Report by Dayo Emmanuel<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Members of Journalists For Christ International Outreach who attended the just concluded Litt-Africa Conference in Ghana have shared their experiences and lessons learnt at the November 2019 fellowship in Lagos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The conference organized by\nMedia Associates International (MAI) which had participants from about 20\nAfrican countries provided a good opportunity for Christian writers, editors,\nmarketers and publishers from various backgrounds to exchange ideas for\nimproving their publishing endeavours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking at the\nfellowship, President of the Journalists For Christ, Mr. Lekan Otufodunrin who\nwas at the conference in Ghana explained the theme of the programme and share\nlessons learnt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe theme is Bringing\nWord to Life, the same thing we did in Singapore last year. We decided to\nretain the theme,\u201d he said, as he read from John 1:1-10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Continuing, Otufodunrin said, \u201cOne of the reasons for the theme is that we are talking about the word of God. As writers, we need to make the word of God real in our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWriting for the\nChristian readers is challenging because we live at a time people have so much\nto read,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recalling what happened\nduring the conference Otufodunrin said the event addressed various aspects of\npublishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOn Tuesday the opening\ncharge was about leading your publishing house rapidly in a changing time. Even\nin the Christian world publishing is changing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe program anchor said we live in a changing time but our God remains the same, the Bible says He is the same yesterday today and forevermore.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On how to adapt to the changing times and disruption of the traditional publishing cycle? He explained that \u201cMany things are going to change. We need to know and admit that things are changing. Our churches are changing. We want to reach the world, we must find out what is working, but we need to be very watchful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Explaining further,\nOtufodunrin said, \u201cWe also learnt about the Christian leader as a\ntransformation leader. We learnt about effective marketing strategies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere was a speaker from\nNigeria Lara Odebiyi who started with publishing a Christian magazine online\nbefore printing the hard copy and later holding women conferences,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere was Jennifer Karina from Kenya who shared about how to build your author\u2019s platform. In her own story, she cited an example of how God used her writing to minister to marriages in Kenya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAccording to her, writing is easy but you have to understand it. She said you must write in your area of knowledge. You must know your target audience; you must know what you are writing about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe also talked about being authentic. She\nsaid it is not enough to publish, you must be ready to market it, you must be\nthe chief marketing officer of that book and you must be able to use the social\nmedia,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dayo Emmanuel,\nAdministrative Secretary of JFC who also attended the conference also shared\nsome major highlights for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOne of the things I\nlearnt is that writing for Christian audience doesn\u2019t mean the writer should be\ncasual,\u201d he said, saying that the main speaker on the first day made so much\nsense to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe main speaker on the first day is a man with great publishing experience. He said a Christian publisher must always be at his best and must mind quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe should be able to put\nour faith into what we do and we should preach the gospel with our work. As\npublishers of the good news we must not take our clients for granted,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to him, the\nspeaker, Elliot Agyare who is the CEO of Smartline Publishing House and\nChairman of the Ghana Book Publishers Association said publishers should take\ntheir clients seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Agyare, publishers should take their clients seriously because if the job is well done both parties would gain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSomeone with 40,000\nfollowers on social media coming to you for publishing is already coming with\nhis own market. If you do it right, it is going to be a win-win situation\nbecause he is going to mention you to his audience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Emmanuel also said part\nof the lessons learnt at breakout workshops was that bookshops are disappearing\nand authors and publishers should understand this reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe speaker said\nbookshops are disappearing, newspapers are going online but the paper is still\nvery much with us. The resilience of the printed matter is still there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe also talked about\nbooks going online and we can still publish our contents. If we can\u2019t do it in\nhard copes we can take advantage of the soft copies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAccording to the\nspeaker, territories are breaking down, you don\u2019t have to be in the US to\npublish your books or to sell your books, it is never too late to start\ndocumenting our lives,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Publisher of Church Times\nNigeria, Mr. Gbanga Osinaike another participant from Nigeria said \u201cthe basic\nlessons I took from the event are from the workshops. The workshops were quite\nenlightening.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI learnt there should be\na platform for our readers and there should be a synergy between the authors and\ntheir followers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat synergy must be\nthere. I also learnt that there is a need to also give voice to the voiceless.\nParticularly in a workshop by ladies from Uganda, they wrote a book containing\nthe stories of widows that did some great things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI also learnt the need to keep pace with the new trends in publishing, not to allow modern technology to drive one away from publishing but to learn to adapt to the new trends in publishing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Members at the fellowship\nthank the participants for the briefing which they said has challenged them to\nmaximise their writing and publishing potentials. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Otufodunrin announced a plan by JFC to start a publishing organisation to encourage members to publish books and other content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Copies of African\nWriters: A Journey in Writing by MAI was shared in pairs to members. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dayo Emmanuel writes on the briefing session of the recent Litt-Africa Conference by Media Associates International in Ghana at the JFC Fellowship <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[128,139,140],"class_list":["post-475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-conference","tag-litt-africa","tag-mai"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t