A friend has written a book. In my opinion, a masterpiece. A book with a theme like non I've ever read before. A book that needs to make it to our school set-books.

This is his 3rd book. The other two, other than being read by a handful of people, have not seen the light of day. They are stuffed, in dog-eared papers, in a drawer somewhere.

Good people, how does one go about publishing a book in Kenya? And having it receive the accolade (I think) it deserves? Hopefully break into the ranks of prolific Kenyan writers like Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Grace Ogot, Meja Mwangi etc

Any good publisher you'd recommend? I've tried reaching out to Biko... Oyunga Pala=>Biko=>This fella

Your friend has done the easy part in getting a book published, writing a good story. Now the hard part begins which is first to get a good quality publication and then comes the really hard part, convincing people that he actually does have a good story, then there is the really really really hard part which is getting the people who believe you have a good story to actually pay money for it.

Writing a good story is like making a really good meal. Getting a book published and making a living as an author is like running a restaurant.

People who have a head-start in publishing are people who have an audience already so that is why preachers are always publishing books. It doesn't matter how good or bad a book is if you have a captive audience you are way ahead. You may not like the thought of it but in Kenya today if Maina Kageni, Jeff Koinange or Pastor Pius Muiru wrote a book, it would sell more than a book written by Bikozulu even though the latter's book would probably be 1000 times better written. On the same token Biko is building a captive audience that in a few years can make him retire. He can build such a large following that he can live off the advertisement proceeds of his blog or he can publish a book or become a speaker or start a writing school. In writing the kikuyu saying "andu nio indo" (People are wealth) really holds true.

Another way to succeed in selling books is time. Write a really great masterpiece and then just wait a couple of decades or a few hundred years and people will devour it with relish.