2023-12-03 13:46:22
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Buying books produced in Benin is not within everyone’s reach. And yet, solutions exist to face this cultural challenge.
“All the accessories today, ink, paper, everything is expensive.” Christophe Tonon, director of Christon Éditions, thus diagnoses the problem that everyone will have noticed during the recent Benin national book fair. At this event which was held from November 9 to 12, book lovers encountered the high price of books produced in Benin. Like Christophe Tonon, many publishers partly explain this situation by the cost of inputs which has increased in recent years. “To calculate the cost price, you must already calculate the cost of the raw materials. The price of a ream of paper has increased over the past year, which has weakened everyone in the sector,” complains Romain Codjo, director of Racine d’Afrique editions, also information secretary of the Professional Association of Book Publishers of Benin (APEL-Benin). A book of around fifty sheets can cost up to 5,000 CFA francs. On site at this national event, we saw a book of less than 100 pages published in Benin cost up to 8,000 FCFA. But for some, books aren’t as expensive as you think. Fabroni Bill Yoclounon, journalist-writer, believes for example that the price offered to readers is not based only on the cost of inputs. “If for example a book is set at 5000F, within 5000 the author must have a percentage, the printer, the paper we bought, the ink we spent, the power we used , all these links come into play to be able to set a price,” he says.
A book culture to build
“It’s because we don’t have the culture of reading that we find that books are expensive,” says Teddy Gandigbé, cultural journalist. Books in Benin even cost less than elsewhere, he argues, citing the case of a novel by Olympe Bhêly-Quenum entitledIt was in Tigony, sold at 22 euros (around 14,737f), not including delivery costs. This novel was published by Présence Africaine in Paris. “The industry has just blossomed. People can only do with what they have,” he concludes. To have more affordable prices, some promoters are forced to turn outside to print their books. But that’s without taking into account the transport costs which are not insignificant. “Transport costs are extremely expensive when marketing books,” underlines Eskil Agbo, director of BeninLivres editions. In reality, when printed works must pass through the port or airport, the publisher must pay more, “because beyond the cost of printing outside the country which may seem cheaper, we must add the transport costs and charges related to the port or airport. And that’s all that goes into setting the selling price of the book.” The problem is that most of the books printed locally in Benin are done at the author’s own expense. For this, they are printed in small quantities. “And when it’s small quantities, the book becomes more expensive,” notes the director of BeninLivres. Few publishers commit to publishing works using their own funds. And for good reason, in an environment where book culture remains to be built, the risks of failure and therefore bankruptcy are enormous.
State intervention
Until now, the State has not put in place any financial mechanism to support the publishing of Beninese books. Currently in Senegal, publishers and writers benefit from the establishment of the Publishing Assistance Fund, endowed with six hundred million CFA francs. This structure, created in 2004 and operational since 2009, works to provide publishing houses with the necessary support, with a view to increasing their transformation into real cultural industries providing jobs and wealth, to considerably influence the gross national product. Apart from this economic imperative in a sector that provides high levels of employment, publishing houses have an educational and cultural mission. All countries that are moving forward have first worked to reduce ignorance among their populations. Ignorance is the mother of all delays in less developed countries. And this is also why in 1972, the first president of Ivory Coast Félix Houphouët-Boigny joined forces with the Senegalese presidents Léopold Sédar Senghor and the Togolese Gnassingbé Eyadéma, to found the NEA, the New African Editions. This sub-regional initiative did not survive the economic crisis of the 1980s, but created a real boost in the three countries in favor of books. “To make works published in Benin accessible to Beninese people, we simply need to create a fund to support book publishing,” suggests Eskil Agbo. This would be a fund to support the production and multiplication of books, in a context where ordinary citizens, whether pupils, students, agricultural producers or artisans, need more than ever to push back the frontiers of ignorance.
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