Literamed Publications, publishers of Lantern Books, clocked 50 last Friday with its Chairman, Otunba Lawal-Solarin, saying the physical book would never die.
Lawal-Solarin said at a briefing at De Remembrandt Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos that despite advances in technology resulting in the rise of electronic and audio books, people would always reference hard copies.
Citing Mrs Michelle Obama’s book, Lawal-Solarin said it broke sales records, despite the increasing popularity of e-books.
“The book will remain forever. The hard copy book is still important. Look at Michelle Obama’s book, it broke records in sales. Many publishers are still printing books because there is still a high demand for the paper books. You cannot dog-eared an e-book but you can dog-ear a physical book,” he said.
Regardless of the physical book’s survival, the pharmacist-turned-publisher said Lantern Books was in tune with technological changes and had over 2,000 of its titles in e-book format on such platforms as Amazon, Barn Books and Okada Books.
Since starting in 1969 with a pharmacy reference book called Medi-Pharm, Literamed Publications ( Lantern Books) currently has 250 curriculum titles for the primary and junior secondary levels; 250 cultural books, over 150 comics based on African stories, and 100 Bible-related comic books.
Lawal-Solarin said running a publishing business in Nigeria had a whole lot of challenges. However, despite all the problems posed by high cost of production, piracy, inconsistent government policies and others, he had no regrets focusing on education.
“It is more important to make a difference in the world than to make money. Now, I am making a difference. I will leave a legacy that when I am gone would continue. I don’t regret it,” he said.
To mark the 50th anniversary, Lawal-Solarin said Lantern Books hopes to stimulate children to read by giving a scholarship to any who reads up to 12 books under its stables within a given period. The competition, opened to children aged five to 13 (grouped into seven categories according to their ages), would feature four stages – entry; inter-level competition; regional draws and the grand finale.
The winner would get N500,000 worth of scholarhisp, a laptop and smartphone; first runner up, N300,000, lap top and smartphone; and second runner up, N200,000 and smartphone.
Lawal-Solarin said the firm had planned year-long activities to mark the Golden Jubilee which would be unveiled soon.
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