I don’t think Michela Wrong was comparing me to the devil (or at least I hope not). But I was responsible for helping an accomplished author distribute a book, helping her to let go, and as a bonus, having her eat crow!
What Other People Said
"[Galeeb] was already hard at work, pulling together a multi-pronged distribution operation to bypass a gagged retail industry…
As a devout atheist and hardened aid sceptic, I’m aware of the acute irony of being thus beholden both to the churches of Kenya and a US development agency. But I’m happy to eat crow. My critics will no doubt mutter darkly about CIA plots, but I wouldn’t mind if the Devil himself wanted to distribute It’s Our Turn to Eat. I am rather more concerned about the agenda of those who were determined to ensure no Kenyan ever got to read a book on sale across the globe. But knowing that 5,200 copies of my book—for that is what it will be—have reached the wananchi will allow me to let go."
Source: Michela Wrong, “Adventures of a Book in Africa,” Standpoint magazine, June 24, 2009
My Involvement
Flashback to 2009 at the USAID Office at the US Embassy in Nairobi.
A USAID colleague passed me a request she had received. Could we help Michela Wrong distribute her book in Kenya? We both knew if we were to intervene, it would be a typical rapid and risky activity and not something other parts of USAID would not entertain.
The Opportunity
Growing up in Kenya, I had heard of banned books. I had come across one at a friend’s house, the 1987 book The Africans by David Lamb. However, since the return to the multiparty system and the progressive new administrations, the formal banning of books became a thing of the past. While the Kenan government publicly claimed that they were not in the business of banning books, individuals with political leverage or positions were well positioned to indirectly ban a book.
Consider the 1997 book Rogue Ambassador by the former US ambassador Smith Hempstone. Enough people had sued the author and the bookshops such that the book was not available to most Kenyans. Before the proliferation of the internet, Kenyans could only buy books in a handful of bookshops in the three major cities. As a child, the biggest reward for good grades or for excelling in sports was actually a visit to a Nairobi bookshop and the permission to buy one book. That was the ultimate reward! Therefore, the easiest way to muzzle an author or to make sure the book was not available was to threaten the bookshops with libel lawsuits. And since Kenya’s judiciary system was anchored in the British system, libel cases tended to favor the individual, not the public. (In the American system, libel cases tend to go the other way.)
Given the book was about corruption—an exposé of the Anglo Leasing scandal, one of the grandest schemes in Kenyan history—and given many of the key players in the exposé were alive and well (and in some cases still in power), I was not surprised to hear that Michela Wrong’s book was muzzled at the retail source. I talked to the author, received a summary of what had happened to date, and promised to get back to her with a plan if we could indeed help. The additional reading section below presents the author’s perspective in her own words. This narration is my story presented within the context of how creative thinking can indeed change the world (for some).
Distribution Design
I could picture the goalposts clearly in my head. I just had to figure out how to get there. I knew I needed powerful intermediaries. Bookstores, the conventional intermediary between a publisher and the reader, were, as we had seen, easily intimidated. And rightly so. They were not going to risk their businesses and expose themselves (and their families) to threats just to sell a book. I understood! After all, I am of Indian origin, and many of these bookshops were owned by Indian businessmen. I began to devise an elaborate plan that revolved around the following sets of questions:
Who can distribute books in Kenya and not be touched or threatened? Who would not relent? Which institutions were willing to stand up and disseminate information? Who would not be sued, either because they were too strong or because they had nothing to lose?
Those threatened by the book could easily visit (or have their goons visit) a few bookstores in two or three cities. That was relatively easy. But what if the book appeared in the hands of the public via multiple simultaneous pathways? If I saw someone on a plane or bus reading the book, I would not be able to figure out where it came from if there were numerous options and if those options were widely known. That was my overall blueprint. I needed enough intermediaries to safely distribute five thousand books nationwide in a short period of time.
Relationship Building
With these sets of questions, I reached into my contact list and thought about every organization our program had met or funded to date, that had responded positively to the postelection violence, that had submitted proposals or concepts, or that I knew about in Kenya. I had been in the room when the chief negotiator, Kofi Annan, had met with civil society groups after the postelection violence. I knew who was brave and who wasn’t.
Our contractor began the process for importing a few pallets of books. (Remember that importing the book was legal, and there were no import duties on books.) We even had to resort to currency conversion factors because we operated in Kenya shillings, but one other aid agency in Kenya offered us $10,000 worth of books, and an unknown benefactor offered the author £10,000 worth of books! (No, I never found out who that benefactor was; if you know, please email me.)
While books were on their way, I went on a sales trip. I had ideas to sell, and I was willing to pay for them. First stop, the media. The Daily Nation had already promised the author that they would serialize parts of the book. I skipped them and visited their competitor, The Star. I had three points of entry. First, The Star agreed to put a large ad in their daily paper and give away two books per day to their readers for a week. The readers would simply text the newspaper and the newspaper would select two random texts each day.
Second, The Star’s parent group, Radio Africa Group, who owned about a dozen extremely popular vernacular radio stations, agreed to give away a few books each day to their listeners. One of these stations played the Bollywood music that I listened to regularly. Listeners called in on cue every few hours when the stations promoted the book. Lucky ones got through, were asked why they wanted the book, and then made arrangements to pick it up.
Third, on the other end of the supply chain were the street vendors. They earned a very small commission selling daily newspapers and were, of course, happy to sell more profitable books at the same time. Friends of mine told me they bought their books from these vendors on the highway while sitting in Nairobi’s notorious traffic jams. The price was fixed at a quick Ksh. 1,000 so there would be no need to fumble or search for change. (The Ksh. 1,000 note was the largest currency in Kenya and worth approximately $10 back then) Why did I suggest, and The Star agreed, to involve the street vendors? Because we knew that they could not be a prime target for a libel lawsuit, and the vendor’s commission on a 1,000 shilling book was much better than on a 10 shilling newspaper!
My next client was PEN International, Kenya chapter. PEN is an international organization of poets, essayists, and novelists (hence the name), and they were extremely excited about the opportunity. They organized public readings in Nairobi, Mombasa, and Kisumu, with high-profile celebrities readings extracts on stage. They also agreed to sell books before and after the events. In Nairobi, they even managed to book the famous national theater, across the street from the Norfolk Hotel. See one reader’s perspective at this blog post).
The last group were the churches. The churches are highly respected, powerful organizations in Kenya with a grassroots network. They were heavily engaged in bringing peace after the 2007/2008 postelection violence and were also fed up with corruption that was ruining Kenya. I wanted both the Catholic and Protestant organizations involved. I had to meet my Catholic leadership contact in Nakuru, three hours away from Nairobi. Another day trip on a well-traversed highway. Our grant manager came with me. I wanted him to be involved in the design because he would have had to confirm the budget and oversee the grant implementation if it worked out. I did not know what I would get out of the meeting, but knew I wanted the church involved in distributing the books.
By the time we left Nakuru, we had a verbal agreement to flesh out in writing: the church would sell the books in their bookshops and literature desks in churches across the country. That worked for me. On the drive back, my grant manager gave me an unanticipated label—he called me an excellent salesman. I had sold something (an idea for a commitment) to someone who did not want or need anything.
Lastly, I met a contact in the National Council for Churches in Kenya (NCCK), the umbrella for Protestant churches. They committed to debating the book in their churches, drawing on the Bible’s moral and ethical lessons, and comparing it with the elements in the book. The NCCK would train all their facilitators nationwide and give them copies of the books. They even designed and published, not as part of the grant, a great study guide that offered the biblical analysis.
Plan Execution
With my motley crew of willing and able intermediaries, we were able to move quickly through the rest of the plan. Each group completed their respective trainings, set up their distribution chains, and put in place their plans. Since some groups were selling books that we gave them, we teed up a second delivery round that they would use their funds to buy additional copies to sell. While we did not succeed in starting on the same day, all intermediaries launched within a couple of weeks of each other. It made quite a splash!
The Beneficiaries and Legacy
With over five thousand books circulating in Kenya, I knew many more than five thousand people read them. They say on average, sixe people read one printed copy of a daily newspaper in Kenya. Of course, hundreds of people were involved in the actual distribution, media personnel, street vendors, church facilitators, and church bookshops. Many of them read the book (or study guide) too.
But I don’t know, and will never know, whether the book made a difference in anyone’s life. All I do know is that Michela Wrong published a couple of subsequent editions; one of them thanked me and USAID in the acknowledgments. The author was able to “let it go” (see the quote at the beginning of this section), and in the most interesting development was the NCCK’s decision to design and publish “A Topical Study Guide on Corruption in Kenya.” The guide says,
This is in line with the Council’s mission of seeking to enhance the creation of a just and sustainable society. This Topical Study Guide is merely a tool to study the book by reflecting on the issues raised from a Biblical perspective, and is not intended to replace reading of the actual book.
Source: https://chriskinyanjuikamau.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/its-our-turn-to-eat-ncck-study-guide.pdf
It was an exciting, fast-paced, and challenging effort. One that perhaps did not touch as many people as I have in my other adventures but a system of multiple cogs that I take pride in having designed. I was not a cog in someone else’s distribution system!
Why Should You Care?
References
This post is based on one chapter in my 2021 self-published book, How I Changed The World In My Own Unique Ways, available in
e-book and
audiobook format.
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