It’s just under a year since Publiseer launched in Nigeria, a plucky start-up with the novel idea of combining ebooks and music on one platform.
That came from the simple fact that the company was launched by twins, Chidi and Chika Nwaogu, one an author, one a musician.
Publiseer went from launch to profitability in just eight months –
Nigeria’s Publiseer reaches profitability in 8 months. Adds Premium Distribution option
and was the first African member of the International Publishing and Distribution Association –
International Publishing Distribution Association welcomes its first distributor from Africa
which shows the commitment to the publishing side of the business. But today’s news is about the music side.
Thanks to the brothers embracing global distribution opportunities rather than staying too focused at home, Publiseer has now topped 1.5 million music downloads through its service.
The numbers break down as 1,400,376 subscription streaming and 124,762 ad-supported streaming, giving a total of 1,525,138 streams through the likes of iTunes, Apple Music, Spotify and Deezer.
Numbers for ebooks have not been issued, but the twins are certainly not abandoning the books side of the project and plans to up their game with audiobooks and video.
But if we take from this story that music is far more popular then ebooks, we’ll be missing the bigger picture.
First it would be wrong to compare a three minute song with an ebook that might deliver 15 hours of solid reading time.
But more importantly here, is the issue of distribution.
Apple Music, Google Play Music and Amazon Music, for example, offer almost global reach. Music lovers in Publiseer’s home country Nigeria can download music from Apple or Google Play or Amazon any time they like.
But neither Apple’s Books store, Google Play’s Books store nor Amazon’s Kindle store are accessible from Nigeria.
It’s a funny old world.
