Bookshops must wake up or share Rip Van Winkle's fate

One of the most captivating short stories ever written in the American literary tradition is Rip Van Winkle, written by Washington Irving under the pseudonym Geoffrey Crayon.

It is the story of a quiet, lazy villager who escapes one day into the woods with his dog, named Wolf, before the American Revolution. Deep in the mountains, he encounters a group of bearded men who offer him a mysterious drink and he slips into a deep slumber.

By the time Rip Van Winkle stirs awake, his dog is gone and his gun has hopelessly rusted. On getting home, he finds that his wife is long dead, his children are all grown and where people once hung the portrait of King George III now rests the picture of George Washington, the first President of the United States. It turns out that the drink Rip Van Winkle had been offered by the bearded strangers after he helped them carry a keg had caused him to sleep for twenty years. Yes, twenty years!

This story, a fitting illustration of the failure to innovate in a rapidly changing world, comes to mind whenever schools reopen. At such times, bookshops often lament that, unlike in the past, parents no longer flock to their stores to buy books. Many attribute the decline to the worsening economy.

Yet the problem may be less about the economy than an inability to adapt to changing consumer habits and a transformed book market. The economy is undoubtedly struggling, but the decline of the back-to-school boom stems from other factors.

We no longer live in an era when every parent bought books for school-going children. Most learners attend public schools and for more than a decade, the government has procured and distributed textbooks to public schools.

Bookshops are therefore left competing for the private-school market. Yet some private schools have their own suppliers, while others buy directly from publishers, leaving traditional booksellers with a shrinking customer base.

Perhaps a bit of background is in order here to bring you up to speed on where the booksellers lost the plot. Around 2003, when the government announced the Free Primary Education (FPE) programme, a policy shift kicked in that favoured booksellers to the high heavens.

Procurement malpractice

School managements would henceforth choose books for their learners, a welcome move since teachers best understand their students’ needs and can recommend suitable reading materials. Publishers dispatched representatives to market their titles. They visited staffrooms, pitched their books and left sample copies for teachers to review. If teachers approved the titles, they recommended them to the school management, which then placed the orders.

The policy that most favoured booksellers barred schools from buying directly from publishers. Publishers marketed and secured orders, but deliveries had to be processed through school-designated booksellers. The arrangement fuelled the growth of thousands of bookshops eager to benefit from the FPE boom. The tragedy was that, awash with book funds, some school administrators colluded with booksellers to defraud the system.

Schools paid for books that never arrived, ordered excessive copies and, in some cases, libraries mysteriously went up in flames, only for fresh allocations to be sought for restocking.

It was procurement malpractice in its familiar African form.Then the government said enough is enough after it emerged that the one-pupil-one-book ratio remained a pipe dream. It was at that point that the purchasing of books was centralised. So booksellers should not expect that pre-2003 back-to-school boom to return. It is gone forever, barring a seismic policy change.

Another challenge for legacy bookshops is the changing definition of a book. E-books, audiobooks, podcasts, digital platforms and online subscriptions are no longer threats but opportunities for innovation. In 2026, as rents rise in Nairobi, Kampala, Dar es Salaam and other East African cities, bookshops cannot simply wait for parents to walk in with school book lists.

Young readers, too, are unlikely to embrace stores lined with “Do not touch” signs and silent staff. Bookshops must work with publishers to host launches, book signings and reading clubs. They should also support self-published authors and independent writers, creating spaces where local literary communities can thrive while generating sales.

Nuria and other outlets have already begun adapting. The future of bookshops lies not just in selling books, but in building communities, curating experiences and creating lifestyles around reading. Otherwise, the growing influence of BookTok, Bookstagram, podcasts and online reading communities will leave traditional bookshops behind.

Before 2003, most local bookshops mainly stocked imported titles. With shipping costs rising, booksellers, especially major chains, should consider acquiring rights to reprint popular international books through Print on Demand and other technology-driven models.

This is not mere speculation. A few weeks ago, a leading Kenyan publisher lamented that an excellent book I had purchased was unavailable in several major stores because retailers now stock only fast-moving titles. As a result, quality books serving smaller but important audiences are disappearing from shelves.

With the textbook market shrinking and private schools offering limited opportunities, booksellers must rethink their business models. Publishers, particularly newer ones, can tell stories of supplying books worth millions only to go unpaid, forcing many to sell on credit to only a few trusted retailers.

This is not a call for booksellers to embrace extinction. It is a call to adopt new technologies and hybrid models that reflect changing lifestyles and reading habits.

Change offers an opportunity to reinvent and innovate. Those who ignore it risk becoming modern-day Rip Van Winkles, asleep while the world changes around them.