you know, there are other options open to us, besides paper publishing. the options you mentioned, local local versus local foreign is fascinating: it parallels carmela garritano's distinction between "professional" films, where the model in ghana (where she gets the term) is hollywood, or its commercial equivalent elsewhere; and the opposite is local, without the spit and polish of expensive post-production finish that can cost many many millions of dollars.
i have a friend who published his work with Open Press, which is on-line, and which does not charge for accessing its publications.
i chose to publish some of my recent essays with sahara reporters and ikhide's blog because i want it out there, because i don't want to turn those pieces into theorized scholarship whose audience would be specialists only. we can thank people like adesanmi for pointing us in the direction of public intellectual work, where people like pius, perfectly trained in scholarly publishing and academic requirements, opts for this public intellectual space. if you wish to reach an audience for whom your work has relevance because it addresses them in a non-specialist fashion, you might consider such options. ede's blog does the same work, his maple tree literary supplement.
another one i should mention is africultures, a blog run by olivier barlet, with a very wide reach.
there must be other sites as well, and i think the suggestion made earlier to kwabena that he might wish to employ such sites as resources in teaching globalization is really in tune with our times.
lastly, if there is anything that we should all be trying to do, here collectively but also as a longterm goal which toyin falola strives for repeatedly, it is to bridge that oceanic space between the world of african scholarship in the west (meaning mostly in the u.s.) and in africa. i don't think the real solution to bridging that space lies in paper production, but in digital internet publication to which people in africa have ready access. it needs to be on sites that permit an audience access for free, or for a nominal fee, or else the bridge will collapse, like eshu's penis.
that's another story
ken
On 10/21/13 6:41 PM, shina73_1999@yahoo.com wrote:
"I am too ashamed to publish at home (our publishing houses are mostly giant staplers)". --Ikhide
Here goes Oga Ikhide again with him strategic something something (wetin Oga Moses call am again sef)!
But truly, without playing the infuriation game and pandering to our third world condition, publishing is really a serious and existential endeavour here. I sat with a local publisher (?) the other day and he was truly lamenting the huge national limitations that consign local publishers to the vagaries of the internal publishing condition and external cut-throat competition. By 'internal publishing conditions' I mean a situation where a local publisher is forced to source for materials outside and overcome serious governmental tariff while still maintaining a local status. Again, by 'local status,' I mean the constraint of operating within the psychological, financial and economic limits which being 'local' confers in Nigeria and Nigerian educational system. Such a local publisher is forced to either close shop or become elitist. So, within this situation, we have the 'local local' publishers and the 'local foreign' publishers. The former source everything locally and is impugned by that fact. The latter look outside for those same materials and, again by that fact, gain a measure of 'international' status that instantly takes it out of local reach and, I dare say, relevance. 'Relevance' here would imply talking above the head of local situation and being out of reach of local consumption.
I confront this dilemma of where to publish regularly. For instance, I suffered no small agony in arriving at a decision about where I would publish my forthcoming volume on Nollywood. On the one hand, I desire that my work gets to the hand of those who matter; on the other hand, I equally desire that it wouldn't by that fact be 'buried' in the diaspora beyond local availability. I have also had to make a decision to publish some essays in 'local' journals because the issues I address in those essays would only resonate here.
I remember Prof Harrow has raised similar issue with publishing when the Okey Ndibe's book post surfaced.
Does the Internet solve all the problems of publishing in Africa? Well, I don't know.
So, Oga Ikhide, the 'giant stapler' metaphor infuriatingly covers a multitude of sins!
*i'm still grounded. My bicycle repairer say him go import the thing wey spoil inside*
Adeshina Afolayan
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN
From: Ikhide <xokigbo@yahoo.com>Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2013 08:01:16 -0700 (PDT)To: Kenn Harrow<harrow@msu.edu>; USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com<USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>ReplyTo: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.comSubject: Fw: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Publishers Weekly Review of Okey Ndibe's forthcoming book, Foreign Gods, Inc.
--Ken, I will die without writing a book. I am too ashamed to publish at home (our publishing houses are mostly giant staplers), and too embarrassed to publish in the West (I am the other, they will italicize my world). As we say in my village, "it doesn't worth it!"
That is pretty much what I said on Facebook yesterday. African literature owes its prominence and survival to the West, and unlike most, I am deeply appreciative to the West and to the white man for keeping our stories alive. It has come at a huge cost though. Relying on the West to give us stature, resources and structure has been humiliating on many levels. The most important has been what's been and being lost in translation. On the other hand, what is the writer to do? Hand over a loved work to the giant staplers that call themselves publishing houses in say, Nigeria? I don't know, we may be stuck. Or maybe not. You should see the awesome works of African writers on the Internet. The Internet is fast becoming the publisher of choice for most writers of African extraction. There is hope.
Globalization has been great for us. Whoever says there is a digital divide does not know squat. Be well.- IkhideStalk my blog at www.xokigbo.comFollow me on Twitter: @ikhideJoin me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ikhide
On Sunday, October 20, 2013 12:55 PM, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu> wrote:
congrats to okey.
i wish okey, or ikhide, or someone knowledgeable about the publishing industry, would give us a comment on the choice of okey to go with this press. i would like to know, at least briefly, how such a choice to opt for this press would compare with choosing a nigerian press.
i want it clear that this is not a reproach, but rather an attempt to understand better how globalization is framing these kinds of decisions.
all i gather, going to soho's website, is that it is a small, hip new press. i don't know what the options in nigeria would be; i don't know if by publishing with soho it won't be readily available in nigeria, or africa, but rather would be going for a western set of readers? are there nigerian presses being distributed here in the states that would be attractive to writers like okey?
i look forward to reading your book okey, wherever it comes out!
ken
On 10/20/13 12:07 PM, Ikhide wrote:
--- IkhideStalk my blog at www.xokigbo.comFollow me on Twitter: @ikhideJoin me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ikhide
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