₦airaland Forum

The initial decision to freeze was for a specific purpose, but the purpose didn't really materialize.

Dealfish/Naspers has never ever offered me any money for Nairalist. Loy Okezie is just a chronic liar.

Yes. 60,000 naira for the winner, 30,000 naira for the runner up, and 15,000 naira for the 3rd best.

@nateevs:The scope of the contest has been broadened to include e-books, and video/audio streaming, so the e-book vs book debate is probably mute as far as this thread is concerned.

Secondly, as long as no one puts a gun to your head, you cant claim to have been forced to consent.

According to the law on rape, "Any person who has unlawful carnal knowledge of a woman or girl, without her consent,
or with her consent, if the consent is obtained by force or by means of threats or intimidation of any kind, or by fear of harm,
or by means of false and fraudulent representation as to the nature of the act,
or in the case of a married woman, by personating her husband,
is guilty of an offence which is called violation."

Even if the consent was obtained by mere threats, it is still a rape. A gun is not required. If a woman decides to 'cooperate' in order to avoid being beaten to a pulp or killed by a gang of human dogs, it's still clearly rape in Nigerian law.

Acording to the law of Nigeria, even if she "consented", if the consent was obtained by force, threats, etc,then it's still rape. These idiots dont read the laws they enforce.

This change of policy has no real effect on anything. I suspect it was done out of desperation, not strategy.

I don't see how changing the source of the dollar will affect anything on the long run. Don't get it.

Yes.

I don't think such measures can prevent the naira from falling. Demand and supply will always prevail.

I've decided to continue with the competition but expand its scope a little bit:
1) The contest is not limited to books anymore. You can pitch a business that lends DVDs, CDs, and any other types of media in addition to or instead of books.
2) The contest is not limited to physical media anymore. You can pitch a business that lets people 'borrow' ebooks, movie/tv/music, etc.
3) You don't necessarily have to setup a chain of stores. A single store might suffice, if it enjoys a lot of traffic.
4) The stores need not be physical. They can be online stores, etc.

What business, precisely?

How much per day?

Yes, in theory.

Any food people buy regularly from the open markets is a candidate for better packaging.

You seem to specialize in processing various forms of flour. I think proper packaging of the popular flours used for amala, pounded yam, fufu, eba, etc in a form that you can buy in posh supermarkets, and at prices competitive with open market prices, would be a hit with middle-class career people. Make it a cool brand.

Yeah. We're removing and merging boards so we can moderate them more effectively. We want to reduce the number of places where spammers can hide their posts.

Frank: I work in a bank and each time I get my payslip I always see tax deducted. Some months its the same whilst sometimes it differs. Please how the hell do they calculate tax

Me: Take it easy Frank, its the same with me and several other employees. How much do you earn?

Frank: My salary package N1.2m (that is N100k per month)

Me: Ok! There isn't any one straight way of calculating your taxes because a lot of how it is calculated depends on the way your Basic Salary and Allowances are broken down. So, to make it simple, I will assume  a breakdown for you;

Step 1 - Get the breakdown of the components of your salary. See example below
Basic Salary                          690,000   
Housing Salary                      150,000 
Meal Allowance                      60,000
Entertainment Allowance         60,000
Utility Allowance                     80,000
Transport Allowance               91,000
Leave Allowance                    69,000
Total                                    1,200,000

Step 2. Deduct reliefs and allowances from your salary. The Inland Revenue usually tax you on your entire salaries after deducting some reliefs and allowances. The reliefs and allowances deducted for tax purposes are:

Housing - Maximum of N150k per annum
Leave Allowance - Not more than 10% of your Basic Salary
Transport Allowance - N20k per annum
Utility Allowances     -  N10k per annum
Meal and Entertainment Allowances - N6k each per annum
Children Allowance -  N2.5k per kid (maximum of 4kids)
Dependent Relative Allowance - N2k per annum (maximum of 2 dependents)

Reliefs are 20% of your Annual Basic Salary plus N5k
NHF (Mandatory National Housing Fund Contribution) - 2.5% of your Basic Salary
Pension Contribution - 7.5% of your Basic plus Transport and Housing Allowances

All of the above get deducted from the N1.2m above.

Step 3 - Calculate the deductions (continued here)

Read the rest of the tutorial: http://www.ugometrics.com/2011/10/how-to-calculate-your-taxes.html

The bandwidth usage should be minimal, but you should test it by checking the systems bandwidth usage on taskmgr.

Already posted here: www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-772918.0.html

222Martins:
Seun, since when did you become town crier or publicist for ugodre or ugometrics? The blogger you are to promoting is just trying to gain attention by being controversial. Nice try but i think he or she should focus on providing value to readers; because the controversial tactic is not working.

I agree, but the controversy tactic seemed to work on the billionaire thread.

Strictly borrowing, ideally.
Do you think I should cancel the competition? 
No one seems to be seriously interested.
I can come back with something better.

daroz: Dude, you can just disobey your dad. If you're old enough to get married, you can make your own decisions. If you break up with a girl you love, it simply means your love for her is weak.

@gbengaijiot: yeah, but what they are debating is whether or not people are hungry for books.

You guys and gals have really dissected the idea, but is anyone planning to participate? Any insightful questions?

Never pay for a scholarship. Not even 10 kobo. That's how you weed out the scammers. Don't pay a penny.

Advice for 2011: Just use wordpress.

Some interesting statements so far (take note!)

@Maxmip:
- "I bought 4 books recently"
- "or it's located within or around a university somewhere,"

@TCD:
- "Make people sign undertaken or drop collateral? Lol"

@Jenifa_:
- "but I suggest u target your business to academics. (ex university students or professors) and find a way to connect your business to universities and colleges. maybe set up a corporate bookstore/library at schools. and charge monthly fee. per book fee should go to premium books/resources."

@okeyxyz:
- "if most of them are struggling to afford textbooks for now"

@moremi2008:
- "How will you ensure that your patrons return the books in good condition, if at all?"
- "besides students looking for textbooks,"

Orikinla:
Seun, Only a library of audio books will succeed in Nigeria, because that will appeal to our oral culture. Africans prefer talking to reading. Even audio books on academic subjects should be introduced to schools, because they will do more to improve the knowledge of both pupils and students. And including access to the internet for customers will help.

Educational materials in other formats are nice to have in libraries, but we'll still need physical books.

manny4life:
I once had a similar idea like the one you're saying, actual books "for rent" won't cut it. Netflix model is dying out, why do u think Netflix split?

I think Netflix made a wrong decision.  You don't kill a business just because you believe it's going to die someday.  That would be like Microsoft killing Windows because they think the Web is the future.  It's good to be prepared for the future, but you should also live and make money in the present.

diggler:
Seun our people stopped reading a long time ago, maybe save for a few. recent abysmal performances  in WAEC/NECO, Civil service tests etc attest to that.

That's partly true, but not entirely. Nigerians read textbooks (if they can afford them) in school, religious books, motivational books, affordable romance novels, popular authors, etc. I believe they will read even more books if it's convenient and affordable to do so.

However, all hope is not lost. there is a silver lining in these dark clouds.

With the explosion of Smartphones, handhelds and next generation tablets (Ipad, playbook, kindle) maybe energies should be dissipated in finding a way to deliver the content of these books via these platforms.

This is also partly true. The iPad, for example, is a great device for reading. But books have certain advantages. For example, you can take or put a book anywhere - taxi, molue bus, market, village, luggage, lecture hall - and not have to worry about robbers or PHCN. You don't need to have Internet access, power, or a credit card. I believe a very many Nigerians will be better served by physical books for a very long time, but it's a good idea to keep fixed costs low so the business can remain profitable as the market gradually disappears. One can move to areas where books are still needed.

A gradual transition to e-book production could be a way forward, but I think only publishers and device manufacturers (Apple, Amazon) and Google can make money from that.

manny4life:
Seun, no offense but are you (indirectly) looking for ideas  to start a business or you being genuine about this?

I have lots of ideas about this business, but I don't want to run it myself. I'm looking for innovative minds.

good idea though, good business plan but N1million is stretching it.

That's correct, but business is so unpredictable.  If you have 2 million, it's better to plan to spend 1 million.  That gives you a margin of safety, so you'll have cash on hand for unanticipated expenses (which are guaranteed, by the way).

1. How many pages are we looking it?

I won't provide a guideline on that.  In the world of the entrepreneur, there are few rules.  It's up to you to figure out how long the essay should be to adequately portray the message you want to pass across.  I will gladly read an essay as long as novel if it's rich with useful information.  It should be as long as it needs to be to convince the reader that your plan is sound, but not a sentence longer.

Is this supposedly to be written as a business plan (executive summary) rather than an essay?

I would like an essay, because I think unstructured prose reveals a lot about how a person thinks, which is key for me.  I don't want you to waste any time thinking about how to write a "good business plan".  I want that time to be spent thinking about how to build a profitable chain of commercial libraries.