Self-publishing in the era of military rule in Nigeria, 1985-1999

Nigeria appears to have the largest book market in Africa, aided by its population and oil wealth. However, its publishing industry has experienced more setbacks than successes. Military rule marked a watershed in the nation's political history, causing the breakdown of much of the publishing industry, among other things. What was the state of book publishing during the mid-1980s to the late 1990s of the military era? What were the channels of publishing available to literary writers? How were their books circulated? In examining these questions, I trace the ways in which self-publishing emerged in Nigeria, its networks and their impact on public readership to demonstrate how self-publishing challenges the communications circuit model theorized by Robert Darnton. I argue that self-publishing subverts the traditional model of book production by creating a viable alternative through which literary writers could have their works published and mobilize themselves against military tyranny. Finally, I survey the nature of self-published texts in circulation during the period under review to demonstrate how self-publishing problematizes Pascale Casanova's ideas of the world republic of letters.