TRINIDAD-based Royards Publishing Company is targeting Jamaican authors for its e-book platform, Digital Canopi, promising the authors will keep a bigger share of the proceeds from their work which will be published easier than with platforms in North America.

“We have been developing work for Jamaican primary and secondary schools since the 80s,” director and chief executive officer of Digital Canopi Dwight Narinesingh told the Jamaica Observer as he outlines the long relationship the company has had with the country through the Ministry of Education. However, with the novel coronavirus pandemic forcing individuals to pivot to the digital world, Narinesingh said his company is doing the same.

“We definitely saw the need to transcribe our work into a digital medium before the pandemic. However, the pandemic I think forced people to retool their products and to try to deliver it into a way in which it can be used, in a digital way,” Narinesingh continued.

The platform, which was launched late last year, aims to promote and market Caribbean educational and literary content globally.

“We have wanted to find a way to get our books in front of our audience which are the primary and secondary school students. One way we were thinking of doing is developed our textbooks and transcribe it into e-books. Another way was to create a publishing ecosystem for authors, publishers, user-subscribers, readers to come together and have a space where they can exchange content and authors and publishers can profit from it.”

Narinesingh said users can benefit from the ecosystem to get content without having to go to a bookstore or abroad.

Books published through Digital Canopi can be accessed both online and offline through an app.

Sheldon Monderoy, chief executive officer of Blue Guruz, the technology firm behind the digitising of Caribbean books with Royards, outlined how easy it is to navigate the online platform.

“Our applications are reader apps. The purchase of the e-books or related content, they happen through the online interface at digitalcanopi.com and the apps are used for reading. The apps are like a Kindle and available on all existing digital platforms,” Monderoy explained to the Caribbean Business Report.

“The app restricts sharing and doesn’t allow for printing,” he continued.

It was launched in a phased roll-out late last year using various methods to bring users onto the platform. So far, more than 200 books and more than 50 authors are on the platform which the Digital Canopi CEO said is growing daily.

“The publishers are seeing the benefits of the platform and showing interest.”

“We have had quite a bit of authors from Jamaica, new and otherwise, who have been using other platforms and they haven’t been quite pleased with it. But when they see our platform and see how easy it is to use and how transparent it is, in terms of what they gain from it, in terms of financial, they are very much attracted to our platform because we offer them a very good royalty package,” Narinesingh said.

Digital Canopi takes 20 per cent of the sales of books published on its platform. The price of the books is set by the author and except for certain fees, the rest of the proceeds goes to the author who pays nothing to put their content on Digital Canopi.

“What we are experiencing now is the ebb and flow of users going from print to digital. Right now we are having a problem with print because of the pandemic. There is a shortage of paper, there is a shortage ink, shipping has been a problem. So it bodes well for e-books. However, there are many articles referring to print being the preferred medium,” he added.

“Generations are defining what they want to use, and the older generations are more comfortable with print, but the younger ones prefer books on their smart devices and so I think the appetite for e-books will grow over time.”

The company sees the impending digital switch as something that will become a “new normal.”

“Distribution of hard copy books requires logistics….but, for example ,if the Ministry of Education wants to supply one of our digital education title, all they do is buy a code for each student,” said Monderoy. Digital Canopi is already promoting textbooks through Kingston Bookshop, which is sending codes to teachers.

However, the company is looking to expand beyond that market to target upcoming authors who may find it difficult to get published.

“Young authors, who have to go through a period of time before they can get looked at, reviewed and eventually, hopefully published, they can skip that entire process and frustration, by writing something on Microsoft Word, converting it to PDF adding some graphics for a cover and uploading it to Digital Canopi, all of that can be done in a day, when it comes to short stories,” said Monderoy.

“What this does it gives a platform for the creativity of young budding authors, who would have gone undiscovered in the Caribbean, they now have an exclusive platform that they can monetise themselves without being part of a big publishing company. When they put their book up for sale, it is copyrighted, it is protected, it is secured, let that book get some exposure and who knows, maybe one of the big publishers will come along and say, this is a great book and publish it further,” Monderoy concluded.