Centre for the Book's Community Publishing Project breaking ground

The Centre for the Book's Community Publishing Project (CPP) is proud to announce that twenty books have now been published with the support of its grants. This ground-breaking project has made it possible for writers to publish their own work where no other avenues were open to them.

Popular fiction - crime, romance, thrillers in all languages would be especially welcomed for future grants.

The most recent books to be published with grants from the CPP are children's books, Mogopo wa Rakgadi in Sepedi written by Mphuhle Annah Mehlape and The Princesses' Journey in isiXhosa and English by Christina Russell and illustrated by Zodwa Skeyi. Others are a playscript, Salaam by Ashraf Johaardien and a collection of poems by Phillippa Yaa de Villiers, Taller than Buildings.

It is not easy to get books written in African languages published, especially if they are not specifically for the school market. So far, Mehlape has battled to get local bookshops to stock her book. Poetry and plays are genres that most publishers are not keen to take on, except in rare cases.

The grant to Ashraf Johaardien is something of a success story.

Although Johaardien is a well known actor and playwright he was unable to interest publishers in his script until he received a grant from the CPP. Nasou Via Afrika are now considering his play for the school market. "As a direct result of the publication the play has been invited to Kuala Lumpur during 2007," says Johaardien. He sold more than a third of the print run of Salaam at his recent highly successful performance of Salaam at the Artscape in Cape Town.

The Centre for the Book has produced three very useful publications for writers and small publishers - A rough guide to small-scale and self publishing; a South African Small Publishers' Catalogue and a series of ten advice pamphlets on all aspects of writing, editing and publishing for writers. "Each of these publications has grown out of the needs and demands of the writers and small publishers we work with," says Colleen Higgs, manager of the project.

The Small Publishers' Catalogue is available as a blog and has excited a great deal of interest - in a couple of months since it went live it has had over 5000 hits and many fascinating contributions.

"The next step is to build a network of small and independent publishers. They need to be represented on bodies such as the MAPPP Seta and they need to be able to exhibit their wares collectively at the Cape Town International Book Fair".

The CPP was started with funding and a vision from Hannes van Zyl, then the CEO of NB Publishers. Since then it has received funding from Nasou Via Afrika, the MAPPP Seta and most recently the Mpumalanga Provincial Library service, who are funding the project so that the Community Publishing Project can offer grants particularly to writers in that province.