that were available; Enid Blyton, Secret Seven were really good but now that I have kids I recognise the need for them to also read African literature as a way of exposing them to a wide variety of content. This forced me to make that available.
Before Digitalback Books, what where you doing?
Before the launch of Digitalback Books, I spent the first ten years of my career working in technology sector, serving the banking and insurance sector. At a point, I thought about what I want to do for the next ten years and I thought about what I’m so passionate about, what excites me, where can I add value and that’s when I made the transition but still within technology. The seed of Digitalback Books was planted many years ago when Heinemann announced the discontinuation of the African Writers Series. So, recognising that Africans need to take a more proactive approach to their creative content, and my love for African literature pushed me into starting this journey into digital distribution of books and its been very exciting.
What’s the response like?
The response has been fantastic. We’ve got a lot of feedback from the media, its a fantastic idea. Its a new business model having something that is focusing on African writing because there isn’t any such thing that collates our content in digital library. There’s also a lot of work to do in terms of getting classics, people want Achebe, Soyinka, Buchi Emecheta all those classics. The journey has started and we want to work for as many publishers as possible.
Why settle with distribution, what about delving into publishing?
I think there are fantastic publishers out there and everybody has different areas where they can add value. There are self published authors and great publishers but I don’t think I can add value out there. I think it is in distribution, to connect the dots, and that’s where I see technology being very relevant.
How does it work?
When you go online, you can select the subscription period of one to nine months, depending on how long you want to read and you pay up front. Then you read as many books as you want.
Isn’t this an easy meal for piracy?
Not at all. Aside subscribing to read online, you can also download our App to enable you read offline as well and at the end of the subscription period, the book disappears. So you see, you don’t own the book but just using the content.
But they say reading culture of Nigerians is poor…?
I don’t think so. People are reading and there are good books it depends on what they are looking for or what they are reading.
How do you rate African literature?
People write different themes. Its a journey and I think Africa literature is very exciting. We’ve been focusing on fiction but publishers forum have been encouraging publishing houses to look at other genres rather than focusing on literary fiction.
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