₦airaland Forum

Crayfish09:
Dear authors, I know that majority of us want to have our works read while making a few bucks in the process. That is a fair deal but on Okadabooks, there is no such thing as making money. Before I go on to explain, let me tell you how other book publishing platforms like KDP, Smashwords and Draft2digital work.

On these platforms, they have millions of readers surfing their sites and hunting for books. You can literally make a lot of money without spending a dime on ads as long as your cover, description and keywords are good enough. In exchange for giving you the opportunity for using their platforms, they take 30% of your sales as their share (on average). Ladies and gentlemen, if you make #100,000 on a site without adverts and they take #30,000 out if it, I believe it is fair. Also, if you make just ten naira on these websites, they will give you your 7 naira at the end of the month.

Now let's look at Okadabooks. Go and hire the best graphics designer for your book cover, use the catchiest title and buy an editor for your book, you will make a whopping one thousand Naira if you are very very lucky. And that one thousand Naira usually doesn't come from their so-called 300,000 readers. You have to go to facebook, IG, twitter, etc to get your customers, take them to Okadabooks (thereby bringing new customers to Okadabooks) and then dash them 30% of your earnings (the same cut mega sites like Amazon charge) while their so-called 300,000 customers look almost exclusively for free books.

Now, you may think this is still somehow fair but here is the issue: Okadabooks will say that you must make up to 10,000 Naira before you can withdraw (in contrast to other sites that pay you no matter what you earn). Now, 10k is not a very big amount of money but on Okadabooks, it is extremely a herculean task. Everything that you make before you reach that #10,000 goes into Okadabooks bank account (in addition to their 30% cut). They only pay you If you reach their 10k limit.

Now let me tell you what the trick is. When you consistently publish books for months and months without even reaching five thousand naira, you will get tired and give up. Once you give up, Okadabooks gets to keep everything that you have earned while you go home with nothing.

Why am I writing this? It's because I have been a victim and I know so many other victims too even here on nairaland.

I have been regularly publishing since November and even under pricing books (#50-100) just to attract readers but the truth is, there are very few readers on Okadabooks. I had to get my own readers. From November to July, I have not made up to 4k. I never had issues with this but this is what broke my patience;

Fidelity bank kept my 20k after a failed transaction two days before Sallah. Broke and hopeless, I decided to appeal to Okadabooks to give me even if it is just 2k so that I will not go penniless on Sallah day. These people simply ignored my messages. Till date, fidelity bank is yet to give me back my money and Okadabooks is still ignoring my pleas.

I have decided to give up on the site (Of course, they will buy suya with the 3.5k I made from their 300,000 ghost readers) but please, if you are not willing to advertise or write free books then stay away from these leeches . You won't make much from them and the little you make will go into their bank account while you go home with nothing. I have a friend that has 50 books (including novels) with them but he still hasn't crossed 8k on the site.