While it was my strong wish to have Shona readers on Amazon mainly because of high printing costs and piracy – the idea came more not as my idea, but as an opportunity when friends from Zimbabwe reads told me that they had shown a few copies to representatives of Worldreader who were visiting Zimbabwe and they had shown great interest in the Bhabhu Books Shona readers. So, Zimbabwe reads linked me up with Dani [Zacarias] at Worldreader and as they say, the rest is history.
The collaboration with Worldreader has been a great personal and professional development opportunity for me and Bhabhu Books. There has been a lot of e-mail exchanges, lots of paperwork, sending and resending documents. It has been an interesting journey – more like Dorothy’s when she went to the Wizard of Oz’s city. Three new titles that will be available soon are:
1. Imbwa yemunhu – a Shona novel by Ignatius Mabasa
2. Zvipfuyo nevana vazvo – a Shona reader by Tinashe Muchuri
3. Zigonye rakakora – a Shona reader by Ignatius Mabasa
Is digital the way to go in Zimbabwe? What are the sales figures? Your expectations of digital sales growth for next year?Considering that mobile phones have now found their way into very remote rural areas, killing the postal services, I can boldly say yes, the future is digital and Zimbabweans need to be ready for the revolution. No sales figures yet, but prospects look better than printed book business.