Young author challenges upcoming authors to be bold and write

Murang’a

Tuesday, August 8, 2023

KNA by Purity Mugo

Javan Bwire also known as JB Omukangala has challenged young people who are interested in writing books to be courageous and simply just start writing.

The 31-year-old Omukangala who spoke to KNA during a book tour in Murang’a, urged upcoming writers to be bold and brave criticism in order to grow as authors even when the feedback is not positive.

“You cannot grow as a writer without writing and you cannot write if you are afraid of criticism.” he said,

Omukangala who now has eight titles to his name, was an English Literature teacher for six years until 2020 when he quit teaching to focus on writing.

Sharing his journey since making the career change, he said that although there have been challenges, his career as a writer has been fulfilling.

“It took me seven months to write my first book: Torn Between while some of the books take a shorter time,” he said noting that it took him a shorter time to write A Marriage of Dolls which is a sequel of Torn between.

He said writing a book takes between two and seven months depending on the amount of research required.

“When you are writing a book that touches on cultural practices, you have to take time and conduct research so that it is accurate,” he said adding that the characters are fictional but the cultural references are not.

Omukangala said he started by writing short stories and articles for his classmates in secondary school and later started writing and posting such stories on his Facebook page in 2014.

He uses social media platforms and referrals to market his books saying distributing and monetising books is one of the biggest challenges self-published authors have to grapple with.

Omukangala noted that all his books are all self-published since his attempts to get one of the major publishers to work with him became frustrating.

However, he said that although the process of self-publishing is hectic, it ensures more gains for him as an author.

“I had submitted the manuscript to a well-known publisher and they kept it for a year without working on it. I just had to withdraw and opt for self-publishing,” he said,

“When you self-publish you know exactly how many books you have published and sold unlike with publishing houses which may try to shortchange you,” he added.

He explained that self-publishing includes writing, editing, formatting, designing and finally marketing the book adding that publishers take too long to publish books from upcoming authors.

Omukangala has two of his titles: The Village Well and The Midnight Sun adopted as class texts in a number of schools and hopes that eventually one of his books is adapted as a set book for English literature in secondary schools.

He has also written guide books for various set books currently being studied in secondary schools.

Omukangala has sold over 10, 000 copies of his various books.

He advised budding authors to be creative and patiently market their books using all available platforms saying that the market is enough for everyone. 

Courtesy ; K. N. A