A Senoir Lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) has called on the publishing industry to adapt to the changing needs of readers and users of their content.

Dr Lucy A. Ry-Kottoh of the Department of Publishing Studies of KNUST said this would enable the industry to remain relevant.

She said there was the need to find out “what our customers want, how they want it, when they want it and to package it to meet their demands”.

Addressing a symposium on “50 Years of Indigenous Publishing, the Efua T. Sutherland Legacy,” in Accra last Friday, Dr Ry-Kottoh said it was important that publishers balanced the business and civil responsibility of publishing so that the country’s social values and histories could be preserved since publishing was not just about business.

The event was organised — as part of the Ghana International Book Fair — by Afram Publications Ghana Limited, an indigenous book publishing firm in the country, which was co-founded by Efua T. Sutherland.

Dr Ry-Kottoh said there was also the need to upgrade skills through training, investment in technology and collaborative publishing to produce good quality publications, and that it was not enough for publishers to sit in small corners with little resources to create content or publish a book.

“We must explore other ways, like collaborative publishing where two or more publishers could come together, pool their resources and produce good and quality publications,” she said.

She underscored the need for publishers and other institutions to mentor young authors who had stories to tell, and researchers who created or produced new knowledge to showcase Ghana and Africa.

“Little drops of water make a mighty ocean.

We can catch many people and then we can groom them to become who they are supposed to be.

So, let’s mentor young authors who have stories to tell, and young researchers who create content so that new knowledge would abound,” she said.

Dr Ry-Kottoh indicated that stakeholders must create a healthy industry and partner academia, explaining that the nexus between industry and academia was research.

“As academia educates and trains for industry, it is fair to expect industry to support academia since they are the main beneficiaries of our output,” she said.

Challenges

She said authorship and publishing were confronted with the challenge of having to monitor the sale of books and that apart from sales reports from publishers or booksellers, authors had no other way to monitor the  sale of print books.

Another challenge, she said, was about executing publishing contracts, and that “a gentleman’s agreement is still common among publishers, authors and other publishing services providers.

Only a few publishers have written agreement with their service providers. This has propensity for conflict”.

She also mentioned low skill and competence levels, the lack of access to credit, the lack of capital for small publishers,and the small size of the book market as further challenges confronting the industry.

Two other speakers at the event — poet and literary scholar, Professor Kofi Anyidoho, and the Director of the Women and Gender Studies Programme at the University of California, Davis, Professor Amina Mama — hailed the outstanding contributions of Efua T. Sutherland to the development of literary works and indigenous publishing.

They described her as a teacher, eminent writer and cultural activist who spent time to mentor younger persons, including women.

Cultural resistance

Prof. Mama described Efua Sutherland and Afram Publications as symbols of cultural resistance, adding that it could not have been easy to set up the first indigenous publishing house during those times.

“Colonialism denied that Africa had literature and culture, so she’s coming from that era, and that’s why she’s remarkable,” the feminist activist, researcher and scholar said.

Prof. Mama said it was paramount that Africa solidified and consolidated its identity, histories and heritages before exposing itself to the outside world, otherwise it would have fallen for the myths of black inferiority and “African nothingness”.

“I’m not saying that we should stick only with the indigenous. It should be the foundation so that knowing where we come from becomes the starting point that enables us to be strong, creative and to resist the suppression, the negation and the value of our own ancestry and our own ideas in the present,” she stressed.

Prof. Anyidoho said a whole generation of young people who dreamt of becoming creators, creative writers and cultural activists benefited from the celebrated writer’s role as a principal instigator through her generosity, creativity and mentorship.

He recounted his journey with Efua Sutherland from a teacher trainee to becoming one of her two research assistants at the University of Ghana, and later inspiring him to write for children.

He appealed to the government through the Ministry of Education to reinstate the Creative Writers Programme to unearth a new generation of creatives and scholars who could reignite passion in writing, reading and cultural activism.

The Board Chairperson of Afram Publications, Prof. Esi Sutherland-Addy, said Efua T. Sutherland believed that writing was a very important part of the country’s development.

SOURCE: GraphicOnline