Chanchori could have made a cool half a milli with his Uber storo

 The fact that so many people read and enjoyed the story rubbishes the notion pushed by lazy critics to the effect that Kenyans do not read

Charles Chanchori made a name for himself when thousands of netizens read his riveting story, Around Nairobi in One Night.

The story was shared more than 50,000 times, and that is on Facebook alone. More people must have read the story.

The fact that so many people read and enjoyed the story rubbishes the notion pushed by lazy critics to the effect that Kenyans do not read. Kenyans do read, a lot, it just depends on what they are reading.

This goes to publishers out there; you will not publish your cousin’s poorly edited, sleep-inducing drivel and expect Kenyans to fall over themselves reading it. You will keep complaining about Kenyans’ poor reading habits until the cows return home.

It is not for nothing that the Swahili wise man said: Chema chajiuza, kibaya chajitembeza. The very first people who read Chanchori’s story liked it and recommended it to their friends until it went viral. This brings us to the next question; how much did Chanchori get for his story? Well, nothing!

If Chanchori plans to keep on churning out interesting write-ups like Around Nairobi in One Night, he is best advised to start monetising it.

Failure to do that, he will find himself practising law by day – to pay his bills – and writing by night to fuel his hobby, for that is what it will be. Writing tends to be a thankless job in Kenya; ask Kinyanjui Kombani, who can’t dare leave his banking job to take up writing full time.

There is also Onduko Atebe, whose first and only book Verdict of Death, won the inaugural edition of the Wahome Mutahi Literary Prize.

Today, Atebe is a full-time businessman with no time to exercise his literary skills, even on Facebook.

What am I driving at? Marketing of literary works in Kenya, for lack of a better word, sucks. The most a Kenyan author expects, in terms of marketing, is that odd review in the papers. If they are lucky, the publisher might organise a launch; that is as best as it gets.

It doesn’t have to be this way though. There is always a new way of doing things. Walk with me: going by the number of shares for Chanchori’s story, let us assume that a minimum of 50,000 people read the story and that each paid as little as sh10 for it; simple calculations indicates that the author could be half a million shillings richer, if not more, by now.

Not unless you are the Grand Mullah or Donald Kipkorir, not many lawyers make that much money in one single transaction.

What I am trying to say is that writing would pay if we paid close attention to it. Is the scenario I have described above possible in Kenya? Why not!

Hear me out still. Young Kenyan tech-innovators have made a name for themselves for their innovativeness, to an extent that Nairobi is fast gaining ground as Silicon Savannah.

I am sure a literary-minded techie can come up with an app where people can pay a little fee – via M-Pesa – to download a story on their phone.

I am sure Safaricom would not require a lot of convincing to fund such a venture; after all, their support for the arts is well established. They would recoup their investment through transaction fees. Safaricom already does this for musicians through the popular Skiza Tunes. Why not do the same for writers?

We would then have a number of online publishers advertising their stories on the Soma Storo – I just gave it a name, didn’t I? – platform, for that is what effective marketing is all about. Our new set of celebs would have to be writers, who would be making tonnes of cash, but first they would have to write interesting stuff like Charles Chanchori and Wanja Kavengi, Dagitari Wanjohi wa Kigogoine and other Facebook storytellers.

It is time you started making money from your writing. Ama namna gani my frens?