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African Books Collective, an Interview
by Dana Courtney, Senior Buyer
Dana Courtney, a senior buyer at YBP, has been the buyer of books from the African Books Collective (ABC) since 2005 when U.S. distribution was begun by Michigan State University Press. Dana has worked closely with Justin Cox, Marketing Manager for ABC from the beginning, and thought with all the recent changes at ABC that this would be a good time to do an interview with Justin. You'll find that interview below, done via e-mail from our offices in New Hampshire and Justin's home in New Zealand.
"Justin, please tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to be associated with ABC"
I started working in publishing in my home country of New Zealand. I worked in the marketing department at HarperCollins. It was there I saw an advert for a marketing manager position for African Books Collective in the Bookseller magazine. I had a phone conversation interview with Mary Jay at ABC, was offered the job and relocated to Oxford UK where ABC is based. I worked in Oxford for four years. It was during that time that ABC started doing our US distribution through Michigan State University Press. I moved again, this time to East Lansing, MI to be the ABC North American Manager. I was in East Lansing for two years before ABC reconfigured our business model, following reductions in funding. All staff at ABC now work from home so I took the opportunity to return to New Zealand and work from there.
"Can you tell us how and why ABC came to be, and what is their association with Michigan State University Press (MSU Press)?"
A group of African publishers met in 1985. This self-help initiative arose from the constraints publishers were experiencing in financing, marketing and distributing their books, and the dearth of African published materials in the North. Collectively, it would be possible to strengthen the economic base of independent African publishers and meet the needs of Northern libraries and other book buyers. Operations began in 1990 [we were founded in Sept 89 and starting trading in May 90], after securing sufficient support from funding agencies. ABC has, over time, adapted itself to changing markets and methodologies, although its founding ethos and aims remain unchanged. ABC is a non-profit, worldwide marketing and distribution outlet for over 1,000 titles from Africa - scholarly, literature and children's books. It is founded, owned and governed by a group of African publishers, and its participants are 116 independent and autonomous African publishers from 19 countries. It is key that our mission and ethos is to increase visibility and income for the publishers in Africa, and not to be profit-making on our own behalf; we only seek to cover our costs.
Until 2003, we handled North American marketing from the UK. That incurred expense and considerable disadvantages: not least, the requirement of many customers for a US distributor. We commissioned a consultation, and the outcome was a partnership with Michigan State University Press, who were energized by the opportunity to be the first US stockist of a critical mass of African-published books. They handle marketing and distribution in the US and Canada.
We now have four staff at ABC. Myself and Mary Jay, head of ABC, are both full-time. We have a part-time UK/Europe customer services manager and a part-time operations manager who looks after books which are physically stocked and some Print on Demand (POD) production work. When we were a fully-funded organisation we had a budget for publishing development work, and a bigger staff complement. Within this budget ABC staff were sent to Africa to work with publishers in order to understand how things operate there and attend African book fairs. African publishers and their staff were also sent to Oxford for the same reasons. I stayed in Nigeria with Fourth Dimension Publishers and worked on ABC's pilot POD project. African book fairs are a good way to meet new publishers but for the most part we rely on tips from our existing publishers and ABC's good name in Africa to prompt new publishers to submit their books for consideration, as well as trawling professional literature, attendance at conferences and networking within and outside Africa. ABC is charged by the publishers to represent "the best of African publishing", and that is what we stick to when we consider handling a title. Is the book well written and/or researched? Does it fill a gap or make a worthwhile contribution to an existing debate? Is it well published and does it have a market outside of Africa? These are the sorts of questions we ask ourselves. We don't often turn titles down and when we do they are often badly produced children's titles which end up costing us money in the end. It is very much a two-way exchange between the ABC and the publishers. ABC represents some of the most highly-regarded research institutes in Africa such as the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), and also cutting-edge independent publishers such as Mkuki na Nyota Publishers, Tanzania. While we can advise publishers on practical book publishing and marketing matters, it is the dialogue with publishers such as the above two which ensures ABC represents these books in the way they are intended. African scholars working in North America appreciate this and continue to publish with African publishers as they can get their books distributed in Africa and through ABC and MSU Press outside Africa too.
"You work closely with YBP and B&T. What's it like working with a vendor?"
YBP and B&T are our largest account and have been supportive of us from the beginning. Through YBP's approval plan we are able to get books into places we wouldn't on our own which is why we advertise the fact our books are available through them on the back of our ABC North American catalogue. Because MSU Press only has to make one shipment to YBP/B&T they save on their distribution costs, as it's much more economical to ship one load of books to YBP than one here and one there, not to mention the customer service and accounting work. We had a worrying period at the turn of the year, as our funding was reduced and we needed to restructure. The steady monthly sales from customers like YBP/B&T were one of the keys to our remaining sustainable while we reconfigured our model, a model now based on sales through wholesalers like YBP/B&T.
"You mention above that you lost your funding earlier this year. What happened and what's the situation now?"
Our 5 year donor-funded Strategic Plan ended in December 2006. With changed donor priorities, we did not secure a further 5 year Plan. The funding was underpinning publishing development work in Africa, with a staff complement of 10, and the overheads of a large warehousing operation, thus contributing to the financial viability of the marketing and distribution work. We negotiated two key new commercial partnerships - with Lightning Source the digital printer, and with Gardners the UK-based wholesaler. We completed restructured, and almost the whole of our list of over 1,000 titles is now digitized, available POD, and through POD wholesale channels. A large number of titles held in physical stock are also available through Gardners, and they also stock titles which we cannot currently digitize, such as colour illustrated art and culture books. We have instituted new IT systems to reflect the new methodologies, and we are able to mange our virtual organization with greatly reduced overheads. At the same time, we have attracted two new donor contracts to support this transition and to underpin development work with publishers.
"Why did you decide to move to POD? Would you explain the process and the benefits have you seen?"
We first started with POD in 2001. I mentioned Fourth Dimension Publishers in Nigeria above. Victor Nwankwo the publisher there was having huge trouble getting ABC well produced books from eastern Nigeria. He had been researching POD for a while and when Lightning Source opened an operation in the UK he negotiated a deal with them to do 100 of his books with no set-up costs. I helped him with the technical side of things and ABC joined with him in what became a pilot project, which ABC took to the rest of the publishers. The pilot project was a complete success so we then held a POD workshop in Oxford in 2002 for the publishers and the word started to spread. ABC managed the account with Lightning Source and each publisher was set-up as an imprint. Until the turn of the year an increasing number of new titles we received were POD, although under half of the number of new titles. We were still having to physically stock the backlist - far the greater part of the list - and where the new 2007 partnership with Lightning Source was crucial in enabling us to move to a largely POD operation, eliminating our distribution overheads. Publishers send me the digital files of their books, I format them for POD production and upload the files to Lightning Source. Some publishers are not able to provide files in a format I can use so for those they post a hardcopy and we are able to scan it for them. For the small number of titles we still have to physically stock, MSU Press warehouse them and in the UK they are available through the UK wholesaler Gardners. POD has huge benefits for ABC, the publishers and our customers. The cost to the publisher is very low when compared with shipping physical stock, and in many cases production standards are much higher. We deduct the cost of the printing from their sales income so there is also no money needed upfront. Sometimes we wouldn't receive new titles for years as the publisher could be waiting to make the shipping costs work; now all they need to do is send me an email once the book is finished and it will be available outside Africa in a week or so. I think this encourages the publishers and we will see more innovative and timely publishing because of it. Customers can now rely on being supplied. In the past if we ran out of stock we would have to source more from Africa. This could in some cases be fine but in a lot it could take months, years and sometimes never. This reliability has led to an increase in books being used in the classroom as Professors can be confident if they chose to use an ABC title that the bookstore will have the books on the shelves at the beginning of the semester. Likewise I think wholesalers such as YBP are keen to have closer relations and expand on what they already do with us. Our POD books are available through Lightning Source wholesale. Wholesalers can order directly through Lightning Source, the book is printed and shipped and we receive a check. The biggest advantage here and why we did this is the coverage the books receive on sites like Amazon. We are always in stock, shipping in 24 hours. I think this is encouraging orders in markets we struggled to reach in the past. ABC receives all the flow-on benefits from what I have described but more refreshing about this new way of working is that it allows us to concentrate on being a marketing organisation rather than getting bogged down in running a small business.
"I understand ABC has decided to move into eBooks. What was behind this decision and what is your strategy?"
We are just getting our thoughts together over eBooks but basically now most of our books are digitised it makes sense for us to offer a lot as eBooks also. Some such as the literature we may offer in their entirety. With the edited essay collections I would like to offer some of those as chapter downloads so they can be used in the classroom where the entire book might not be. Many publishers we represent publish short extent academic monographs. We can't make the sums work on these so at the moment we are unable to take them, whereas with eBooks we would not have that problem. I think it's a huge opportunity as it means the publishers are selling two sometimes three products for the price of one, ABC has another source of income, and I hope that a new group of people will now have access to this knowledge. We haven't nailed down the mechanics of all this yet as there are a lot of options out there but having our eBooks available through YBP will be a priority.
"Are there things that US academic libraries can do to assist African academic institutions and libraries?"
US academic libraries can support research institutes and universities in Africa by buying their research output from the publishers themselves, via ABC, thus contributing to their viability and visibility; and also feeding into the issue of ownership of African Studies. Scholars in Africa manifestly should be part of the dialogue about their own future, and Africa needs a strong independent publishing industry if it is to speak for itself.
"The ABC website was been down for quite some time, but I understand an all new version is about to go live. What can we expect to see"
The site is up now! Our old website relied on old technology which was hard to manage and limiting in what we could do with it. We needed to re-brand, and have a Website which reflects our new ways of working. This new site allows me to content manage without having to be a web programmer. We are able to upload things like tables of contents, entire reviews, catalogues, extracts and "look inside" type features. The search and sort functions are a lot more powerful than our old site and what I think librarians will find the most useful. Go to www.africanbookscollective.com and you'll find everything you ever dreamed of about African books.
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