Yesterday whilst searching for a picture that would go with the poem Free by Miss X (Stop asking who that is! Most of you already know her!), I stumbled on a blog post about a little girl who was always taunted by her friends for being fat. She had reported this to her mom on one of such occasions, and guess what the mom did? She quietly wiped the girl’s tears, took her to an eatery and bought her a fat bowl of ice cream. The little girl consumed the junk with utmost delight, forgetting whatever had happened. This, the mom repeated whenever anyone made her little girl cry by addressing her as being fat.
This reminded me of my conversation with a tweep some few weeks back. I had tweeted about my experience as a child when my friends made fun of my then big nose and almost cat-like ear (you know, the type of ear that refuses to rest for a second. Always on “attention”). Truth is, I never saw myself that way until my friends started pointing it out to me. They would say things like Continue reading
Young Wild Free
THE PROPOSAL
I had a BBM conversation yesternight with a female contact of mine whom I have been into for a while now think will make a good writer if she can just drop her ego and pick up her writing pen as I keep persuading her to! We had this unplanned and spontaneous conversation which I think will make Jane Austen turn in her grave with envy. Okay, don’t let me bore you with too much prelude and let’s go straight to business!
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Time check: 8:42pm
HAROLD: Hello dear, the one with an infectious smile. I have a confession: do you know you always make me lost for words? I mean, I just can’t fathom how to get you out of my system, hard as I try…. Continue reading
OKADA BOOKS: THE FUTURE OF E-PUBLISHING IN NIGERIA
I went through Okadabooks site yesterday and read everything readable about the services. I must confess I was really impressed. I started having ideas concerning my forthcoming book, Young, Wild, Free. I was even tempted to abandon the idea of traditionally publishing my book and instead jump onto the Okadabooks train. I really believe in the project and can’t wait to join their team of published authors. So I decided to share what I discovered about them with you.
As much as I want to publish my book Young, Wild, Free to solve a grave societal problem (it provides answers to pertinent questions affecting young people – questions which the society tag as too “absurd” or odd to discuss in social circles e.g homosexuality, masturbation, porn, sex et al. The book proffers unorthodox and practical insights and solutions thereto) I will be a hypocrite to deny that I haven’t considered the cost of publishing or the prospects of returns on investment the book may have.
ENTER OKADABOOKS
How it works:
An author registers, uploads an epub version of his book and set the price of his book. A user of the Okadabooks app choses a book, sends an SMS, and the book gets downloaded onto his phone. Simple.
The marketing structure/platform of Okadabooks for an author is what really fascinates me. At Okadabooks, authors have been advised to set the price of their books at N100. According to Okadabooks, the author can make a ‘royalty’ of N20 for each copy of a book sold at N100. And oh! 70% of the proceeds go to the network providers (Okadabooks say they are working on this) and I believe the remaining 10% goes to Okadabooks as commission. This may sound discouraging to a potential author, but there is a bright side. Continue reading