Who is Reading?

 

It is yet another Friday and as required we have a new piece on Richie Online. As opposed to last week, no one is holding a gun to my head as I type this. This is just to assure you that I am writing this willfully as I take a break from the other intellectually challenging tasks that I have been doing all week and will continue to do over the weekend.

When I sent what was the 240^th article on Richie Online last week, I indicated in the caption that I had written the article at  gun point. Well. Obviously that was not in its literal sense. Interestingly, however, I wrote the article at 1900 hours in response to the messages that were coming in asking about where the article was. This time it was not the married people asking but rather single ones. I cannot remember all the people who asked for the article but one of them is called Baby Elephant. I will get back to the issue of this article later.

On a rather unrelated note, I have lately found myself realizing the importance of having weekend plans. For those who may not know, my life boringly revolves around work and if anyone does not prompt me to do anything exciting I find myself alternating between watching Spanish football and coding. In all honesty, I do not like working on weekends but when one is out of alternatives, that becomes the only option. This has worsened with the Covid-19 pandemic in which we do not have much of sporting activities (I mean zokakhala pa stand ku Chiwembe not watching on TV) and outdoor activities. This weekend is however different as it has been covered with exciting activities. After doing my morning road work or hike on Saturday, I will be attending Pemphero Mphande’s What You See at Sunrise book launch at Golden Peacock Hotel and after church I will be attending Lulu’s acoustic set at HS Winehouse. Ku nyumba ya vinyoku musabwere chifukwa takwana kale handed.

Let me talk about the book launch for a second. Pemphero Mphande started talking about writing a book over a year ago. He would make long Facebook posts with stories full of suspense and talk about how he would want to put them in a book. Being the attention seeker he is, I think he gave us a minimum number of likes to give his posts if the book was to see the light of day (don’t tell him I wrote this). Months down the line, the guy announced that his book will be out on the 27^th of March and he has organed a star-studded entourage of speakers for the launch; Chiwoza Bandawe, Janelisa Musaya, Ken Lipenga, Ben Wandawanda, Prof Lupenga Mphande, Patience Namadingo and the Guest of Honor, Prof Tiyambe Zeleza. Don’t ask me why I included titles for some people while I did not for others. My article, my choice. This promises to be a good event and I decided that I should part with a good 10k which I could have used to buy 6 or so bottles of Kombeza (now that I have taken a break from imbibing the drinks you know me for). This is to support a friend but I am also doing it for the love of literature and the reading culture.

When Pemphero announced through Facebook that his book was going to be selling at K13500, other people complained that it was a little too expensive. Being the stubborn guy he is, he wrote long posts and went live on Facebook explaining why he was not going to lower the price for the book; Malawians need to value intellectual material and need to cultivate a reading culture. I will talk about the second.

The average modern day young person has no liking whatsoever for reading anything whose length goes beyond the standard length of a tweet. For any posts that you decide to pathologically elongate beyond 3 paragraphs on Facebook, you nowadays have to write the “LONG POST” warning. In the comments, others will gladly express how they could not finish reading the post with the sole barrier being the length. Our reading culture is gone and that is sadly being reflected in the quality of our writing. I will not spend time on this issue because I have ran out of pills that help me with my depression.

A lot of people have decried the decline in the reading culture in Malawi although I have a feeling that this might be a global issue. To learn about something, people would rather watch a documentary than read a book. That is not wrong in itself, but it becomes a problem when the deficiencies we have in reading reflect on the quality of writing. A friend of mine posted how he saw a job applicant describe himself as “a guy” in an application letter. Some may say that I am pushing the argument too far, but I would put it to you that a person who is well read would not make such a mistake. Some may say that writing abilities have little to do with reading and others may say that not everyone needs some superhuman writing abilities, but I would differ on that. We all need to read and for different reasons.

Back to Pemphero. The interesting thing is that after some people filed a complaint about the book being expensive, some came forward to buy it for as much as 300k in the local currency per copy. That may have been some posturing but interestingly enough others continued to pre-order at the standard price. Some companies have gone on to buy a lot of books which makes me wonder as to who is reading these books. Last year alone, three friends of mine released books. Vincent Mkochi dropped a poetry book and Chilungamo Khuwi and Steve Kateta released some self help books. I am humbled to have some proficient writers in the Richie Online readership; the likes of Chiwoza Bandawe, Dr Cornelius Huwa, the Daydreamer, The Venomous Hope (we need to bring this one back), Dr Dominic the Poet and the others who I am afraid of mentioning. Sometimes I find myself asking as to who is reading all these books if anyone is at all reading.

Here is the reason for my question. I do not believe that book sales are great owing to the decline and death of the reading culture. Most people would look at books as expensive and not have an interest to buy them and even some of the people who get to buy the books do not read them. Zimaterotu, pena. I would be interested in knowing what section of the society does buy and read these books before I release my own book.

And now I should drag the issue of the article in. I did say I was going to bring it back, right? Week in week out I write these articles and send them to a broadcast list of 123 people on WhatsApp. In my Twitter days, I would post there and I would then share the link on my Facebook account and the Richie Online Facebook page which some of you have been stubborn enough to not like to date. On a day when I do not write, I get some messages (roughly 5 or 6) asking me as to where the article is. “I thought today was a Friday”. “Kodi iwe. We are waiting for the article.” “Lero Richie Online ibwera kodi?”. They come barking as if they pay anything for these articles. Now here is the interesting bit. I once in a while go and check how many hits each article has. Some of you know that the most article on Richie Online is the one called the 21^st Century Paradox of sex which was viewed over 2300 times. Normal articles nowadays get about 50 views, a decline from the usual 150 each would get back in time when the blog was at its peak. It gets more interesting. There have been times when I have met people whose phone numbers I do not have asking me why I have not written the article for the day. Now these are obviously people who are not on my mailing list. Some have taken this initiative come to the blog at the end of every Friday to check if there is new material. I find that humbling.

That makes me wonder. Who reads these articles? Now I know there are some of you who read and comment every Friday. Some of you would come with screenshots or quotes of the article to show me that you are reading… but if the link to this gets to be sent to 123 people through WhatsApp and I get 50 hits, it means 70people from the broadcast list did not read. 40 will probably read after getting the link through WhatsApp. I could actually list them if I wanted to. Felix Gent ndi gulu lake will always do that and write their own article in the comment section. Then there are the likes of Dalitsani Madula and Daniel Sato who come and mark my grammar and spellings.  It is however, those others who read in silence who I am interested in.  Knowing people who read secretly can surely give me an insight on the demographics of people who read in this country and I need that data as I identify a target audience for a potential book.

Now… I know I may have sounded like I am complaining in this article. Well. I am but not for the lack of hits on this blog. I have talked about how I use this blog in two articles (at least from current memory). Firstly, I use it as a megaphone whenever I feel like I have something important to share but the second is more important. I use this blog as a vent; a platform which I can use to let out things that trouble my ever wandering mind. Today I used it as both. I have shed my tears for the reading culture but I have also shared with you about the book launch and how some of you are doing all you can to keep the reading culture alive by providing us with books and materials. I would like to appreciate all of you who have read to this sentence. You are the reason Richie Online is alive and I will continue to write this for you. If you feel like pestering me for an article when I do not write one, go on. I will complain about it and that will be it. Nanga titani?

Perhaps it is high time I resumed the habit of writing articles specifically tailored for loyal readers. If you are one of those secret readers, do come out. You are scaring and censoring me with your lack of comments.

Signing out, whatever you can pick up to read, please read. I have always said to my friends that the only bad reading habit is not reading. Tiyeni tizichotsa umbuli through these books.  

Who is reading these articles?