CORA Art & Cultural Foundation

-Terh Agbedeh

The Publishers’ Forum, which is part of the 13th Lagos Book and Art Festival (LABAF) organized by the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA) took place on Thursday, November 17 at the Goethe-Institut, City Hall, Lagos. Since the forum started last year it has functioned as a pre festival event bringing publishers together to discuss their challenges and how they can surmount them.

The second in the series this year’s edition had the theme: ‘The Book in the Age of the Microchip’. Three speakers discussed sub themes derived from the theme in a hall filled with established and aspiring publishers.

The first to speak was Mr. Bamidele Sanusi of Best Technologies Limited, a company based in Ibadan, Oyo State. He did justice to the topic: ‘Optimising digital platforms in book editing, design and production.’ In what turned out to be a very interactive session with those in attendance making useful contributions to the discussion. The talk centered on how to move from the traditional way of producing books to the digital way outlining the many formats in which online publishing can be done. The conclusion was that the world is going digital and everyone in publishing who hoped to stay relevant must jump on the bandwagon.

Next to speak was Mr. Kazeem Muritala, a web developer with Wayne and Malcolm Inc. He spoke on the topic: ‘Optimising digital platforms for book distribution, marketing and sales’. Apart from talking about the differences between the traditional way of selling books, Muritala also talked about securing digital data particularly in book form.

The third discussion was led by Mr. Deji Toye, who is an enterprise lawyer and member of CORA. Titled; ‘E-business opportunities for the publishing industry’, it dwelt on best practices in the publishing industry worldwide, particularly in Canada and the United States and was based on the Value Chain Analysis theory by Michael Porter. He described the activities that take place in a business and related them to an analysis of the competitive strength of the business. In this case publishing of books. It was indeed an incisive paper which challenged the young people about the opportunities in the existing publishing houses. It also called on them to sit down and create a niche if they hope to go far in business.

The forum gave way to a cocktail which had two publishers speak on the topic: ‘Wooing the Mass Market’.

CORA was founded in June 1991 with the MISSION to create an enabling environment for the flourishing of the contemporary arts of Nigeria and to increase human capacity of the continent. VISION is to make Culture the Prime Investment Destination for the Country and the Continent by 2018.

The festival is supported by Vanguard Media Limited, Guardian Newspapers, TV Continental, Top Radio, Homestead Publishing/Waka About, Century Energy Services, Z-Mirage, Freedom Park, Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas Limited, British Council, Pillar Oil, Platform Petroleum, Renegade theatre, Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilisation and Goethe-Institut, amongst others.

CORA is grateful to all its partners and sponsors for making a success of one of the most important book events in the country.

see picture here.