Friday, 9th May witnessed the Booksellers Association of Nigeria (BAN) have their BAN training session, at the 24th Nigeria International Book Fair 2025. The occasion which was themed: ‘Evaluating Organizational Viability for Improved Profitability’ took place at Balmoral Convention Centre, Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos, and was attended by various publishers, authors and booksellers from all around Lagos state. Also witnessing the event were past presidents and gurus in the book sector such as the current president of the Nigeria Publisher Association, Mr Lukmon Dauda, Mr Dayo Alabi, Dr Kolade Mosumo amongst others.
Lecture was given by the keynote speaker, Provost, College of Engineering and Environmental Studies, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Professor Bashir Odufuwa. He spoke on how to improve business especially in current times, “the book business as we know is very challenging now a days, we need to find a way on how to work on it.
the issue of understanding the strengths and weaknesses of different organizations is very important. And also, there’s a need for different stakeholders in the book business to come together and find a strategy towards the productivity or viability of the business. And most importantly, there’s a need for contemporary issues to understand how to adopt contemporary technologies or ideas, or initiatives to help in the book business.”
Also speaking at the event was the President of BAN, Mr Dayo Fisayo. He spoke on what the event was all about and strategic plans a bookseller can use to make profits “This event is part of the association’s commitment to developing its members. It’s an annual thing we do. We have training programs periodically, sometimes quarterly, this is the association’s efforts to equip its members, booksellers and people who are into the business, essentially to make profits from the business of bookselling. So we in the association engage facilitators or sometimes we bring in external facilitators who are drawn from within the association, like the keynote speaker to encourage and empower our members, give them that cutting edge and strategies in the business of bookselling.’
“As for strategic plans, everyone’s desire to run their business and bring it up to a level where it has grown and can be sustained, even in the midst of challenges in the economy, it’s a dream come true. But there are things to look out for in a business, things like: is there a succession plan? Can it be sustained into the foreseeable future? And then, do you know your market? Do you know your customers? Are you on top of the products that you sell?’
“We shouldn’t forget about technology, take advantage of technology, because a lot of innovation, a lot of developments in the technological space, we cannot remain traditional and say there’s no problem. No, it’s a big challenge, there are online booksellers, and even the public is now so sensitive to happenings on the technology space. The younger readers especially, they even prefer to read on their phones.How do they cope? All this need to be checked out when it comes to business strategy.”
In conclusion, treasurer of BAN, Robert Lawson spoke on how to navigate an organization profit, “In the book industry, there are things that can be done to keep business in shape, things like keeping an eye in internal operations, checking on cash flows, inventories and even training staff to get good results. All these are key because we know that the book value chain has a lot of other stakeholders, such as the authors, publishers and of course, the booksellers themselves. In this we need collaboration. Collaboration is key. While in business, we need to trust ourselves and let’s deals with what might constitute a challenge to the sector as a whole, such that the publishers can be free, to hand over their books after publishing, for booksellers to sell directly to end-users, and not usurp the role of the booksellers in the book value chain,” he said.
Highlights of the event includes, question and answer session with panelists, MD, Sterling Publishers, Mrs Folashade Shinkaiye, MD/CEO, Best in Books LTD, Mr Kola Olaitan and MD Showers Publishers Limited, Mrs Yomi Ogunlari.
The Booksellers Association of Nigeria is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the interests of booksellers and advancement of the publishing industry in Nigeria.
By Oyinkan Somorin
