Changing the African narrative through Digital Media

by

Chidi Nwaogu | Jun 25, 2020 | in Ecosystem best practice challenge | Building innovation capacity

State your goals.

• To serve two million African creatives by 2030, helping them earn above the minimum wage and live above the poverty line from the sales of their creative works. So far, thanks to our partnership with the International Publishers Association and the International Publishing Distribution Association, Publiseer has helped over 5,000 African creatives, including writers, musicians, and filmmakers, typically those from low-income communities, to earn over $200,000 from the sales of the creative works. We achieved this helping them fine-tune their creative works to industry standard, so they can compete on a global scale in a very competitive market. We then distribute their works to 413 partner stores through our 20+ channels, so that creatives are easily discovered and earn a living as full-time professionals. We protect their work from illegal distribution and intellectual property theft, so they truly own their works, and then they receive their royalties via African-tailored payment methods, such as into their local bank account or through their mobile money wallet, so that it's readily accessible to them.
  
  


• To bridge the gender imbalance gap in the field of digital media through our 'publiSHEr' initiative. This includes discovering and encouraging more female African writers, musicians, and filmmakers to get involved in creating and changing the African narrative. The publiSHEr initiative gives female African creatives the distribution, protection, and promotion services of Publiseer at no charge, and allow them to keep 100% of the revenue generated from the sales of their creative works, as opposed to the typical Publiseer business model where Publiseer takes 25% the revenue generated. So far, we have reduced the gender imbalance gap on our platform by over 18%, and so far, we have helped 2,192 African female creatives out of 5,212 total creatives on our platform, to earn above the minimum wage and live above the poverty line from the sales of their creative works.
  
  


• To prevent brain drain and eradicate poverty on the African continent. We are focused on helping low-income creatives live here in Africa, launch their career, and earn a living as full-time professionals without having to migrate outside the continent for a country where there are a better structure and opportunity for them, leaving a depletion of skilled people here in Africa. Many creatives have found it extremely difficult to launch their career without having a strong established connection in the industry. They have also had the creative works stolen, plagiarized, illegally distributed, and infringed upon, without any financial settlement whatsoever, and Publiseer has been working on giving these creatives a voice in the community, to be heard, to be discovered, and to be duly recognized.

What problems (particularly in value chain competitiveness and global disruption) are your community’s stakeholders facing due to the Covid-19 pandemic?

Many budding authors, musicians, and filmmakers in Africa live on a dollar per day, just as in any third world nation, and thus cannot afford to publish, promote, protect and monetize their creative works by paying for it. Thus these breath-taking works remain undiscovered for years and the gifts of these talented Creatives are put to waste. Some of these Creatives often have their works stolen or plagiarized without any due settlement.

 African writers, musicians, and filmmakers have been forced to adopt western digital content aggregators like CDBaby (musicians), BookBaby (authors), and Distribber (filmmakers), and these aggregators charge extortionate fees to have their creative works published. As such, these Creatives have very little money left to promote their works. Apart from the high distribution fees, it is increasingly impossible for African creators to monetize their creative works using existing digital content aggregators because they weren't tailored for the African creator.

First, these aggregators pay royalties via Paypal, which most African countries are unable to use to receive money, and those who pay into bank accounts charge a very high transaction fee, and this doesn't make sense, especially for African creators that don’t make much every month, as a large percentage of their royalty will be gone as transactional charges. The creators who opt for receiving royalties via check, often got their checks intercepted even before they get to Africa, thus losing their money due to mail fraud. For those who lucky receive their checks, it takes a minimum of three weeks for the royalties to be cleared into the creator's bank account. 

 Many African creators, every day, are struggling to survive, and as such, they do not have the luxury to dream. They need a way to mitigate the problems in distributing and monetizing their creative works, so they can focus completely on creating that breathtaking work. Many of them keep jobs they do not have any interest in, in order to survive and pay their bills. However, their creative works can earn them a living, but unfortunately, there is no avenue for them to publish, protect, promote, and monetize these amazing works. As a result of this, they are forced to keep jobs they have no interest in, and as such, they underperform at both work and at life.

PROBLEMS CREATIVES ARE FACING DUE TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

During the pandemic, many creatives lost their sources of income because they relied heavily on selling their print books, CDs, and movies as markets, bookstores, shops, and public places were all shut down. So, we are helping them sustain their income by converting their work into digital, such as ebooks, audiobooks, digital music, and video-on-demand content. 

Also, we experienced a huge decline in new music submissions, most likely because musicians are unable to hit the recording studio and create new music. So, this got us wondering, "How can musicians create new music from their bedrooms or their living rooms, with nothing but a laptop?" While looking for an answer to that question. Now, we are working with recording artists to create new music while at home and sustain their income.

Most importantly, to help creatives during this pandemic and trying times, Publiseer has temporarily cut down its share in the revenue generated from the sales of the creative works it distributes. Usually, Publiseer takes 25%, but to give its creatives more income stream during this pandemic to support their family and loved ones, Publiseer has temporarily reduced its share from 25% to 12.5%, which is exactly a 50% cut.

What minimum viable solution(s) are you proposing to address the challenge(s) in your community?

When authors, artists, or filmmakers are accepted on the platform, Publiseer takes care of every necessary media and publishing work from start to finish. Authors get professional book covers, unique ISBN numbers, worldwide book distribution via online stores like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google Play Books, Apple iBooks, and more, standard book editing and formatting, and EPUB file conversion for easy distribution. For artists, the expectation isn’t less. Songs recorded are distributed across online stores like Spotify, Google Play Music, Apple iTunes, Amazon, Deezer, and Shazam, to mention few. They also get free professional cover art, unique UPC number, music re-mastering, and FLAC file conversion for easy distribution. All of these at no cost. For filmmakers, they get worldwide video-on-demand distribution via online platforms like Vudu, Vimeo On Demand, Hoopla, TubiTV, Steam, NetFlix, Shudder, and more, standard video post-production, and FLV file conversion for easy distribution.

Our solution can be found at https://publiseer.net

We launched ‘Publiseer Pro’ in a bid to retain and grow with our most successful creatives. Typically, when we onboard creatives, their content aren’t exclusive to us. This means that they can sell their content elsewhere if they want to. They keep all the distribution rights to their content. However, we discover and sign African creatives whose content we strongly believe in or those whose content is selling much faster than other creatives. When we sign such creatives, we go into an exclusive contract with them for a minimum of two years, and we work closely with them to promote and launch their careers. This exclusive deal is known as ‘Publiseer Pro’. It’s a launchpad through which we discover, sign and build amazing African talents. It includes strategic planning, marketing, financing, branding, and PR.

If creators fail to make "enough" money, we at Publiseer bear all the losses. That's why we work round the clock to make sure that we fine-tune their content to the best form possible and distribute it to all the stores and platforms that matter, so that every creative makes enough money to create full-time. So far, we have 83% of our creatives earning at least $50 (minimum wage in many African countries) every 30 days from the sales of their creative works.

Share your story (your narrative)

After selling our second startup company ‘PRAYHoUSe’, my twin brother, Chika, and I decided to take a break from Internet entrepreneurship, and pursue other dreams. For me, I wanted to be a published author, and my twin pursued a career as a recording artist. I wrote a novel titled ‘Odd Family Out’, and my twin recorded a studio album titled ‘Higher’, and now it was time to monetize our hard-work. My twin brother heard of Tunecore, a music aggregator based in the United States, and decided to distribute his studio album with them. They requested a distribution fee of $99, and he paid immediately. After all, he had just sold his second startup company, but this isn’t the case for many upcoming artistes in Africa. He started a social media campaign to raise awareness for his album, and within a month, he had sales of more than $1,200. Now, it was time to collect, and that’s where the problem came in.

Tunecore primarily pays royalties via PayPal, and in Nigeria, and many African countries, we cannot receive money via PayPal, but can only send money, so that payment method was out of the picture. So he had to fall back to the only payment method left and that was check payment even though he knew it would take two weeks to receive the check and another three weeks to get the money into his bank account. However, after two months, the check never came, so he reached out to Tunecore to know ask what’s causing the delay. That’s when he was told that he had taken the money. Upon investigation, it was discovered that someone in Oslo, Norway, had used a fake ID to take his money, and my twin brother was heartbroken. He had to take down his album from Tunecore and sort for local means of monetization. 

About a year after, he said to me, “Chidi, a lot of independent African musicians have gone through what I went through trying to monetize my music internationally. And I think we should solve this problem for every African creative out there, including ourselves.” And that was when the idea was born. A digital content distribution platform tailored for the African creatives, and on August 4th, 2017, we launched Publiseer, a digital content distribution platform that lets independent African writers, musicians and filmmakers, typically from low-income communities to distribute, promote, protect and monetize their creative works on over 400 well-established digital platforms in 100 countries, at no charge, with just a single click, and we share in the revenue generated from sales of these works. Our creatives receive their royalties via local bank payments, which no payment charges, or via mobile money payment, which makes it easily accessible. Thus making monetization convenient and risk-free.

Please provide any additional relevant information that you would like to share.

What makes us unique?
1. Freemium distribution publishing package: We have a free plan that lets writers, musicians, and filmmakers, from low-income communities in Africa, protect, distribute, promote and monetize their creatives works on over 400 well-established e-commerce platforms worldwide.
2. A payment system that works for African creatives: We have a payment system that lets writers, musicians, and filmmakers in Africa, earn and receive their royalties with a payment method that is feasible and convenient in Africa.
3. We distribute digital content on different verticals: We distribute digital content on different verticals, such as ebooks, audiobooks, digital music, music videos, short and feature films, and movie series.
4. Content Fine-tuning: We fine-tune our content before distribution, such as book editing and formatting, music re-mastering, and video post-production. This is to fine-tune our content to industry-standard so that our creatives have the chance to compete on a global scale in a very competitive market.
5. Fast-track distribution: Typically, the distribution timeline for most digital content distribution platforms is two weeks, and this is also the default timeline for our distribution as well. But in a bid to help our creatives beat deadlines, we have our fast-track distribution package which lets our creatives get their content on all digital stores within three days, thus making distribution faster.
6. Robust distribution channel: Most digital aggregators distribute to at most 120 digital stores, but we have the most complete distribution channel which distributes to 413 digital stores worldwide, thus getting our content on every digital platform that matters.
7. Offline content submission: Since we target creatives from low-income communities, we are very flexible in the way we accept content submission for distribution. We accept content submission both online and offline, through upload on our website, email submission via attachment, offline submission via storage devices, etc.
8. A team of creatives: We are a team of writers and musicians, so we have the first-hand experience of the challenges that African creative experience trying to launch their career independently and internationally while living in Africa, and every day, we are building the platform that solves all these challenges.
9. Content protection: We protect the creative works we distribute from illegal distribution, plagiarism, copyright infringement, and intellectual property theft so that our creatives truly own their content.

Our social impact includes:
A. Eradicating poverty in low-income communities by empowering its creative population.
B. Preventing brain drain on the African continent by giving its creative population an opportunity to launch their career internationally while living locally, without having to leave the continent to achieve that.
C. Bridging the gender imbalance gap in the field of digital media by incentivizing female African creatives through offering them our services, at no charge to them, and letting them keep 100% of the revenue generated from sales. Giving them a platform to support their families.

To give our creatives the international exposure they long for, we offer these:
A. We have partnered with 413 well-established local and international bookstores, libraries, music streaming platforms, and video-on-demand platforms. This helps us get their creative works to all the places that matter since people use these platforms to constantly discover new content every day.
B. On these platforms, we offer a select few creatives free promotional services via 'Publiseer Pro'. These services include strategic planning, marketing, financing, branding, and PR.

Challenges:
Piracy is one of the challenges in the African creative industry. When we notice a different merchant selling an ebook, audiobook, song, music video, or film in our catalog, we take legal actions against such a merchant. We have several tools we use for this, thanks to the great folks on the Ally team of Google working closely with us to achieve this. These tools have helped us ensure that the works we distribute are 100% original, and isn't available elsewhere online for monetization without through us.
Also, sometimes some Creatives plagiarize works of others and upload it for publishing as theirs. To mitigate this, we always verify the originality of any work we publish. If a creative files a complaint of copyright infringement against one of our creatives, we handle the entire process to make sure it is settled amicably and promptly. However, we work to ensure that the content we distribute is 100% original to minimize such occurrence.

 How many success stories do you have by now?
We have so many success stories. One of our artists Erigga started off with our platform as an "unnoticed" artist. Now, he is a known artist in the industry, and his fame keeps growing every day. We have other big artists coming from our platform as well. Our most impact is in Nigeria, but our works have been bought all over the world with the US, Canada, Sweden, Australia, and the UK being our top purchasing markets, generating over $200,000 in revenue for our creatives.

Where do you see yourselves grow from here?
We see ourselves becoming the number-one go-to utility for digital content distribution, promotion, protection, and monetization in Africa. We see ourselves dominating the African market, and expanding into other emerging markets with good prospects like the Philippines and India.

Do you notice the interest of those international publishers to come to Africa?
Not really. Some years ago, Google partnered with us to fulfill its publishing request in Africa. I believe that if they decide to come to Africa, they will hopefully partner with us because we have most of the market share by then.

Do you see your platform growing in other countries, outside of Africa?
Yes, like I said earlier.

Is Publiseer profitable?
Yes, we have reached profitability. We afford our services by taking 25% of the revenue generated from the sales of the works that we distribute. Also, we have gotten grants from a number of organizations including the Institut Français and the Goethe-Institut. This has helped us better afford the "free" services that we provide. The 50% reduction is temporary, just lasting through the pandemic. We hope everything goes back to normal by next year. The distribution and ISBN assignment doesn't really impact on us as we do this in bulk and at a very reduced cost. The book cover creation is done in-house, so it's not costly either. The money we receive from the commission and upfront distribution fees from larger organizations has helped our revenue grow exponentially.

How do you get the attention of your customers and beneficiaries

GETTING CREATIVES
Many African creatives use social media to promote their craft to potential customers because it’s free and effective. So, we use social media utilities like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn to reach out to African creatives who are looking for new avenues to distribute, promote, and monetize their creative works. We run several organic and paid media campaigns on social media platforms, targeted towards those who are writers, musicians, or filmmakers. So far, we have gotten most of our creatives to adopt the use of our platform using social media utilities. Also, we have been extensively covered by the media, mostly blogs, and this is because we have maintained a very healthy relationship with bloggers over the years, and they often keep in touch with every new milestone we reach, and they often report these milestones on their blogs. Many creatives have found our platform via blogs.

GETTING BUYERS
To get people to purchase the songs, books, and movies we distribute, we publish them on over 400 well-established digital platforms like Amazon, Google Play store, and Apple store, where people constantly visit to discover new digital content. Due to the vast number of platforms we distribute to, many people have discovered our content and purchased them via these digital platforms, generating revenue for both us and our creatives. Also, we use popular tags in a genre, to increase the chances people stumble upon our content while trying to discover new interesting content on these platforms.

Your final proposal for challenge

yes