Good Stories Don’t Grow on Trees A Guide to Effective Costing of Storybooks in the Global South Neil Butcher, Lisbeth Levey, Kirsty von Gogh 1 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence Background With funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and as part of its work on the early literacy ecosystem and open licensing, Neil Butcher & Associates (NBA) is conducting research on costs associated with production of different kinds of storybooks. NBA’s goal is to contribute to enhancing the availability of children’s books in mother-tongue languages in Africa, supported by open licensing. Openly licensed resources are ‘free’ to access, but there are significant creation, adaptation, production, and use costs. The long-term sustainability of local-language publishing requires that these costs be met fairly, using financial models that will enable people to establish, grow, and maintain effective content creation organizations. This research aims to raise awareness of the various costs that go into producing and translating storybooks and of the relationship between investment and quality. It also serves to illustrate emerging business models for local organizations creating content using open licensing that funders and governments might wish to fund to support effective early literacy acquisition in developing countries. NBA has also created a website, the Early Literacy Resource Network (ELRN), to share information on toolkits and research about open licensing, teacher training, national language and book policies, access and distribution, and key players in early literacy. The ELRN website gathers together work carried out by major organizations and researchers in this field. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence. Cover page image: Fati and the Honey Tree, by Osu Library Fund and illustrated by Therson Boadu, Sub-Saharan Publishers, https://storyweaver.org.in/stories/32296- fati-and-the-honey-tree 2 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence Table of Contents ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS .................................................................................................................................... 6 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................................ 7 REPORT STRUCTURE ...................................................................................................................................................... 8 OPEN LICENSING .......................................................................................................................................................... 9 STORYBOOK MODELS, COST DRIVERS, AND VARIABLES ...................................................................................................... 10 Types of storybook models ................................................................................................................................ 10 Cost drivers per model ....................................................................................................................................... 10 Process of storybook creation: content creation methods ................................................................................ 12 Translation considerations ................................................................................................................................ 15 Overhead costs .................................................................................................................................................. 17 Summing up cost models ................................................................................................................................... 18 Capacity requirements and challenges .............................................................................................................. 19 CONTENT PRODUCER COSTS ......................................................................................................................................... 22 STEM stories ...................................................................................................................................................... 25 Print costs .......................................................................................................................................................... 26 Sustainability ..................................................................................................................................................... 29 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................................. 34 APPENDIX 1: THE ASIA FOUNDATION ............................................................................................................................ 35 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 35 What does Books for Asia do? ........................................................................................................................... 36 Intellectual property rights ................................................................................................................................ 40 Business model: costs and revenue ................................................................................................................... 40 Cost analysis ...................................................................................................................................................... 40 APPENDIX 2: BOOKBOX .............................................................................................................................................. 42 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 42 What does BookBox do? .................................................................................................................................... 43 Intellectual property rights ................................................................................................................................ 43 Business model: costs and revenue ................................................................................................................... 44 Cost analysis ...................................................................................................................................................... 46 APPENDIX 3: BOOK DASH ............................................................................................................................................ 47 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 47 What does Book Dash do? ................................................................................................................................. 47 Book Dash sources of funding............................................................................................................................ 51 Intellectual property rights ................................................................................................................................ 52 Business model: costs and revenue ................................................................................................................... 52 Cost analysis ...................................................................................................................................................... 53 APPENDIX 4: SAIDE’S AFRICAN STORYBOOK INITIATIVE ..................................................................................................... 56 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 56 What does African Storybook do? ..................................................................................................................... 56 Intellectual property rights ................................................................................................................................ 62 Business Model: costs and revenue ................................................................................................................... 63 Cost analysis ...................................................................................................................................................... 63 APPENDIX 5: STORYWEAVER FROM PRATHAM BOOKS ..................................................................................................... 66 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 66 Outreach at Pratham Books: ‘a book in every child’s hand’ .............................................................................. 66 What does StoryWeaver do? ............................................................................................................................. 68 Intellectual property rights ...............................................................................................................................