Reinventing Distribution
Lea Shaver · Yale University Press eBooks · 2020
This chapter covers the difficulties of distributing books, especially developing countries that contend with limited transportation infrastructure and unreliable postal systems. From Pratham Books' perspective, “Creating access is infinitely harder than creating books,” Suzanne Singh states plainly. It explains how postal systems offer a convenient and cost-effective way to deliver hard-copy books. In the United States, Imagination Library spends pennies per book to ship directly to children's homes. The trade-off, however, is that the recipients have no ability to select particular books of interest. The chapter also explains how digital technology offers to make books “magically appear” in a different way. For charities looking to make their budgets stretch, these potential cost savings are significant and very attractive. For this reason, literacy charities in the developing world are increasingly emphasizing digital content.