E-books are the future of reading and publishing

 E-books represent the market of the future for authors and publishers in Kenya.

At present, the country lacks a critical mass of book lovers with access to smart phones, tablets and e-readers. In a population of about 19 million phone users, less than 200,000 have smart phones. And of these, the vast majority does not buy books online. Those who do are more likely to buy a foreign title.

Digital Divide Data, one of the biggest players in the E-book market in Kenya, has sold five thousand titles since it launched operations in Kenya, many of them by foreign authors. That means other players have done fewer copies and cumulatively, it is likely that the country has bought less than 10,000 books online since last year.

DDD operates the e-kitabu online bookstore in collaboration with Text Book Centre and Safaricom. It also has a retail agreement with 21 other online bookstores, including Kobo and Amazon.

The company usually enters into contracts with publishers to stock their books in online stores for a commission based on actual sales. Locally, DDD sources for the books and converts them into e-pubs while TBC provides the retail platform and Safaricom the payment platform through M-Pesa. These firms, the publishers and authors have a formula for sharing the revenues.

It is likely that buyers with e-readers such as the Kindle, an Amazon gadget, or the Sony E-reader prefer to buy their e-books directly from stores such as Amazon but it is also likely that the number of books sold in the coming year will go up because DDD concluded contracts with several Kenyan publishers in July.

In recent months, novels about sex and sexual awakening have gained rising popularity across the world and many of those who read books such as Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James and Bared to You by Sylvia Day, prefer to read such books through their mobile gadgets because they are discreet.

But Kenyan publishers are not churning out such titles. Indeed, the Kenyan book market is heavily tilted towards fulfilling curriculum needs for lower level students at the exclusion of the adult fiction market. The demand in this segment is filled largely by American and European authors whose books are available in online bookstores.

The other popular genre of books in the Kenyan adult readers market are self help titles. Again, this is a segment that has been overlooked by all but one mainstream publisher. Besides WordAlive, which is also licensed to sell some foreign self help and motivational titles in Kenya, no other publisher meets the demands of this segment. If anything, it is now dominated by self-published authors many of who are yet to reach the pinnacle of marketing and whose books are also not readily available online. It is, therefore, not a wonder that there are so few Kenyan titles being bought online and that the Kenyans who are buying e-books are buying foreign titles.

However, there are two things which are likely to happen in the next decade that could change this scenario. The first is that, thanks to the free primary education programme introduced in 2003, there will be 1.5 million young people leaving secondary schools in the next two to three years. These segment will most likely start buying smart phones in three to four years. Which means that in another five years, there will be a critical mass of young readers with access to smart phones and tablets. The second is that by that time, there will be a wide range of books by Kenyans available in both hard copies and digitally. The confluence of these two trends will lead to the exponential growth in the e-books market, hence my opening assertion that e-books are the next publishing frontier for Kenyan authors and publishers.

Mbugua's award winning titles, Different Colours and Terrorists of The Aberdare are available in 21 online stores including e-kitabu, Amazon and iTunes. He is also the author of Reflections on the Wisdom of Steve Jobs and most recently a poetry anthology, This Land is Our Land.