CLC Kenya’s Print-On-Demand (POD) Journey
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The Journey Begins…
Though 2015 was the year POD equipment was delivered to Kenya, talks had begun a couple of years back. That men and women from International Office, CLC USA (our contact being Mark Ridenour) and Regional Office (Africa) would be used by God to plan ahead of time to make provision for continuity of His work in Kenya is humbling. What we have experienced is the Scripture in Isaiah 46:10,
“Declaring the end and the result from the beginning, And from ancient times the things which have not [yet] been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will do all that pleases Me and fulfills My purpose, calling a bird of prey from the east, from a far country, the man (Cyrus) of My purpose. Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, be assured I will do it.”
What is Print-On-Demand? POD is a miniaturized bookmaking system consisting of a computer system, cover printers, text printers, laminating machines, perfect binders, scoring boards and cutters.
The system is ideally a compressed printing press but with advantages of mobility, low cost, quick production time and the ability to print as many (or few) copies as you need.
Mark Ridenour (CLC USA) was instrumental in the purchase, acquisition, and set up of our Print-On-Deman (POD) facility in Nairobi. In April 2015, the Print4All trainers took Patrick Omukhango through the POD training.
“Kendra Williams, Daniel Leonard and Jeff were great trainers, they were honest in the explanations of how the process works. I had the comfort of knowing that Mark Ridenour and Petra Nemansky were there to share in the excitement, uncertainties, and everything in between.” Patrick Omukhango.
We put together a professional business plan, manage expectations, set goals and plan ahead. We foresaw the need for additional funding to get by in the first year before the project stabilized. GOD HAD A DIFFERENT PLAN…
2015 STATISTICS:
First client: August 2015
Authors Served: 13
Titles Printed: 22
Copies Printed: 2,751
Revenue: Kes 614,174
What worked well for us was an order of 1,200 Purpose Driven Life Study Guide from a local church. This was followed by an order of 310 God on Fire and 100 Church on Fire by a Bishop in one of the mainstream churches.
Oasis International Ltd – Sales to a local church community were instrumental to the growth of POD. We supplied over 1,000 copies of a campaign title every year for three years in a row from 2015 through to 2017. We were blessed and fulfilled to be part of the church’s effort to create a reading culture in that community.
CLC USA – The books, God on Fire and Church on Fire were a great encouragement to us in 2015. We saw how God used the titles to strengthen Pastors in our country for a refreshing revival.
One of the primary objectives of POD to CLC Kenya at the time was to strengthen the bookshop arm. The wholesale operations were crippled due to challenging economic times; the introduction of taxes on books; high costs & capital investment required to ship books coupled with our poor credit score with international book suppliers/publishers.
The partnerships with the two international publishers brought a much-needed variety of book selection – a freshness that CLC Kenya needed to arouse excitement of bookselling and buying among its staff and customers.
2016 STATISTICS:
Average (New&Existing) Revenues PM: Kes 270,675
This is up from the 2015 average PM of Kes 122,834
An increment of 120%Authors Served: 7 Existing – 26 New
Existing Titles Printed: 11 Titles
New Titles Printed: 23 from Existing Authors – 110 from New Authors
Copies Printed: 3,692 from Existing Authors – 9,084 from New Authors
Revenues: Kes 1,025,232 from Existing Authors – 2,222,869 from New Authors.
In summary, we served a total of 33 authors, 144 titles, 12,776 copies printed with revenue of Kes 3,248,101.
What worked well for us was an order of 2,500 copies of two books by a Reverend of a local church. He was excited by the quality of the finished print job. Word of mouth marketing also did a great job convincing new customers to embrace and enjoy the benefits of POD.
In addition to the new customers, we experienced good retention of 53% of the customers acquired in 2015.
This was Kenya’s 10th election year. Every election year, the economy slows down to a near standstill. Economic surveys show that the polarizing and violent nature of Kenyan election politics and uncertainty about the outcome are among the root causes of an economic slowdown. It also takes an average of 6-10 months for the economy to gain momentum post-election. We had our fair share of this cake, but God did sustain us in it all.
2017 STATISTICS:
Average (New&Existing) Revenues PM: Kes 298,598
This is up from 2016 average PM of Kes 270,675
An increment of 10%
Authors Served: 24 Existing – 44 New
Existing Titles Printed: 103 Titles
New Titles Printed: 43 from Existing Authors – 73 from New Authors
Copies Printed: 8,047 from Existing Authors – 6,139 from New Authors
Revenues: Kes 2,456,068 from Existing Authors – 1,127,101 from New Authors.
In summary, we served a total of 68 authors, 219 titles, 14,186 copies printed with revenue of Kes 3,583,169.
In addition to the new customers, we experienced good retention of 48% of the authors acquired in 2016.
We started CLC Kenya publishing house for the books we believed in and facilitation of self-publishing for those we did not fully adopt. In 2017, we had four books fully published by CLC Kenya: It’s About Time by Washington Blessing; Staying Married by Njeri Gikonyo; Conceive Achieve by Julius Mwebia, and Conceive Achieve for Teens by Adnah McKenna.
Authors also started to feel comfortable to print 100-200 copies, and some doing 500-1,000 copies per time.
An existing customer, a Reverend in one of the local churches, printed 3,000 copies of his three titles.
Though we had major challenges with the automatic binder and sometimes with the cutter, 90% of the customers were satisfied with the quality of the printed work. The word of mouth marketing continued to work to our benefit, from 13 authors in 2015, to 26 new authors (33 in total) in 2016 and up to 44 new authors (68 in total) in 2017.
Brian and Sheila Keel of Leadership Development Partnership, UK Though we had worked with Brian and Sheila for many years supplying Bibles and Books to their ministry outreach in Africa, this was the first time they used POD facility to get relevant books to their recipients in Kenya and Rwanda.
Robert Carr of Metro Philly Church Planting Partnership, USA used our POD facility to print books which we shipped to their ministry partners in Rwanda.
This was probably one of the most difficult years for CLC Kenya since 2015. With several transitions with our suppliers, we run out of POD equipment and we could not continue with the printing work. This greatly affected us and we lost the momentum we had been building for several years.
But good came from the challenges. With intense and accelerated Research & Development, we were able to get local suppliers for the equipment and consumables we needed to keep our operations going. We were able to transition from HP model to Kyocera & Epson model that was sustainable.
Since our cash flow had been adversely affected, we had to start almost from bottom up again. We remain grateful to our loyal customers who remained with us through such challenging times.
AFRICA SPEAKS 2018
From the training offered in the conference that was connecting leaders in publishing in Africa, we got to:
Fellowship with like minds towards fostering flourishing publishing in Africa and empowering communities. This is a passion and mandate we strongly share in CLC Kenya.
Editorial excellence was emphasized and we made a commitment to make an improvement with the authors we were facilitating self-publishing for as well as offering POD services.
It strengthened our connection with Media Associates International (MAI). Though we had been attending trainings by MAI, from Africa Speaks, we started training our authors based on the training received from MAI.
This further strengthened our POD reputation and market share as we were doing value addition to the authors’ book projects.
MEDIA ASSOCIATES INTERNATIONAL (MAI)
After Africa Speaks, we fully understood MAI’s mandate. That “When you go to your local bookstore and begin to browse and find that none of the books are written by local authors, people who know and understand the culture you live in and the issues you face. That’s what happens time after time throughout Asia, Africa, East/Central Europe, and Latin America. In many countries, fewer than 10 per cent of Christian materials on the shelves in Christian bookstores are from local writers. Readers are searching for something that speaks to their lives, their needs and their joys. But it’s not there.”
This described our situation in Kenya and further fueled our passion to change the narrative. We remained committed to receiving training from MAI every month for over three years. We would then contextualize the training and pass it on to our authors.
CLC TRAINING – BUDAPEST, HUNGARY
From the trainings organized by CLC International Office, we were able to improve our publishing efforts including editing, book design and printing.
From the Marketsquare Europe, we were able to connect with Baker Publishing House, Good Will Rights Management Corporation, SIL and Daren Martin from whom we bought rights.
Baker Publishing House – We received 5 commercial rights and 12 missions rights.
Good Will Rights Management Corporation – Our partnership has extended from rights purchases to collaborative webinars and selling of Kenyan books’ rights at evolge.com.
SIL – We have delivered books to Uganda and Ethiopia produced from POD facility to support seminaries and theological colleges.
Daren Martin – We received rights to 4 business books from which we have developed one program for Kingdom Businessmen and women.
The Review meeting provided us with an opportunity to have time with our reviewers – the IO directors. We discussed CLC Kenya’s performance and development. We also discussed and agreed on future goals and objectives as well as partnerships and strategies that were working for and against us.
During this meeting, we revised our POD rate card upwards and though it was met with some resistance from our customers, they eventually accepted and continued printing with us.
This was the year that we implemented most of what was discussed during the review meeting with IO. Albeit an energy-draining year due to the number of decisions that needed to be made, it turned out to be a great year for us because those decisions propelled our ministry forward.
After moving offices from a prime location to a private location, we were able to focus our energies in advancing our mandate to ‘make Christian literature available so that people may come to faith and maturity in our Lord Jesus Christ’.
With two new large POD orders, we were able to refurbish our ministry to a higher capacity. With new and readily available printers, we were able to service the incoming orders.
Steve and Em Pidd printed their book, Healing and Freedom through Truth Encounters to reach Africa communities. When Steve Pidd travelled to Kenya and Rwanda to train on the subject, the books were readily available for his recipients.
RCenter’s Genesis Genealogies (by the late Rev. Abraham Park). In partnership with RCenter in South Korea, we organized two conferences in two cities (Nairobi and Mombasa) attended by about 300 Pastors and Ministry Workers. The books, notebooks and support stationery were produced from our POD facility.
From the initial POD funding through CLC USA, we have demonstrated we can turn a one-time gift into:
- Self-sustainable business – POD has enabled CLC Kenya to keep the doors open during a time when the bookshop arm was struggling. With so many bookshops in the country closing down during that time, POD provided cash flow to keep our operations going as well as much needed revenue to pay the overall monthly expenses and keep our ministry doors open.
- Platform to create a complimentary business – We have moved from only printing in 2015 to (a) facilitating self-publishing in 2017, (b) full publishing house for select few books in 2017, (c) authors club in 2018, (d) Teens publishing classes in 2019, (e) Family reading programs in 2019, (f) Book programs in 2019, (g) Authors training and marketing support in 2019, (h) Writing classes in 2020 and (i) Online courses in 2020.
- Platform to create diverse revenue streams – All the above complimentary business have turned into revenue streams towards enabling the ministry to continue its mandate in Kenya.
- Cause an impact in our community – CLC Kenya has gradually become a force to reckon with in the publishing industry in Kenya. We are gradually having a voice that causes a positive change in the lives of the authors and their readers.
We wish to thank God for the opportunity He has granted us and for His continued sustenance.
We also want to thank everyone that has contributed to the success of POD in CLC Kenya. From the designers of the equipment and trainers from P4A; to Dave Almack and those that facilitated this awesome gift to us; to Neil Wardrope, Gerardo Scalante and the team at International Office; to Mark Ridenour and the team at CLC USA who are always supporting us in so many ways; to Liz Patten and Petra Nemansky through whom we run our ideas and draw moral support; to Patrick and Mercy Omukhango and the support team at CLC Kenya; to our International Publishers and Partners; and to the local authors with whom we have walked together this far…
Thank you – Grazie – Gracias – Danke – Merci – Obrigado – Asante Sana!
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