8th May, 2019
The President, Association of Nigerian Authors, Malam Denja Abdulahi, said lack of reward for writers’ productivity was a major challenge facing the development of the book industry in the country.
Abdulahi disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sideline of the association’s Writers/Authors Day.
The occasion was part of activities lined up to mark the week-long annual International Book Fair ongoing at the University of Lagos.
The theme of this year’s Writers/Authors Day is: Pushing the Writer’s Craft and Business in the Age of ICT.
According to him, authors and writers are faced with hostile operational environment, which has to a large extent left them with little or nothing to show for the amount of energy and resources they invested in the development of the book industry.
“I want to say that the writers in this country have come a long way even in the face of very harsh economic environment.
“And that is why part of what we are going to do here today is to celebrate our members who have done so much, inspite of the odds.
“We are also going to focus and deliberate on how we can deploy ICT, to assist these authors and writers on their business craft and advance the way we can write.
“You know we can actually write better with technology, going by the fact that almost everything has gone digital. We also want to look at how the same ICT can be used in distributing the writers’ books, to make them benefit more from their efforts,” he said.
Abdulahi then said that one of the challenges facing authors and writers was the fact that often times, their books were not sold.
According to him, this development is frustrating as well as discouraging, coupled with lack of support from the government.
He noted that the activities of the pirates were not helping issues.
“This whole issues constitute challenges to the writers and authors and the development of the book industry.
“So, there is need for collaboration across board of stakeholders in the book industry and that is the essence of this gathering.
“Government has a lot of roles to play in terms of also establishing legislation as well as introduce national book policy and other schemes that will help the circulation of books across the country.