March 2010 will see the Small Publishers’ Catalogue available to buy. Here’s a preview of the cover, done by Jesse Breytenbach (crocheted image) and lettering by Hannah Morris. I love the cover and have loved working on this project with the help of Bontle Senne, Natascha Mostert and Fouad Asfour of Khanya College. We decided to put together a catalogue at the Small Publishers’ meeting we had in Jozi last August.
The Catalogue has listings from about 40 African small publishers, there are articles by Gary Cummiskey, Arthur Attwell and Aernout Zevenbergen as well as some useful resources. The Catalogue will be useful to a number of different audiences including Africana librarians, booksellers, writers, book development agencies, the media and readers who are interested in the behind the scenes aspects of the world of books and publishing.
The Catalogue should be in bookstores by the end of March 2010 and copies will be available at this year’s London Book Fair. Publishers who may not be able to get to the LBF will still be on the international publishing map.
NIPPA or the Network of Independent Publishers Pan-Africa is looking for likely prospects to sponsor and/or advertise in our Small and Indie Publishers’ 2010 Catalogue. This Pan-African publication network aims at sharing knowledge about publishing and distribution in African countries.
Modjaji Books on behalf of NIPPA has undertaken to compile and produce a catalogue of small literary and trade publishers in Africa. It is our aim to have the catalogue ready in time to represent small publishers at the London Book Fair in 2010. As most people in the book world in South Africa know, the London Book Fair has selected South Africa as its 2010 market focus country. South Africa’s publishing industry will be front and centre; showcasing publishers, books and authors over the Fair’s three days.
We propose to publish the catalogue in a directory format, in black and white on glossy paper. The size of the catalogue will be A6: 105 x 148 mm
The costs of advertising in the catalogue are:
For Inside Back Cover and Inside Front Cover: R2000
For Back Cover: R5000
For a Full page advertisement inside: R2000
For a Half page: R1200
For a Quarter page: R600
To Sponsor a Page
(narrow banner ad across the bottom of a page): R300
All advertisements will be in black and white, except inside and back covers.
All of the above prices include VAT
If you would like to advertise in the catalogue, please contact me at cdhiggs AT gmail.com or if you have suggestions of likely candidates for sponsorship or advertising, please let me know.
The African Publishing Book Record published a short incisive review of Fourth Child by Megan Hall last year. Modjaji Books is delighted that Megan Hall, the first author we published, is participating in the Badilisha Poetry X-change, next week in Cape Town.
Megan Hall
Fourth Child.
Athlone, South Africa: Modjaji Books, 2007.
55pp price not reported pap. ISBN 9780980272901
These are searingly honest poems that cut deep with deceptive simplicity. Megan Hall approaches love with a clinical romanticism, laying bare long-held hopes and illusions. Fourth Child is a complex, carefully constructed collection of poems. The overall effect is of homely comfort: the reader is invited to cuddle up by the fireside with a glass of wine and enjoy some beautiful lines and images, to share in heartbreaks and, ultimately, to savour the wonderful healing power of words. The author has a dark sense of humour that surfaces at unexpected moments where, rather than reflect a pervading sense of abandonment and disillusion, it elicits an enduring sense that hope and love will prevail.
This is a book the reader will return to repeatedly. Fourth Child is recommended for school libraries, special collections and general readers.
Peter Midgeley
University of Alberta
The African Book Publishing Record Vol 34, no. 4, 2008
Book details
