Today is the launch of phase two of bookly, a mobile/browser-based reading and writing platform in South Africa. In 2013 bookly won the Best Start-up award at the annual FutureBook Innovation Awards in London. It is great to see a South African initiative using the technology that is in the hands of our youth to improve literacy. This was the aim of Yoza Cellphone Stories, an initiative that I founded and run.
I received this from NATIVE VML, the company behind bookly:
I wanted to drop you a line to tell you about bookly – both a reading and writing platform, with the goal of improving literacy in South Africa.
bookly was launched in May last year as an e-reader app on Mxit. We’ve had over 700 000 unique visitors, viewing more than 13 million pages. We added more than 450 books onto our platform and our users have added more than 250 000 books to their bookshelves! By partnering with local publishers, bookly has also been instrumental in promoting South African authors. Thousands of reads have been achieved for the likes of Modjaji Books, Black Letter Media, Random House, MissWrite and Wordsmack and that’s just the beginning.
To get more people to read, we need more content that is relevant and personal to the kids. To get more content, we need South African to write their own stories.
This is where phase 2 of bookly comes in.
For phase 2 of bookly we are expanding into a writing platform. We have also created www.bookly.co.za, a mobile site which allows anyone to write a bookly. A bookly is a short piece of fiction that can be anything from poetry to a short story that is designed for mobile so the objective is to keep it concise but entertaining and provocative. A bookly can be written using anything from a feature phone up to a desktop PC. We will also be launching The bookly Award to encourage kids to write on the platform. On top of that, we are working with writing workshops such as Sa-Yes, MissWrite, and Access to spread the word about bookly. For more info, please check out the attached documents.
More information about bookly and how to access it can be found in the press release, e.g. bookly can be found in the following ways:
- Online – www.bookly.co.za
- Twitter – twitter.com/booklySA
- Facebook – www.facebook.com/booklySA
- Mxit – add ‘bookly’ as a contact or mxitapp.com/bookly
- Youtube – www.youtube.com/user/booklySA
Fiona Snyckers is mentioned in the press release as an author who publishes on bookly — she authored three of the best titles on Yoza in the Sisterz series.
I’m not exactly clear on their business model, but do know that they are not expecting to make millions out of bookly. Rather it is a vehicle for publishers and authors to create interest in their work, grow their brands and gauge interest in new works. With mobile, it is possible to get instant feedback from your readers. I learned this from comments received on Yoza stories. Further, bookly isa vehicle for supporting literacy development and growing the author base in our country.
I wish bookly and NATIVE VML all the best. As Head of Mobile at Pearson I will be watching its progress with interest.
Steven Vosloo 