LABAF 2010: Publishers’ Forum holds at Eko Hotel today

(Adapted from The Guardian, Wed.Nov 10, 2010)

 The 12th Lagos Book and Arts Festival (LABAF 2010), begins today, Thursday at Eko Hotel and Suites inside the Cowrie Hall at Ocean View, with the very first edition of the PUBLISHERS' FORUM, featuring a two-session programme that will witness in the morning period from 10am, a Business Session among key publishing outfits in NIgeria. The second session starting at 2pm will have two publishers representing old business and new business sharing from their current work and their future plans by discussing a selection from their publishing list.

This will give the audience and writers alike the opportunity to be abreast of developments in the book market and how best to source materials and publishing opportunities.
With the title ‘Conversation: Wooing the Mass Market’, the publishers will offer the public insight into the book business and how to be part of it.

Divided into two sections, Publishers’ Forum is a business forum for publishers designed to add value to their business through critical feedback on processes, input on the most challenging areas they have to deal with and useful networking.

Decision-making executives of publishing houses will give insights into the content of books as it is in their promotion and Sales strategies. Therefore key publishers in Nigeria will collectively appraise their current operations within the context of the challenges facing their industry, brainstorm on their findings and identify key steps that can be taken as individual businesses or as a collective to improve their bottomline.

CORA pictures itself as midwife to the different facets of the creative industries in Nigeria. Therefore, what it hopes to achieve through the Publishers’ Forum is to provide a platform for Nigerian publishers to collectively brainstorm on how to improve their business.

Within the four hours marked up for the business forum, CORA intends the participants to add value to their businesses through critical feedback on their processes, input on the most challenging areas they have to deal with and useful networking. The discussions will be brought
to a close with a cocktail.

A most apt way to describe the Publishers' Forum is to call it a 'focus group' or a strategy session where the facilitator(s) serve as umpires in a series of brainstorming sessions. The forum is targeted at principals of publishing houses who seek to grow their market and are willing to engage in creative thinking towards identifying strategies that can make this possible for them whether within a collective or through their individual operations. CORA’s expectation is that cogent strategies would emerge from the session which are immediately implementable or could be built upon in future.

The Lagos Book & Art Festival is a comprehensive, four day programme of events; readings, conversations around books, art and craft displays, kiddies’ art workshops and reading sessions, book exhibitions, live music and dance. It will run from November 11 to 14 at the large Exhibition Hall of the National Theatre, Lagos. The CORA Publishers’ Forum is made possible by kind support from Evans Publishers and Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG).