By Farayi Mungoshi

MY father has been bed-ridden for several years now.
I remember the scores of people who streamed into the ward at Southmed Hospital in Chitungwiza where my father lay helpless in bed after he suffered the massive stroke.
The old man was now a pale shadow of his old self and I was still trying to come to terms with the events unfolding. I watched as his sisters came to visit him day in and day out, my mother’s siblings also.
He’d been in a coma for days. People from different churches came to offer prayers and all the while the hospital bills kept mounting.
When publishing houses, fellow-writers, academics and universities got wind that Charles Mungoshi had been hospitalised and the family was struggling with hospital bills, they stepped in to assist. Even the Government came in to help.
It opened my eyes to something I had overlooked regarding the value of my father. For me, he was just my father but to the others, he was a literary giant, a national icon.
Most Zimbabweans have read his books because they have been part of the ‘O’ and ‘A’-Level curriculum for decades. As a result, many will think Dr Charles Mungoshi is a very rich man since there are thousands studying his works at schools across the country who would buy his books if they want to pass but unfortunately this is not the case. He is not rich.
I will not go into the age-old disappointment about publishers not paying royalties to writers. Instead, I will talk about how authors contribute to society, how they uphold our culture and shape perceptions of who we are as individuals and nation.
They offer hope and give knowledge to those who are willing to read and make something out of their lives. I will never forget what one man who visited my father said.
“Murume uyu akandipfumisa,” he said.
I didn’t get to ask him whether he meant that there was something Dr Mungoshi had written in one of his books that helped him shape his life, or perhaps he meant he passed his literature at school and now he has a good job. But whatever it was, it got me thinking. How was it that other people were able to reap from what my father had sown while I, his own family, was unable to even pay his hospital bills.
Motivated and armed by this man’s words, I decided to divert my attention and focus away from the money publishers and pirates were making out of my father’s books and concentrate on how we could make our situation better.
We decided to fulfill my father’s wish to self-publish his latest works which were not yet published, a book called Branching Streams flow in the Dark. We met a lot of disapproval from publishers and writers who felt this would discredit the stature of Zimbabwe’s most prolific writer but we didn’t care; for what use is it to give a publisher a book to publish and still get nothing in return?
We felt that publishing this book ourselves would give us all the ammunition we needed to conquer being short-changed by publishers. We went ahead and published the book but nothing had prepared us for what was to come.
It’s been three years now since we published Branching Streams flow in the Dark, which went on to win a NAMA in 2014, but the returns from sales are appalling.
I know some publishers are smiling right now and saying to themselves ‘we told you’, but I would still not change anything today from what we did then. There are lots of disadvantages to self-publishing mainly when it comes to marketing the book, especially if you don’t have the money to do it.
You cannot distribute the book to bookshops across the nation because in order to do that, you will need money hence you find yourself selling only in Harare and a few major cities.
Those in other countries across the globe are also starved of this new piece of literature. Unlike publishing houses that have been around for a while, you find you have to create a whole new network through which you can distribute the book.
As much as Dr Mungoshi’s name and prowess in the field gives him leverage in as far as selling his works is concerned, it still requires a lot more than just putting a book on the shelf in a bookstore.
Readers want to see the writer stand up for his book on television, radio and to hear him speak on podiums worldwide in order for them to take note and buy.
For example, Virginia Phiri, author of Highway Queen, who also happens to be one of the few people who encouraged us to self-publish, sold about a thousand copies of Highway Queen in less than three months.
The reason she was able to do this was because she took the book everywhere she had a presentation and spoke about the book. Others would call this a book-tour.
My father also used to do this when he was still able and whenever he came back he brought us gifts.
My father’s inability to do a book-tour, attend functions where he can read or recite a poem has been a major drawback in marketing his works.
However, the fact that we have the books, can sell them ourselves and take stock encourages us to soldier on knowing that it is only a matter of time before a breakthrough.
I know a number of writers who carry a bag full of their books wherever they go, selling them.
My father also used to do that, for those who encountered him during that time would know he could sell a book to you for far much less than its actual price. Or he could just give it to you for free.
When he wrote, he was not driven by the desire to make money, everyone agrees.
Dr Mungoshi’s family has started a campaign to sell not just the author’s books, but other writers’ works as well.
This is being done in a bid to combat piracy and being short-changed by publishing houses under a programme dubbed ‘The Book Sale Campaign’.