CLC is an International Mission Organization. Its origins date back to the establishment of a Christian bookshop in Colchester England in 1941. To date it has its International headquarters in England.

Our mission statement of purpose is,

“to make Christian literature available to all nations, so that people may come to faith and maturity in the Lord Jesus Christ.”

CLC Kenya achieves its mandate through partnerships with international publishing firms with content relevant for the East Africa community and Africa at large. It also partners with the local churches and ministries to be able to spread the Word of God through channels relevant to the specific organization.

Cheers to 2019-2020

This year, CLC Kenya partnered with over 285 authors in print-on-demand, 30 authors self-published, 25 writers were mentored in writing class and approximately 300 authors were trained. With 5 staff, 8 outsourced professionals and 30 volunteers, we invested over 20,000 hours in building and developing publishing in Kenya and East Africa.

Our First Big 

We had a 1,000% online sales growth with the new website. Our only source of e-commerce sales was Jumia Kenya. We were able to combine that with our website and the reception has been very good.

With CLC Kenya’s writing mentorship class where we share our wisdom with new writers as they begin their career; help develop their voice and improve their writing skills by reviewing and critiquing their work, and provide resources for ongoing support and creative growth, we have been able to impact 25 authors. One writer, Margaret Gitahi has graduated to publish her book (Relating to God as a Father) while the others are working towards completing their manuscripts.

It’s been a joy to see the impact mentorship has had on the writers God sent our way in 2020. The class is fully set up online in two parts (1) https://kenyaclc.org/course/writing-class-beginner/ and (2) https://kenyaclc.org/course/writing-classes-advanced/

iGen Teens Program”

This is a one-year school-holidays training program for teenage authors.

We graduated five teenagers in December 2019 with ready manuscripts – one fiction writer, one non-fiction writer and three illustrators. The class is now fully set up online on https://kenyaclc.org/course/igen-teen-authors-artists/

With the addition of a publishing officer, we were able to develop our self-publishing efforts further. In January of 2020, we started publishing cohorts with cohort4 publishing 10 authors and cohort6 publishing 15 authors.

We were able to develop a pool of editors and designers as a professional support team and this contributed significantly to the success and author-experience of the book projects. We had 5 editors and 3 designers.

While in the past we had to spend repeated hours per author, with cohorts, we spent the same amount of time on all the authors in group sessions and required a little extra time with each author in their individual projects. The self-publishing class/process is set up online for extra support and resources at https://kenyaclc.org/course/self-publishing-your-book-project-clc-kenya/

From 2017, we have continued to develop our publishing skills to offer support to Kenyan and East African authors. We are passionate about developing better-edited books that can compete in international markets as well as well directed artistic book covers and inside text layout.

We have had to scale through a learning curve and in 2020, a number of things had fallen into place for us in the benefit of the authors in our sphere.

“Book Programs”

Over the years we have realized that it is not enough to sell books because the impact happens when the readers actually open the book and read it. We formed book programs to enable the authors to engage their readers, offer accountability in reading and implementing the content in the book. We started with two programs and we plan to scale to more authors over time.

With our blog website, we write articles with the purpose of showing thought leadership and expertise in publishing, books and everything in between. there were over 50 posts in the first 6 months from inception. The blog covers topics on authors’ inspiration, training, book reviews and launches among others.

You can find more here www.muthoniomukhango.kenyaclc.org

We set up a media department with cameras, lights, and sound. We recorded explainer videos for online classes and book programs. Because we could not shoot author videos during the pandemic during which time we received the media equipment, we explored in Research & Development and developed audiobooks, excerpts and trailers to support our authors. There are plans to record authors towards promoting their book projects post-Covid19.

We found explainer videos to be so effective because they combine audio and visual stimulus to explain a concept in a simple and understandable way. In the past, we would use hours explaining the same concepts to different authors. However, with the explainer videos, we set up once and sent authors the link on demand. We spent less time doing clarifications to points that were not well understood.

We formed book programs to enable the authors to engage their readers, offer accountability in reading and implementing the content in the book. We started with two programs.

According to increasing research, audiobooks are becoming the preferred choice for readers when they need to get through a book more quickly, in addition to the fact that they are incredibly convenient and have the ability to elicit powerful emotions.

We developed the skill to develop teasers or promotional videos that highlight the narrative arc of our authors’ books.

Author interviews are an ideal way to boost visibility and credibility in the book world. Media coverage is incredibly valuable in expanding readership that would in turn increase book sales.

Having received the equipment at the onset of the pandemic, not much was achieved in this regard. The plans are for three items:

a) About the author – interview

b) Answers from the book

c) Books, Authors and Coffee to give authors exposure by discussing various topics.

Below are videos shot in the past, though the quality was poor due to equipment and skill capabilities.

We realize that training programs for authors allow us the opportunity to strengthen their authorship skills towards improving their book projects. Training brings authors to a higher level so they all have the skills and knowledge they need for every phase of their book’s journey. This platform has helped us to mitigate some of the negative impact caused by the rise of self-publishing. After launching the Authors Collaboration in September 2018, we had 6 convened training programs – 5 in 2019 and 1 in 2020 with numerous online training programs in 2020.

Foreign rights are the right to publish a book in its original language in countries different from those in which the book was originally published, while Translation rights are the right to publish a book in languages other than the original language.

At CLC Kenya, we aim at increasing access to books for our communities by connecting readers to great content