TITLE:
The Political Economy of the Publishing Industry in Nigeria
AUTHORS:
Lambert A. Ihebuzor, Noel A. Ihebuzor
KEYWORDS:
Book Publishing, Unpublished Authors, Political Economy, Power, Influence
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.3 No.6,
June
30,
2016
ABSTRACT: This paper explores the political economy of
book publishing in Nigeria. It looks at practices in the book publishing
industry and at the various forces that influence the decisions made by the
established Nigerian Book Publishers to accept or reject a manuscript for
publication. It argues that the drivers for most of these decisions are largely
socio-economic and political and that unless checked, these drivers could distort
the basic values of books which are to promote the sharing of knowledge and
cultural products for the development of a nation. The article identifies a
number of barriers that exclude manuscripts by authors with low status and
power from the shelf of the accepted manuscript list of the major book publishing
houses. It examines possible coping strategies of excluded writers, including
self-publishing, the challenges that these pose and ends by arguing that
putting in place a mechanism that would ensure that valuable manuscripts by
authors with low power and status should be seen as social responsibility by
the established publishers and governments.