Why I Stopped the Design and Printing the NOLLYWOOD MIRROR®Series in Nigeria

Why I Stopped the Design and Printing the NOLLYWOOD MIRROR®Series in Nigeria

I have been in the printing and publishing industry since the publication of my first book, "Children of Heaven" by Krystal Publications Limited in 1987 when I was working as the Art/Features Editor of the Kiddies World magazine of Hon. Babatunde Stanley Ereola in Lagos, Nigeria.
I know where to find the best graphic artists, designers and printers in Lagos city and I grew up in Shomolu, where the majority of printers are located in Nigeria. So, naturally, when I wanted to start the production and publication of my NOLLYWOOD MIRROR®Series I chose to do so in Shomolu in 2013.

I wanted to have the official public presentation of the publication at the launching of my Screen Naija One Village One Cinema project cosponsored by the Bank of Industry at the Freedom Park on Lagos Island. I paid a graphic designer working for the publisher of a magazine I was the media consultant to design the first edition of the NOLLYWOOD MIRROR®Series. I paid him the total amount of money he agreed to be paid for the book design even before he started it. But he deliberately disappeared and became incommunicado for months to delay the publication of the book so that it would not be ready at the launching of Screen Naija in June 2013. He was not working alone to sabotage the publication. I found out that he had accomplices who surprisingly were very close associates who have benefitted from my creativity and generosity. The graphic designer sent me the draft of the book with clustered fonts to further make the printing difficult. He was a very evil and wicked enemy of progress. I sent the draft to Lulu Inc in the United States of America where my book, "Scarlet Tears of London" was designed and printed. Lulu complained of the clustered fonts, but there was not enough time to redesign the book if I wanted it ready for the launching of Screen Naija. And trying to correct the fonts delayed the publication until after the launching of Screen Naija on June 22, 2013.
Lulu sent me the first copies by UPS and the fonts of the text were still not the appropriate fonts. But I accepted and approved the publication for global distribution.

The astonishing divine intervention of Almighty God is that American and European readers have accepted the publication as a work of art that symbolizes the African magic of the phenomenon of Nollywood and thus made the first edition of the NOLLYWOOD MIRROR®Series a collector's item which they have been making more money from than me in the same manner they made so much money from the all time classic novel Things Fall Apart of Chinua Achebe, one of the greatest writers of modern literature. "Things Fall Apart" that was translated into over 30 foreign languages and sold more than 11 million copies, but the great author, Chinua Achebe never became a millionaire from the novel until he passed on. The Americans and Europeans buy the print on demand (POD) copies of the first edition of the NOLLYWOOD MIRROR®Series and label it out of stock and then resell their own copies for up to 300% more than the price of a copy of the book sold for US$40 by Lulu and Amazon. I have seen copies sold from US$75 to more than US$200 a copy and auctioned on eBay like a priced item by the collectors.

In spite of the disappointment by the first Nigerian graphic designer of the first edition of the NOLLYWOOD MIRROR®Series, I wanted to give another Nigerian graphic designer the opportunity to design the second edition. I found a graphic designer who also worked for the same magazine publisher in Shomolu. I paid him the total amount of money he agreed to accept to design the second edition. But later he abandoned it and brought another graphic designer to continue the job, because he was leaving Lagos for a Bible School in Abia or Imo state. But I refused to let him abandon the design of my NOLLYWOOD MIRROR®Series after collecting the total payment for the job. Afterwards, he told me that the same magazine publisher I was working for in Shomolu wanted him to sabotage the book design, but he refused. He still abandoned it without refunding the money I gave him for the job. That was it! I would never allow another Nigerian graphic designer to sabotage the publication of the NOLLYWOOD MIRROR®Series. Therefore I decided to give the book design to a foreign professional graphic designer of proven international reputation. I found Miss Juvelin Aripal in the Philippines and gave her the job as the Art Editor and graphic designer of the second edition of the NOLLYWOOD MIRROR®Series and "The Victory of Muhammadu Buhari and the Nigerian Dream" and Lulu Inc printed them with the rights to the global distribution.

~By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima,
https://www.amazon.com/author/ekenyerengozimichaelchima.