The Paperight Blog

New website how-to videos

We’re making sure that we regularly update all of the resources on our Help site to keep them as up-to-date and helpful as possible. We have just upgraded our how-to videos for using paperight.com. For Paperight veterans and newbies alike, let us show you how to do everything you need to know on the Paperight website in four easy to follow videos: registering your copy shop, topping up, downloading and printing a document and changing your account settings.

Similarly, our outlet cheat sheet is a great, quick reminder of all the steps that go into downloading a Paperight document. Download it by clicking here and print it out and stick it up next to the computer you’ll be using for downloads. This way, you and your staff will always be ready when a customer asks for a book.

Book review: how we’re using GetSmarter to get better at photography!

“As children, people learn incredible things without even realising that they’re learning because, for the most part, that learning is cloaked as play. As they get older, the sand boxes and crayons and multi-coloured clay get packed away and they’re told that, in order to learn, they need to be serious.”

A very rare and very welcome tone, being encouraged to play around while gaining valuable tips is what you get when you pick up the GetSmarter Digital Photography course manual. Created as an accompaniment to the GetSmarter Digital Photography course that is run through UCT, this manual, comprising of 10 modules, is incredibly useful to anyone who wants to learn a thing or two about the art of picture taking even if the course is not in their budget.

Take me for example. Over the last few months, I’ve been taking a manual photography course at an art college in Woodstock and I have relished every moment. From producing photograms, and developing film, to working in the dark room with enlargers, developing prints and playing around with blue and copper toners, the entire experience has been really rewarding. There is only one thing the course does not cover in enough depth: how to take a beautiful photograph.

Rather than fork out for another course, I set off to find this information elsewhere and stumbled upon the GetSmarter guys. Digital photography and manual photography may differ in their technical aspects (cameras used, photo developing techniques, photo sharing methods etc), but the same rules of artistic mastery apply in both mediums when heading out to capture an image. Knowing about the ISO and aperture necessary to capture images in different light conditions makes a phenomenal difference to the final result. Similarly, composition, despite being the least technical aspect of picture taking, is actually the hardest aspect to get right and one of the elements that has to be mastered to get that striking image.

Of the 10 modules on Digital Photography offered by GetSmarter, I found 7, 8 and 9 to be the most useful to what I was looking for. Module 7 covers the art of composition by extolling the virtues of vanishing points, leading the eye, symmetry and ‘less is more’. Module 8 covers the tricky aspects of portraiture, as well as including a great, brief history of the use of portraiture and some great classic examples of what these images look like when done correctly. And finally, module 9 covers landscape photography, which is the subject matter that I find the hardest to capture. How do you deal with peculiar light conditions and how do you capture an enormous, beautiful space without losing all of the natural contrasts and visual depth? It is easier said than done, but I’ve certainly learned a few tricks to keep in mind for future attempts.

In addition to these, the entire manual covers everything from capturing motion in photographs, to lens advice, playing with shutter speed, experimenting with exposure times, making the most of your flash and a brilliant introduction to editing techniques using Photoshop. I learned a lot and most of all, I will continue to play until I manage to capture images the way that I want them to be. The best thing is that I am more than happy to keep trying.

– Marie-Louise, Paperight Marketing Coordinator

Attention! For R90, you can get all 10 modules from Jetline Thibault Square in Cape Town who are a Paperight registered print-on-demand bookstore. You can also get individual modules for about R25 each. Go to paperight.com.outlets or SMS +27 (0)73 724 2501 to find your nearest print-on-demand bookstore!

What a(n award-winning) week!

Arthur appreciating the Accenture Apex award trophy.

Great news: Paperight won two massive innovation awards last week. Woo!

Paperight took first place at the Frankfurt Book Fair Contec Startup Showcase in Germany last Tuesday, before we picked up the Apex award for the most innovative small company in South Africa at the Accenture Innovation Index Awards in Sandton on Thursday evening.

The Contec Startup Showcase was held as a precursor to the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world’s largest and most internationally-represented publishing industry event. Paperight beat out competitors from around the world, impressing a panel of judges with both our technological innovations and our social mission.

The Accenture Innovation Index Awards was launched to promote business growth and new enterprises in aid of job creation in South Africa. The awards were open to any organisation, irrespective of industry or size, and were judged on each organisation’s innovation ecosystem – from human resources to branding, from marketing to product development. Paperight was named as the winner of the Apex award, awarded to an organisation with an annual turnover under R40 million. The winner of the Zenith award, given to an organisation with an annual turnover over R40 million, was awarded to First National Bank (FNB).

These awards come after Paperight won major publishing innovation awards in New York City and London earlier this year

So, again, a massive thank you to our partner publishers, outlets and supporters around the world. We are changing the face of publishing for the better in South Africa and abroad.

Paperight wins at CONTEC Startup Showcase at Frankfurt Book Fair!

Paperight is thrilled to announce that we have taken first place in the Contec Frankfurt Startup Showcase, held yesterday at the 56th Frankfurt Book Fair.

Contec Frankfurt is a precursor to the Frankfurt Book Fair, the largest book and media fair in the world, with keynote speeches and presentations that encourage improved engagement between different sectors of the publishing community.

The Startup Showcase took up part of the proceedings at Contec, with five publishing startups from around the world chosen as finalists. After short presentations from each of the finalists, Paperight was named as the winner of the showcase, with PubCoder from Italy named as the runner-up.

“It’s incredible and humbling to be chosen as the winners of this competition,” said Paperight CEO Arthur Attwell, “especially with such stiff competition from around the world and such an esteemed panel of experts judging the value of our work.”

The win rounds off a year of success for Paperight in international publishing innovation awards, including winning Most Entrepreneurial Startup at the O’Reilly Tools of Change Startup Showcase in New York City, as well as taking first place at the Digital Minds Innovation Awards at London Book Fair, both earlier this year. Paperight is also currently one of five finalists in the Accenture Innovation Index awards in South Africa.

“We would like to thank all of our publishers, outlets and supporters from around the world in helping us bring this amazing award back to South Africa,” said Attwell. “And we would also like to extend our thanks too to the judges and attendees at Contec for believing in our vision to bring every book within walking distance of every home.”

Paperight makes the perfect partner for teachers

Being a teacher is hard work. Teaching is incredibly rewarding, but with the long hours, the piles of marking and the shared stress of exams, teachers can do with a little extra help. Luckily, we have loads of great guides and teachers resources on Paperight to complement our host of amazing titles for high school and varsity students.

Teachers guides from SAIDE

The South African Institute for Distance Education have been making brilliant teachers’ manuals for decades. Books like Creating a Caring School and Using Media show what it takes to be a great primary and high school teacher, as well as being helpful teaching aids. Help teachers make the best of the time with their students – click here to see the complete list of books from SAIDE on Paperight.

The 53 Ways Series

The 53 Ways series by the Professional and Higher Learning Partnership is for all teachers: primary school teachers, high school teachers and even university lecturers! 53 Ways to Deal with Large Classes offers practical solutions to combat unruliness and confusion in big classes. 53 Interesting Ways of Helping your Students to Study has something to help any teacher give their student the push they need to make the grade. Check out all of PHLP’s great books, including the also-excellent Teaching Creative Writing, here.

Cambridge University Press Mathematics Dictionaries

Mathematics can be a complicated enough subject to grasp without the difficulty of crossing language barriers. With Cambridge University Press’ mathematics dictionaries, in English, Afrikaans and Xhosa, teachers in these languages have a valuable tool at their disposal to explain tricky theories to their senior primary and high school students in an easy and enjoyable way.

Big Bug Books

The first few years of a child’s life are their most important, and laying the foundation for an life of education is one of the biggest jobs a teacher can face. Big Bug Books are fantastic tools for early learning. This series offers entertaining stories for young readers, as well as teaching guides that offer tips on how to get the most learning out of each story from your children.

Many schools around South Africa are suffering from a lack of good learning and teaching guides. Want to help us identify a school that could benefit from a donation of books? Would you like to sponsor one? Let us know.

Varsity matters!

What’s available on Paperight for university and varsity students? Well, quite a lot in fact! Although we may be focusing on matric students in the run-up to their exams, our online library also contains dozens of useful titles for varsity and self-studying students alike. Here’s a quick round up of some of the best that Paperight has to offer.

—

Now What? A Guide to Studying with Unisa

With upwards of 300 000 students, Unisa is the largest university in Africa, and one of the biggest distance-learning institutions in the world. Its resources are great, but distance-learning can still be difficult! So we put together Now What?. Now What? sets out to answer all those niggling questions about how to make the most of a degree through Unisa, including sections on degree planning, time management, joining a study group, keeping motivated, dealing with stress, understanding exam questions, and finding and managing funding.

Textbooks from O’Reilly Media

O’Reilly’s Media’s technology textbooks are world-famous – among the most prescribed textbooks for computer science classes worldwide. O’Reilly has partnered with Paperight to bring better access to technology learning resources throughout South Africa, and you can see the full list of their titles here.

GetSmarter

GetSmarter partners up with prestigious universities to offer a variety of great online courses and education solutions. With nearly 130 titles to choose from, students and those interested in self study can study further on a host of different topics through Paperight. Choose from marketing, digital photography, business economics, event management, personal finance and many more! To see the complete list of GetSmarter titles, click here.

(And keep a look out – we’re making our way way through some of these fantastic titles ourselves to review them for your convenience.)

College Campus

Independent South African tertiary institute, College Campus, distributes course material for over 100 courses and modules through Paperight’s print-on-demand network. In addition to their Bachelor’s degrees in IT, Business Administration and Commerce, College Campus offers courses and certificates in sales and marketing, web development, database management, and dozens of other fields. These titles are invaluable to students at College Campus’ two main locations in Gauteng, as well as self-studiers. To see the complete list of College Campus titles, click here.

Let’s Talk Varsity/ Uniwrsityt: Wat jy moet weet

Heading off to varsity can be daunting. Despite the growing number of varsity students every year, there are not many guides to help these school leavers make the big decisions that tertiary education brings. Let’s Talk Varsity offers expert advice on issues ranging from academic choices to dealing with finances and maintaining a balanced lifestyle. With more than half of all university students never completing their degree, this book provides a valuable guide, right through to the graduation ceremony and beyond (and shows students how to have fun along the way). This title also comes in Afrikaans: Uniwrsityt: Wat jy moet weet

Blitsdruk George brings exam success to Imizamo Yethu High School!

A Paperight outlet has made a great commitment to improving matric success in their community.

Blitsdruk George teamed up with Paperight earlier this month to equip Imizamo Yethu High School with invaluable matric study resources, ensuring that the school’s learners have the best chance of passing the most important exams of their lives so far!

Imizamo Yethu was selected based on the school’s massive improvement to their matric pass rate, from 27% in 2011 to 82% in 2012. Together, Blitsdruk and Paperight hope that these aids will enable to school to sustain their success, and improve even further. (Here is a link to a story from the George Herald about the school’s improvements: http://www.georgeherald.com/news.aspx?id=19107)

Blitsdruk George has sponsored R10 000 towards purchasing the licenses for Maths and Maths Literacy past matric exam papers, as well as Learn Xtra study guides for these two subjects, to give to matric students of Imizamo Yethu High School. In addition, Blitsdruk has also sponsored the cost of printing the 795 titles for the school.

With this partnership, the learners at Imizamo Yethu have an even better chance of achieving their matric ambitions. If you are would like to get involved by adopting a school and supplying them with much-needed educational supplements, or would just like to find out more about our programme and what it takes, please contact us at team@paperight.com or 021 671 1278.

Need matric past papers? Paperight is your partner for exam success!

There’s no better way to prepare for matric than practising past papers.

And – good news – you can now print out and buy matric exam packs from your nearest copy shop through Paperight.

Paperight copy shops can print out past matric exam papers and study guides from South Africa’s biggest and most trusted educational publishers – like Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and Mindset Learn – quickly, legally and affordably. Simply walk in and ask!

We have over 200 outlets nationwide. You can find your nearest outlet by clicking here and using our interactive outlet map. Or you can SMS us your location to +27 (0)73 724 2501 and we’ll let you know when your closest Paperight outlet is.

If you don’t have a Paperight outlet near you, you can ask your nearest copy shop to sign up. In fact, any organisation (even a school!) can use Paperight to print out books, exam packs and other documents from our online library – all they need is a printer and an internet connection.

If you’d like to find a list of all the exam packs that you can print out at Paperight outlets, click here. We have every paper, every answer paper and every addendum to every subject and language examined nationally since 2008.

If you need any help or advice about how to get hold of our matric exam packs, you’re welcome to email us on team@paperight.com, or call us on 021 671 1278.

Good luck, and happy studying!

How to best market Paperight in your area

Getting to grips with marketing Paperight to your customers can seem daunting at first. The first thing, of course, is that most people don’t expect a copy shop to be a bookstore! But why shouldn’t they be? After all, Paperight outlets offer the quickest and cheapest way to get books to readers – especially important when it comes to educational books.

There is no right or wrong way to spread the word about Paperight at your shop. In fact, there are loads of options out there! We recommend trying as many as possible to see what works best for your area. To get you started, here are a few pointers on what some of our Paperight partners have been up to.

An outlet owner in George has worked hard to have his business featured in local community newspapers. His exposure has been a mixture of paid advertising and personal interest stories based on his work with the community. He is now the most successful Paperight partner in the area. Paperight hopes to address important social issues, but the added bonus is that it can be lucrative for outlets too!

Two competing Paperight outlets in Cape Town have taken their advertising out of the store and onto the street. One has dedicated an entire shop window to advertising matric study aids on Paperight, such as Oxford University Press study guides and matric exam past papers. The window faces a busy intersection and has already resulted in an increase in walk-in customers asking for Paperight titles. Another store in the area has put out a Paperight-branded sandwich board on the sidewalk to let their customers know that they’re also selling books printed.

Online advertising might not seem too glamourous, but are you aware of just how many free platforms there are to choose from like Gumtree? No longer are online classifieds just for students selling old furniture or finding new accommodation: its audience has grown. There are now tens of thousands of people who are using Gumtree and websites like it to find what they’re looking for. Why not give it a try? Other free platforms include:

As always, we have our poster archive and flyers to help you tell everyone that you’re a Paperight partner. And if you need any materials designed for your business, get in touch with our creative team here.

Happy reflections on our PYWA13 launch at Open Book

PYWA13 launch at Open Book!

On 7 September, we launched our Paperight Young Writers’ Anthology 2013 at a beautiful event during the Open Book Festival in Cape Town. Our event, titled “Young Writers, Big Futures”, featured a panel discussion that reflected on the importance of young writing in South Africa, as well as the process and results of creating a multilingual anthology. We also invited some of our young writers to give readings of their published work!

Paperight CEO Arthur Attwell hosted the discussion between essays judge Hedley Twidle, poetry judge Sarah Rowan, acclaimed author and foreword author Niq Mhlongo, and the anthology’s editor, Oscar Masinyana. The atmosphere was contagious with the happy murmuring of the contributors, their families, friends and teachers. Members of the public who arrived to hear what the youth of today is getting up to left the Fugard Theatre with a far more positive outlook. The youth are speaking up, and what they are saying is valuable.