Once a year the publishers and booksellers of South Africa congregate for three days to discuss industry issues and consider better ways of doing business, producing books and delivering education materials to schools timeously.
At the co-located AGM’s of PASA (The Publishers Association of South Africa) and the SA Booksellers Association, there are always some topics which are hotly debated and key players in the industry eagerly await the programme of events to see which guest speakers will enlighten on issues ranging from basic literacy to the latest technological developments in learning tools, elending and ebooks. It is a stimulating time to be working in the publishing and bookselling trade.
The three-day conference culminates in the Sefika Awards dinner where the Nielsen Booksellers Choice Award is also presented. It is an event that brings together publishers, booksellers and authors to celebrate each other and the roles they play in producing and selling well-written books for the readers in our country.
This year these dedicated people, who work for the love of the written word, will gather beneath the mountain, at the Vineyard Hotel in Cape Town, where Jeremy Maggs as MC is sure to enlighten and entertain. Jeremy Maggs is a South African journalist, radio host and television presenter. He is currently anchoring eNews Channel Africa (eNCA) , which is now also on the Sky digital bouquet in the UK.
The Sefika Awards are de facto insider awards where the best trade bookseller and publisher, best education bookseller and publisher, best academic bookseller and publisher, and last but not least, best library supplier, voted for by their peers, are celebrated for their innovation, vision and commitment to the SA publishing and bookselling industries. The teams that win these awards are the leaders in literacy development in South Africa and it is important that the publishers are recognized for their dedication to producing works of perfection and that the booksellers are thanked for taking these works and getting them into the hands of readers country wide.
The Guest Speaker for the evening, Xolela Mangcu is an internationally respected analyst and commentator and often quoted in South African media. He has authored and co-authored six books, the latest Biko: A Biography. Based at the University of Cape Town, he is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. Mangcu has written weekly columns for the Sunday Independent, Business Day and the Weekender, and is a guest analyst for the BBC, CNN and Al-Jazeera. The Sunday Times has called Mangcu ‘possibly the most prolific public intellectual in South Africa.’ Peter Vale described him as ‘the most interesting, certainly the most engaging voice amongst the new generation of public intellectuals in South Africa.’ His speech is sure to have these scholarly individuals riveted.
The final award for the evening, the Nielsen Booksellers Choice Award, now in its 13th year, is a very special award, bestowed upon an author for a book he or she has written that booksellers most enjoyed selling throughout the year. This year’s award includes a two tier voting system for the first time and booksellers country wide have been presented with a short list of eight titles to consider. As with any awards process, the short list comes with a new lease for the books, a new reason for author events, a new motivation for different display tables. The raison d’etre for the award is to honour both authors and publishers and thank them for producing books of high quality, which make a large impression on the bottom lines of bookshops countrywide.
Sponsored by Paarl Media, Nielsen, SAPnet, Creda Communications, Lebone Litho Printers, Premier Freight, Geodis Wilson and On the Dot, the entire evening and all of the honour it bestows upon the recipients of the awards, is something worth noting.
Look out for the winners to be announced on the 14th August and you will know who is working to make South Africa a more literate country with books accessible to all.
Conference dates: 13-15 August 2013
Contact: saba@sabooksellers.com