Goethe hosts 6th CORA Publishers’ Forum

The 6th CORA Publishers’ Forum will hold on Thursday, November 12, 2015 at Goethe Institut, City Hall, Catholic Mission Street, Lagos Island, from 10pm – 4pm. The Forum is organised by CORA Art & Cultural Foundation in partnership with Cassava Republic Press and Goethe Institut, Lagos, and is a pre-event of the 17th Lagos Book & Art Festival, which holds from the November 13 – 15, 2015 at Freedom Park, Broad Street, Lagos Island.

The theme for this year’s forum is ‘Publishing and Selling Genre Fiction in the Digital Age.’ A statement from Co-Director, Publishers’ Forum and Project Director, CORA, Mr. Ayo Arigbabu noted, “The theme emerged from our keen observation and experience of how the publishing space in Nigeria (or at least that part of it that is not concentrated on school texts) continues to place great emphasis on literary fiction (which quite understandably has brought the nation and its writers considerable international acclaim) while genre fiction hardly receives as much attention.

“Given that genre fiction creates the groundswell upon which most readers cut their teeth and from which the publishing of literary fiction itself is funded in most literate societies, we consider it important to utilize the platform the Publishers’ Forum offers to encourage and empower publishers in finding useful perspectives from which to approach the publishing of genre fiction. And, in our traditional bias for expanding the conversation on how digital technologies can be harnessed by publishers to achieve success, we are situating this discussing within the context of emerging and constantly evolving opportunities for production, marketing and sales of books through digital technologies, especially at the frontiers of the now ubiquitous social media”.

Expected outcomes from the 6th CORA Publishers Forum would include an increased awareness amongst participating publishers on genre fiction as distinct from literary fiction, improved appreciation of the different nuances that go with the different categories found under genre fiction such as Young Adults (YA), Romance and Crime Fiction and increased awareness of the different opportunities that exist for harnessing digital technologies for producing and marketing genre fiction with a special focus on social media and mobile telephony.