Why Nigerian Writers Need A Collecting Society – By Odoh Diego Okenyodo
For too long, Nigerian writers and publishers have lived in a creative paradox: we produce a wealth of literature that enriches our culture, educates our society, and shapes our collective imagination, yet the very people behind these works often live in economic uncertainty.
Across the country, books are photocopied, anthologised, digitised, and taught in classrooms every day, but there is no structured mechanism to ensure that the authors and publishers who make this knowledge possible are compensated.
This imbalance has persisted for decades, eroding the dignity and sustainability of the Nigerian literary profession. I know these because I first edited an anthology of creative writings over 20 years ago with the title, After the Curfew, and another in 2006 called Camouflage: Best of Contemporary Writings from Nigeria. Both anthologies have not been financially profitable.
Investment in publishing has therefore been seen as a social good, or charity, not necessarily something that can afford one to make a living as a publisher or author. And if authors and publishers can make nothing from writing, there is no reason to think about editors, illustrators, agents, legal advisers or service providers, unlike in the music industry. We cannot talk of an industry, then, if the fundamentals of the industry are not identified, protected and remunerated properly.
It is for this reason that a group of writers, publishers, and book promoters have come together to establish the Literary Collecting Society of Nigeria (LITCOSON).
LITCOSON will be a collective management organisation designed to protect the rights of literary creators and ensure that they receive fair and equitable remuneration for the use of their works. The society is not another writers’ association or advocacy group; rather, it aspires to be a professional structure built to manage and enforce the economic rights of authors and publishers within the framework of Nigeria’s copyright laws.
In well-functioning creative economies, whenever a book is copied, excerpted, or adapted — whether in libraries, classrooms, publishing houses, or digital platforms — a small portion of the value generated returns to the creator and the publisher. This system is standard practice in countries where intellectual property rights are respected and enforced.
Unfortunately, Nigeria has lacked such an organised mechanism for the literary sector. Musicians have the Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON) and filmmakers have the Audio Visual Rights Society (AVRS). The Audio Visual Rights Society of Nigeria (AVRS) says it “collects money from public/commercial users such as hotels, salons, restaurants, airlines, halls, transport facilities and many others.”
Literary creators have had no equivalent body to safeguard their rights. The result is a publishing industry that struggles to survive amid rampant piracy, unlicensed reproductions, and a lack of financial return for creative labour.
This situation has stifled the growth of Nigerian literature. Many writers, even those celebrated nationally and internationally, cannot afford to sustain their craft. Publishers, too, are forced to rely heavily on textbooks and educational contracts to stay afloat, while literary publishing—the heart of our cultural expression—remains a financially fragile venture.
The younger generation sees writing as a noble passion, but not a viable career. The truth is that without a functional rights and royalty system, talent alone cannot sustain the literary ecosystem.
The formation of LITCOSON is therefore both an act of necessity and vision. It represents a collective determination to build a transparent, fair, and sustainable framework for literary rights management.
As a collecting society, LITCOSON will be responsible for negotiating and licensing the use of literary works on behalf of its members—authors, poets, dramatists, publishers, and estates. It will also ensure that royalties collected are distributed fairly and promptly. The system we envision will be data-driven and transparent, using digital tools to track the reproduction and distribution of literary works, whether in print, photocopy, or digital form.
Beyond the question of money, LITCOSON is about restoring fairness and dignity to the literary profession. It is about ensuring that every use of an author’s work, whether for education or entertainment, contributes in some way to sustaining the ecosystem that produced it. It is also about building professionalism in a sector that has long operated informally, often to the detriment of its practitioners.
LITCOSON’s creation is anchored in collaboration. It will work closely with the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC), writers’ unions, publishers’ associations, libraries, educational institutions, and government agencies to establish a fair-use regime that benefits all stakeholders.
The society will draw from the provisions of Nigeria’s new Copyright Act of 2022, which encourages the formation of collecting societies as efficient vehicles for rights management. By creating a unified body for literary rights, we hope to align Nigeria’s literary industry with global standards and contribute meaningfully to the country’s creative economy.
Our vision is to make creativity a source of livelihood and pride. When a book is photocopied in a university library, when an anthology uses a Nigerian poem, or when a short story appears on a digital platform, a modest share of that value should return to those who created it. This is not charity—it is justice.
Writers and publishers deserve to earn from their labour, just as musicians, filmmakers, and visual artists do. If publishers are unable to get any value from their investment, everyone down the chain suffers, and then there would be very few real publishers, which is the situation we see in Nigeria today.
The Literary Collecting Society of Nigeria is, therefore a call to action.
To every author whose work has been used without acknowledgement, to every publisher struggling under the weight of unpaid reproductions, and to every reader who values fairness and creativity, this initiative belongs to you. Together, we can create a literary economy that rewards creativity, sustains publishing, and strengthens our national culture.
We owe it to ourselves, and to the generations of writers and readers to come, to build a system that values the written word not only for its beauty but also for its worth. It is time for Nigerian writers and publishers to live by their pens, and for literature to become a sustainable profession once more. This is how countries are built, because those who leave the government or any institution would hope to write memoirs that would be read and bring them legitimate money in their retirement.
Odoh Diego Okenyodo is a writer, editor, and cultural advocate. He is one of the initiators of the Literary Collecting Society of Nigeria (LITCOSON) and the Country Director of the Splendors of Dawn Poetry Foundation and CEO of Akweya TV Ltd.
