OkadaBooks has always supported local publishers, it’s one of the reasons we became popular among self-published authors, and it’s been one hell of a ride. But in all this we found a new cause.
Over the years, we’ve seen a growing trend in our reader base. We saw millions of searches in Hausa language gradually climb as these users, using feature phones and smartphones, found their favourite Hausa books on our platform. But most struggled with using the site the way it was, in English. That’s when we decided we needed to go local.
Today, we’re introducing a lite, elegant version of OkadaBooks, specifically designed for our indigenous audiences who’d like to use the site on their mobile phones in other languages. With page sizes just under 800KB and with load times below one second, our mobile site, https://m.okadabooks.com is now equipped to serve Hausa users in their local language.
We’ve been working with Hausa authors over the last few months and we’re confident that this move will help expand their audience reach and give readers a better overall experience. – Osaze Osoba, Product strategy
Users can also pay with our easy-to-use payment options like bank transfer and airtime transfer to enable everyone read their favourite books.
We believe this is the first step in localizing the platform and we will be looking out for trends on other languages as users visit the site.
If you’re an author reading this and you’d like to start writing novels in local languages, we’d be happy to support you so we can work together to bring more books to the far corners of Nigeria. Reach out to us.
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