Crater Library & Publisher

Adachukwu Onwudiwe is 32 years old and is from Nigeria. She's a graduate of Library and Information Science from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and has over 7 years job experience as a research librarian.

She's an  advocate of public libraries and a writer who enjoys finding distinctive ways to solve peculiar problems in her community. She's   described as a creative person who's reliable and persistent in her pursuit of creating equality in access to knowledge resources for economic equality.

In recognition of her contribution to literary development in her  community, she was awarded Creative Intelligence Award in  2018 by Young  Women and Men Creative Association; Young but Influential Awards 2018 at the Enugu Readers Summit & Awards. In 2018, she participated in the Fate Foundation/Facebook  Aspiring Entrepreneurship Programme and emerged winner of the pitch competition. She went on to represent Enugu state at the nationals.

1. The inability of the Nigerian government designated institutions (National Library and National Archive) to fulfill its functions and objectives, means that the Nigerian intellectual heritage (educational and knowledge resources) are mostly abandoned on dusty shelves of creators and copyright owners. These institutions’ lack of innovation means that they are not also able to accommodate the growing electronic publications market. This translates to loss of local content and access to a centralized  collection/database for research or literary purposes.

2. I am proposing a centralized  collection  of Nigerian local content (scholarly and literary) where  authors and copyright owners can upload their publications and access provided to readers/users. 3. Collating, curating  and providing access to local content via Crater Library & Publisher  addresses the challenge of equitable access to research and literary resources. It  provides and support a strong foundation for education and research

Globally, libraries are changing to meet community and user demands because technology has made it possible for libraries to evolve as a community resource.Unfortunately, in Nigeria, all 316 Nigerian public libraries have not evolved to meet users’ needs especially in provision of access to content and publishing. This translates to loss of local content and access to a centralised  collection/database for research or literary content

 Nigeria has one of the largest mobile phone users in Africa with 85.49 million people online. This also affected web use in terms of access to information and e-book resources. At the IPA Africa Seminar in Lagos in 2018 it was reported that the African book market was worth $1 billion. Academic e-publishing (electronic publication of journals) and e-newspapers have gained more recognition and patronage. General  E-books are also becoming mainstream because of ease of use, convenience and the share feature which enables effective marketing through the use of social media.

This has also created a viable market for self-publishing  for the talent pool of Nigerian writers who are in need of digital shelves for their publications.

To build a collection of Nigerian intellectual heritage, we need authors and content creators to upload their works on our digital shelf. However, we understand the need for content creators to make money from their intellectual property, this is why we also support content creators who in addition to adhering to our FREE ONLINE READ ONLY policy, are interested in monetizing use (download) of their e-publication. Content creators are guaranteed that their resources are secured against unauthorised downloads or exports, copy and paste, and screen shot.

Crater Library & Publisher covers:

• Creators willing to share their work and knowledge for free use within a protected space.
• Creators willing to share their work and knowledge for free within a protected space but monetize its use.

*Content creators who monetise their content gain a 70% royalty from each sale  of their content.

Readers access free and premium electronic publications on  Crater website. Readers who seek to read to free can only access online literary and public domain reads which only opens on pdf readers while users/readers who purchase premium publications are able to access download link in their email and checkout cart after payment is completed and processed. 

Crater Library & Publisher serves 2 communities which can be further broken down into smaller  communities. The 2 communities are :

• Content Creators (as we refer to writers, authors, publishers and copy right owners). Crater covers:

• Creators willing to share their work and knowledge for free use within a protected space.
• Creators willing to share their work and knowledge for free within a protected space but monetize its use.

During our online survey, we discovered that content creators were in need of digital shelves to  display, archive and monetise their publications (as decided by them).

At Crater, we guarantee them 

• Free Sign up and upload
• Secure content (Screenshot, Copy and Paste and file conversion or decryption disabled)
• Transparency (Real time payment of royalty and access to reader statistics and reviews)

2. Readers (Users): They cut across leisure  readers to researchers (students or independent researchers) , institutions, colleges and organisations.

At Crater, we guarantee them 

• Free Registration
• Free online read only literary and public  domain content
• Low cost download of monetized content
• Secure data

Our goal with each of our customer segment is to support knowledge, education and research by providing equitable access to educational and  literary content.

The coronavirus pandemic has led to full or partial quarantine in most places and has changed or modified behaviour.

In developed countries, libraries have figured out ways to reach their patrons and continue to provide services through web or mobile applications.But in  Nigeria, with the schools shut down and the few good public  libraries closed, access to print literary and educational resources become harder to  get and  this makes homeschooling/virtual study near impossible. As a digital library, Crater Library & Publisher aims to provide and support a strong foundation for education and research in times like this and post pandemic.

During my stint as  a research librarian for a think tank in Enugu, I encountered the difficulty of getting access to research materials( literary and scholarly) requested by my library patrons. It was easier finding Nigerian music and movies offline and online but research materials were hard and in some cases when found, were on foreign databases which  charge high fees.

This encouraged me to start Crater Library which was initially a designed as a bookstore and publishing outfit in 2016. We published a 14 e-books with our imprint from 2016 -2018 but realised that most authors would rather self publish. In 2018, we carried out an online survey for both readers and authors and confirmed that self-publishing was common among authors but most of them sought digital shelves to display their works. We also discovered that a lot of readers  between 12 - 37 cannot afford to purchase books because of the rising poverty rate in Nigeria. They would rather spend money on food and browsing data than purchase an e-book.

This information changed our business model and approach. We officially registered our business in 2018 and switched to social enterprise to enable us provide digital library services.

As a librarian, I am aware that libraries are the major defenders of intellectual freedom but sadly in Nigeria, libraries are poorly funded and most library staff  lack the  motivation and skills to function as educational service providers in a 21st century.

In Nigeria, only a fraction of its intellectual resources are free and  available online. This has worsened piracy.

As a  social enterprise, Crater Library & Publisher will be providing   a platform for content creators (authors, writers, researchers) to share their works within a protected space for free (so that anyone can read online) but monetize the use of works with  Creative Commons license so that content creators who choose to gain from their works, can do so rightfully.  

In Librarianship, we say  every book has a  reader, every reader  has a book. We aim to accomplish this  with e-books/resources.

I am excited about the possibilities of  the impact that Crater Library & Publisher will have on intellectual freedom, research and education in Nigeria and Africa. 

Adachukwu Onwudiwe is a  graduate of Library and Information Science with over 7 years of job experience as a research librarian with African Heritage Institution.

Her previous job working as a research librarian  provided her  with the ideal experience for her position as founder of Crater Library & Publisher. For seven  years, she developed many of the skills required for this job, including digital collection management, information curation and dissemination.

She is  a self-motivated person who is willing to go above and beyond on any project she undertakes, and to learn valuable skills on her  own time. For example, she  taught herself graphic and infographic design on Canva and Piktochart to enable her design e-book covers , in addition to html and css coding.

She is  a team player and recognises the importance of working with individuals who  are excellent in their field. It is for this reason  that she  has a good working relationship with her technical co-founder, Amala Abafor,who is a senior developer and is in charge of designing Crater  website and its tech processes.

In 2017, we realised that a good number of first time authors who sent us their manuscripts had trouble improving their writing and finding mentors to guide them. This affected the pace of our work as we spent more time coaching new authors than editing and publishing. 

We realised that we could create a community of writers and host writing events and workshops where established authors can come and interact with writers  or teach  writing tips for a day or two.

This gave birth to the idea of a literary festival  called Crater Literary Festival. It became an annual event in south east Nigeria  where writers and readers are invited to engage and interact with one another.

We have successfully built  and hosted this festival and community from 2017 - 2019 and we look forward to hosting a virtual festival this year.

In December 2019, during our annual Crater Literary Festival, after months of preparation and confirming our international speakers,the Federal Government shut down the only international airport in the eastern region for repair.

The Crater Literary Festival team was demoralised  when all our speakers cancelled their speaking engagement with us. They had put in so much work and were looking forward to the festival. 

At first, they urged me to postpone cancel and postpone 2019 festival  to 2020 but I motivated them to stay  strong and carry on with the good work we've been doing. We had the best festival ever! 

In  order  to curate and create a central database of Nigerian local content, we apply the  Creative Common License (which helps to regulate and enable ethic use of digital content ) so that creators and copyright owners who upload their e-books or e-publications are allowed to gain control of their publications. They are able to decide  how they want readers to use their publications beyond Crater's free online read policy.

Current Number 

1000 publications uploaded by authors and copyright owners. 

701 people registered and using the  Crater web platform

1 year

2500 new publications uploaded  by authors and copy right owners.

2000 people registered on Crater web platform; 3000 registered and using Crater mobile applications.

5 Years

7000 new publications uploaded  by authors and copyright owners.

12000 people registered  on Crater web platform; 20,000 registered and Crater using mobile applications

Our plan for next year covers the following areas: 

Operations: To roll out a Crater ios and andriod application for mobile phones and release our own customised document format so as to reduce online piracy on our  platforms.

Customers:  Increase our customers by at least 30%.

Staff: Gain 4 key staff - Accountant, Systems Analyst, Junior software developer and a digital marketer.

Partnerships: Partner with at least 6 Nigerian universities to host their collection on our database.

Office: Rent an office space.

In the next five years, we aim to cover the following areas:

Partnerships: Be a strategic partner  with major libraries, academic institutions and think tanks globally.

Operations: Maximise value of workforce through a HR management strategy.

Staff: Create workplaces that give our staff a sense of purpose, linked to customer satisfaction.

Customers (Users): Maximise data on user behaviour and trends  for improved services.

Market Reach: Extend reach to 3  African countries- Ghana, Gambia and Zambia.

Revenue: Increase revenue by 60% by creating or adopting products and services.

Lack of Capital: 

(a) to fund the development of a customised  encrypted Digital Rights Management software that will tighten security of Crater content and mobile application.

(b) to recruit relevant Staff

(c) to scale and extend market reach to Ghana and Gambia.

Lack of Capital 

• Apply for grants and seed capital
• Be open to social investment.
• Continue bootstrapping till we make more sales and increase our revenue enough to employ more staff and work on our encrypted DRM software.
• Recruit part time interns.

We are currently partnering with  African Heritage Institution.Crater Library & Publisher will  host and provide access their publications on our digital shelf (website)

We are also partnering with iSERVE2050. They funded a research  paper  which will be hosted exclusively on our digital shelf. The  ongoing research titled "Cultism and Occultism: A Socio-political Rhetoric of (Wo)manliness- An Anthropological Investigation of the Idiosyncrasy of the Igbo of the South East using Mmanwu Culture" is being undertaken by Ifedimma Onwugbufor whose synopsis was selected in the 2019 Crater/iSERVE2050 Book Pitch Competition.