Bookney: A Digital Book Publishing And Reading Platform For African Authors

Bookney is a Nigerian-based virtual company that hosts a digital book publishing and reading platform for authors to publish their books and for readers to choose from many books to read on the app.

Founded in 2020, Bookney also offers book-publishing related services like book cover designs, art illustration for children’s books, comic books and novels, book trailer videos, and book marketing services. Esther Enewerome Odafe-Ohakah and Precious Osikha founded it.

Precious Osikha (co-founder)

In 2019, the founders noticed an increasing rate of intellectual property theft but thought nothing much about it. It was not until 2020, during the pandemic, that it became a concern for the duo. As people had more time on their hands, more online classes were organised, and many of those tutors sold other people’s books to their students and kept the money for themselves.

“We saw this and asked why authors were not using existing digital book publishing platforms to avoid intellectual property theft. So, we did a survey and discovered there were loopholes we had to fill. Our value proposition, which involves providing a secure platform for authors’ intellectual property (their books) and higher monthly royalty payment to authors, inspired Bookney,” the founders shared with DT Africa.

On Bookney’s website, there are so many blog posts geared at educating Bookney users on how to navigate the app effectively. There are also blog posts that inform writers and authors on various book writing and marketing topics. While on the app’s home page, there are different segments for books such as:

• Featured books: For authors who want their books to be seen first on the app
• New arrivals: This segment is for books that are newly uploaded.
• Trendy books: This segment is for books with over 50 downloads
• Bestsellers: This segment advertises books with over 100 downloads
• Free books: This segment is for free books

Bookney leverages social media, website, and Android & iOS apps to reach its users and currently has over 700 active Android app users.

“We will launch the app on the Apple App Store for our following plans. We also look forward to partnering with tertiary institutions and organisations geared toward quality education for all, gender equality & women’s empowerment, and climate action.”

Users can use Bookney in the following ways:

As an author:

1. Go to https://author.bookney.net/
2. Sign up
3. From your dashboard, click on UPLOAD
4. Fill in your book details, and you will get a success prompt
5. You will also be redirected to our book club on Telegram. Do well to join the fun.

As a reader:

1. Download Bookney app on Google Play Store
2. Sign in (NB: Even if you have signed up as an author, you still have to sign up as a reader if you want to read books on the app)
3. Once in, browse through the different segments and pick a book.
4. If it is not a free book, pay for the book to get lifetime access to it.
5. Happy reading

Users can also join the Bookney Book Club on Telegram, where topics related to books and life are discussed. The link t join is https://t.me/bookneybookclub