Will Okadabooks really transform the average Nigerian’s mindset towards reading? I seem to think that the average Nigerian dislikes reading books. Books are not exactly the choice of acquiring knowledge for Nigerians.
But the creators of Okadabooks seem to think otherwise. They have created a platform, Okadabooks, to attract readers. According to them,
…okadabooks seeks to harness the power of the mobile phone to make it easier and cheaper for Nigerians to read. At the end of the day we are powered by the belief that Nigerians do indeed read, if given the chance.
Actually, Okadabooks is a Nigerian ebook publishing/reading platform/app. It serves a dual purpose – to help writers publish their books and to provide interesting books for readers.
The creators say that …..
…We know that every aspiring author deserves to have their books published with minimum hassle. We help ensure this by breaking down the bureaucracy of publishing and distribution by leveraging mobile devices. Rather than battling with expensive printing costs we strive to use existing technology and put books in as many mobile phones as possible. By simplifying publishing and increasing book penetration, we help ensure that more manuscripts are converted into books.
Although the books are only e-published on okadabooks, we hope to give more authors confidence in their writing by showcasing them to the world but more importantly we give authors an opportunity to make money so that they can fund their own publishing. Our end goal and objective is to create more published books.
For the readers, we deliver a high quality book reading app with a very simple SMS payment. It’s as simple as buying a caller tune on your phone. In seconds you can transform your phone into a dangerously powerful intellectual machine for consuming the very best in African literature.
Okadabooks is the future…at least that’s what we hope.
According to Okadabooks, Samsung Nigeria seems to believe in them as it recently approved the loading of the okadabooks app to 10,000 of their latest Galaxy Tab 3 10.1. It has been less than 2 months that they went live with the app and the reception has been great! Okadabooks claims that over 6000 total books have been downloaded through the app by their 1500 app users.
Really I do think Okadabooks has a chance to change Nigerians’ perspective about books – publishing and reading, though it may be restricted to Android phone users for now. I would advise the creators of Okadabooks to extend this app to other platforms in Nigeria.
