In the past if one wanted to buy a book they would go to the nearest bookstore and make the purchase, easy!
It was all so conventional; the publisher printed books, bookstores stocked them, and customers went and bought them. Well some customers anyway. It’s been mentioned that in South Africa only 1% of the population are regular book buyers. When EBooks arrived, it might have had an effect on the regular buying market (in South Africa) but probably not necessarily in a positive way. Due to the outlay needed for an E-reader, and the need for an internet connection to download, the majority of South Africans still wouldn’t be able to get their hands on a book
But things are changing!
You’ve just got to love creative minds, especially when they create something that will have a huge impact on the market. Nope for once I’m not talking about myself, I’m talking about a company called Paperight.
In South Africa and many other developing countries, books are considered to be quite expensive and inaccessible to many of the population. What Paperight has done is to create a technology so that small print and copy-shops, can offer a print on demand service.
As a Publisher, whether independent or conventional, all that needs to be done is to upload the manuscript- whether fiction, non-fiction or even a school text book, to Paperight, fill out the metadata and detail about the titles and they do the rest. The copy-shops have access to the titles and are able to print and ring bind the books on demand. The publisher determines the royalty fee and the selling price is calculated. The books are sold slightly cheaper than in regular bookstores, are in areas where conventional bookstores wouldn’t usually open up, so it’s a win win situation for a market that wouldn’t usually be able to access reading materials.
As an independent publisher this makes for an ideal world. My 3 interactive, developmental books are available, in both print and EBook formats, globally via Amazon. In South Africa they are available in bookstores and via my website, and now they are available, via Paperight, to people who are being effected mostly by this phenomenal literary change. If we want more people to read, then people need access to books. This seems to be happening!