Paperight and the African Books Collective: strengthening the reach of African literature

Paperight is proud to announce that is has partnered with the African Books Collective to extend and strengthen the reach of African literature, both in the home continent and abroad.

Owned and run by a collective of over 100 independent African publishers, the African Books Collective seeks to increase the visibility and strength of indigenous African literature and scholarship. Based in Oxford, ABC has already been highly successful in Europe and North America, bringing the works of internationally-celebrated authors and scholars like Meshack Asare (Ghana), Linus Asong (Cameroon) and Otok p’Bitek (Kenya), along with over 2000 other titles, largely in English, French and Swahili, to larger audiences.

A product of pan-African cooperation, the publishers that make up ABC are from 21 African countries and include university presses, NGOs and research institutes, as well as commercial ventures. Despite being “fiercely commercial” on behalf of its constituent members, as well as offering massive infrastructural and marketing support to its authors, ABC itself is a strictly non-profit body.

Now, ABC looks to further extend its influence with its agreement to offer Print on Demand titles through the new Paperight website.

Paperight enables businesses and organisations – including copy shops, schools, libraries, NGOs and others – to print books out for customers legally and easily. By turning any printer and Internet connection into a bookselling business, Paperight instantly creates bookstores everywhere – providing access to books where traditional book distribution cannot go.

Arthur Attwell, CEO of Paperight, said, “We’re thrilled to be working with ABC, since our aims align so well. ABC already do extraordinary work making African authors available to a broad audience through retailers and distributors worldwide. It’s a privilege for us to be able to increase access to these books even the remotest places.”

Justin Cox of African Books Collective said: “ABC is very happy to be making our content available through Paperight. Not only will we secure valuable income for African publishers which might have ordinarily been lost to unauthorised copying or sharing we will, more importantly, address the need for the wider dissemination of African published books while also receiving new revenue for purchased content available through Paperight’s network of on-the-spot copy shops.”

A selection of books from the African Books Collective will be made available on Paperight from 1 June.

African Books Collective website | Paperight website

Paperight 1.0 goes live!

Paperight are proud to announce the launch of their 1.0 site, which went live at 00h00 on Thursday 10 May.

This marks the end of Paperight.com’s beta stage, and the beginning of advanced and quicker functionality, including new user dashboards for outlets, instant PDF creation, and a streamlined credit top-up system.

Paperight 1.0 was developed by Cape Town-based firm Realmdigital, who have managed to create a stable, yet lightweight framework that can work efficently on low-bandwidth internet connections.

Not that we’re sacrificing aesthetics for functionality: Paperight 1.0 has all the obligatory curves and graphics, in addition to making the potentially tricky job of managing copy-licences and customer payments as simple and intuitive as possible. It’s as pretty as you’d want it; as hard-working as you need it.

This, of course, only really marks the beginning of Paperight’s proper growth, as we’ll be working non-stop to make sure Paperight grows in functionality and richness of content as our customers need it. Over the next few weeks, Paperight will grow with hundreds of documents added every week; from classic literature, to educational resources from FundZa, Siyavula and SAIDE, manuals for nurses, doctors and midwives from EBW Healthcare, and some of Africa’s most celebrated literary and scholarly works from the African Books Collective.

It’s exciting times at Paperight Towers, and we hope you’re also along for the long haul. You can check out Paperight 1.0 here.

Paperight and FundZa Literacy Trust Join Forces

Paperight is excited to announce its partnership with the FunDza Literacy Trust in bringing affordable, exciting educational material to learners and teachers across South Africa.

FunDza’s aim is to boost literacy levels among teens and young adults by making great relevant content available in book format as well as via cellphones and social media. In this way, FunDza encourages and facilitates reading for pleasure and building communities of young readers.

The stories FunDza commissions are exciting and take place in familiar South African settings, dealing with many of the issues that teens face on a daily basis. The chapters are short, understandable, and loaded with twists and cliffhangers to keep readers wanting more. The books are written specifically for the low-income youth market.

Already, through its various mobile channels, FunDza is reaching thousands of young people, promoting reading as a daily pleasure and leisure activity.

The deal with Paperight takes this a step further. Readers will now be able to print, keep and share FunDza’s short stories in paper format. In addition, schools can print out copies of the stories for use in the classroom. FunDza is also creating teacher resources to accompany the stories so that they can be used effectively in a learning environment to further literacy development and language acquisition.

Mignon Hardie, managing trustee of FunDza says: “We believe that it is profoundly empowering for young people to recognise their own worlds in the books that they read, and to feel that their stories are worth telling.”

“From our early feedback, we see that by making relevant reading material accessible to young people, we can start to build a culture of reading,” Hardie adds.

This new deal with Paperight will enable young people to have access to affordable print copies of FunDza’s short story titles anywhere in South Africa, as well as allowing schools and teachers to access new, relevant literature for use in the classroom.

“We will only see a rise in literacy rates and reading when children and teenagers have easy access to stories they really enjoy,” said Paperight Director Arthur Attwell. “By partnering with the FunDza Literacy Trust, we’re thrilled to be able to offer them that. In addition, you’ll be able to get FunDza stories – with teacher resources – just as easily and affordably, from any Paperight-registered outlet.”

Three Great Adventure Novels

Adventure stories aren’t just for kids, you know. While tales of deserted islands and giant sea monsters might seem like the preserves of the imaginations of children, it’s not the trip itself that turns an adventure novel into a great book. That’s because adventure isn’t just about finding new horizons, it’s also about finding parts of yourself that you never knew existed. And there’s nothing childish about that.

Although modern times have seemingly shrunk our world, maybe you should put aside your jadedness for a little while and reacquaint yourself with three of the greatest adventure novels ever written. Shipwrecks, sled dogs, clandestine submarine adventures and just a little bit of self-discovery – all available right now on Paperight:

Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe

Defoe’s fictional diary of a shipwrecked Spaniard in the Caribbean is the template for all great original adventure novels. It throws together all of the necessary ingredients for dangerous escapades: cannibals, pirates, mutineers, a lost fortune and – somewhat unexpectedly – packs of starving wild wolves.

Inspired by the story of Scottish castaway and real-life Ultimate Survivor Andrew Selkirk, Robinson Crusoe is about friendship across cultural lines, loyalty, discipline and personal development in difficult and alien environments. Intricately-written and surprisingly deep, Crusoe is a celebration of survival at all costs. (Although it isn’t exactly a thoughtful testament to careful seafaring and not murdering people.)

Continue reading Three Great Adventure Novels

Authors of the Week: The Brontë Sisters

The socially-awkward, undeniably brilliant early feminists, the Brontë sisters, are our featured authors this week.

Fathered by a generous Anglican priest, the Brontës’ affection-filled childhoods of imaginative games, toys and abundant literature was tempered by the death of their mother and both of their elder sisters, who had died after poor treatment at boarding school, at which all the Brontë girls except for Anne were enrolled.

After educations in more caring and less tuberculosis-filled surroundings, Anne, Charlotte and Emily all started their writing careers under male pseudonyms, following the custom of female authors at the time. Contrary to their timid public natures, however, they produced works of fiction that challenged the moral standards of Victorian Britain, shocking their readers with portrayals of women who strove towards maturity, fulfilment and independence.

Although they share many similarities in their writing, the Brontës all had their own thematic concerns and distinct narrative voices. Charlotte and Emily’s writings were particularly influenced by Romantic writings, especially those of Lord Byron: Charlotte’s Jane Eyre and Emily’s Wuthering Heights (both published in 1847) feature timid women struggling in their relationships with dark, arrogant, but frustratingly attractive men. Anne, however, thought that books should provide moral education, and was greatly influenced by her time as a governess, as well as the death of the girls’ only brother Branwell from alcoholism-onset tuberculosis.

All of the Brontës died young, in fact: none of the siblings managed to reach 40, and were all outlived by their father. But even with only a combined output of seven adult novels (four by Charlotte, two by Anne and one by Emily) and one collaborative book of poetry between them, the Brontës scaled the heights of English literature, writing some of the most influential novels of all time and paving the way for more women writers to ply their trade for the remainder of the 19th century – and a long time after that, too.

We are proud to have every Brontë novel, as well as their book of poetry, available right now on Paperight.

The Outlet Liaison Super Team

The Paperight team just doubled! Joining us this week are our three energetic (and hilarious) outlet champions. They’ll be seeing to it that Paperight spreads far and wide, while offering excellent customer service to boot! They’ve slotted into our team like old friends, and it honestly feels like they’ve been here all along. As far as introductions go, please welcome:

The Awesome Zimkita

Zimkita’s spark, energy and passion for people make her an invaluable addition to the team. We are really looking forward to learning from her six years experience working with one of South Africa’s top mobile providers.

 

The Epic Yazeed

Yazeed is a mover and shaker. Having run his family business for years, he knows how important preparation is – and he’s not afraid to bring his A-game.

 

Zukisani the Great

Zukisani is our education expert. Having spent 5 years selling selling books to schools, he knows the needs of teachers and learners on the ground.

Author of the week: SAIDE

SAIDE, one of South Africa’s most progressive educational bodies, is our featured author this week.

Founded in 1992, the South African Institute of Distance Education has been tirelessly promoting and catalysing the development of open education and technology in education in Southern Africa for the past two decades. More so than in any other place in the world, education in Southern Africa has peculiar challenges. The double burden of old colonial educational systems haphazardly reformed and (in some cases) incompetently run has resulted in the unhappy truth that Southern Africa is home to some of the worst-performing schooling systems in the world.

A non-governmental organisation, SAIDE aims to address the difficulties of educating in Southern Africa by implementing new models of open learning and distance education, promoting easy and free access to quality educational materials for educators and administrators through the use of information and communications technology.

Technology isn’t just window-dressing: technologies like the internet and e-books give their users access to free information that helps to redress past inequalities and facilitate the professional development of educators, regardless of budget or location. Because of its NGO status, SAIDE is also in a position to work collaboratively with other education providers “to facilitate networks and provide advice on the planning and implementation of distance education and the evaluation, development and sharing of courses and materials.”

At the moment, SAIDE has written a number of e-books, including valuable resources like:

  • Being a Teacher: a systematic overview of teaching as a profession and the role of teachers in our society.
  • Using Media: a guide to help teachers integrate popular media, textbooks and computer technologies into their teaching.
  • Creating a Caring School: a guide for school management teams and administrators to help them create schools that facilitate learning through positive, caring environments.

Good administration and teaching in Southern Africa is of the utmost importance, so we are very happy to say that these three books, along with a number of other SAIDE titles, are available right now on Paperight.

Author of the Week: F. Scott Fitzgerald

One of the great novelists of the 20th century – and perhaps of all time –  F. Scott Fitzgerald is our featured author this week. During a short life of glamour, heavy drinking and destructively fraught romances, Fitzgerald wrote four novels and numerous short stories that came to define the Jazz Age.

Usually brief, usually gorgeously written, his work dealt mostly with the fleetingness of youth, the superficiality of beauty and the unresolved promise of the American Dream. Underlying everything is his own existential despair: the haunting imagery of even seemingly light-hearted stories such as “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz”, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (made into a feature film in 2008) and “The Camel’s Back”, written by Fitzgerald to fund a purchase of a platinum and diamond wristwatch, expresses the inevitability of failure and the silent terror of ageing. His life – of outward beauty and rotten relationships – formed the material for many of his stories.

When Fitzgerald died in 1940, from a heart attack at the age of 44, he thought himself a failure; today, over tens of millions of copies of his books have been sold. In contrast to the society he wrote about the most, Fitzgerald’s stories are genuinely, profoundly beautiful. Perhaps unexpectedly, they’re also very easy to read, making books like The Great Gatsby a staple in high schools and colleges worldwide.

Fitzgerald’s four finished novels, This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, Tender is the Night, and The Great Gatsby – along with collections of his short stories, Flappers and Philosophers, Tales of the Jazz Age and The Complete Pat Hobby Stories – are all available right now on Paperight.

Author of the Week: Napoleon Hill

Legendary self-help writer Napoleon Hill is our featured author this week. Almost single-handedly launching the modern genre of personal-success literature with his 1937 masterpiece Think and Grow Rich, Hill’s motivational treatises have shaped the lives of – quite literally – millions of people.

Hill spent the larger portion of his life researching and investigating the everyday habits and personal belief systems of the world’s most successful and affluent people. During an encounter with industrial magnate Andrew Carnegie at the turn of the 20th century, Hill hypothesised that the process of personal success could be distilled into a simple formula that anyone could understand and, crucially, that anyone could use to change their life for the better.

In trying to work out the formula for sure success, Hill would interview and analyse the behaviour and belief systems of thousands of successful men and women from all fields of industry, attempting to figure out what made them different from the layperson. His conclusion? That most people hold no or few firm beliefs or ambitions and, because of that, are left behind. Without the “white heat of desire”, Hill postulated, “you may as well know, right here, that you can never have riches in great quantities.”

“What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve” was one of Hill’s trademark sayings. It was also the basis for his two most famous works, the seminal Think and Grow Rich, as well as the highly influential The Law of Success. Luckily for you (and your wallet), both of these books are available right now on Paperight. Success!

Author of the Week: Hamilton Wende

South African TV journalist, radio correspondent and novelist Hamilton Wende is our featured author this week. Wende’s astounding clarity and knowledge about some of the world’s most opaque and bewildering conflicts, as well as the wildly different countries in which they take place, has made his reportage an indispensable guide to understanding the story behind the stories on our screens and in our hands.

His collection of wartime dispatches, Deadlines from the Edge, offers vivid vignettes of a number of conflicts, from the unpredictable brutality of the Congo to the ideological attrition of Afghanistan. Meticulously-written, startling in its clarity, and utterly personal, Deadlines offers an inner view into the psyche of the war reporter, and the nuances of conflicts that are too readily simplified in day-to-day news reportage.

In contrast to Deadlines‘ globe-trotting, Wende’s Alan Paton Award-nominated travel memoir True North takes a more focused route, following his travels through Africa, into countries where serene and overwhelmingly beautiful landscapes are jarringly contrasted with the barbarity of civil war. Documenting Africa’s less-travelled roads, Wende captures the alienation and difficulty of being an outsider in a tumultuous place.

“I like to explore the paradox between where we find ourselves and where we want to be,” Wende writes. In both of these books, we see travel writing of vocation instead of vacation; of involvement instead of surveillance.

Deadlines from the Edge and True North are both available now on Paperight.