BOOK SA – News

Alert! Today, BOOK SA is proud to unveil Little White Bakkie (LWB), our new e-books store for selling South African and African literature directly to the United States book market.

LWB is powered by Scribd.com and backed by the expertise of Electric Book Works.

Scribd, the document sharing service that converts files like PDFs into universally-readable e-books, recently launched an online store, making it easy to both create and sell electronic versions of already-published works. Essentially, publishers can now publish their PDF back- and frontlists as electronic documents with just a few clicks. However, because of various publishing rights minefields, the store is currently for US-based buyers only: people outside the US can’t make purchases for now. Similarly, starting a store requires a US address and bank account.

There’s no reason why this should impede South African and African publishers from making their books available on Scribd, though – as long as world and electronic rights are in place – and that’s where LWB steps in. Through my US connections we’ve created and tested the LWB Scribd store – and it works. LWB can now sell SA and African lit on behalf of the continent’s publishers directly in the USA.

We’re thrilled to welcome Modjaji Books, New Contrast and Cassava Republic as the first publishers to join the pilot project. To view the e-books they have for sale, visit the Little White Bakke e-books store on Scribd.

For more information on Little White Bakkie, including partnership terms and notes on e-books, please see LWB’s About and FAQ pages. Authors who wish to publish via LWB should ask their publishers to contact us. Authors and publishers alike will also be interested in our electronic rights – publishing contract addendum page.

To keep up with Little White Bakkie developments, you can follow LWB on Twitter.

We look forward to partnering with publishers as e-book pioneers on both the African and American continents!