You built a publishing business in a market where many of the distribution channels, institutional structures and established routines that publishers elsewhere take for granted simply weren't there. Looking back, which parts of the traditional publishing model did you discover were actually essential - and which ones turned out to be unnecessary?

Sandra: What I discovered very quickly is that the essentials of publishing are surprisingly few: good content, rigorous editorial work, a clear understanding of who the reader is, and a way of connecting the two. Everything else can be redesigned.

When I founded Editora Trinta Zero Nove in 2018, I could not simply reproduce a publishing model developed for markets with established distribution networks, large bookshop chains, functioning library systems and predictable institutional purchasing. In Mozambique, some of those structures were weak or simply did not exist at the scale we needed. So we had to ask ourselves what each part of the traditional model was actually supposed to achieve, rather than assuming we needed to reproduce the structure itself.

Distribution, for example, is essential; a conventional distributor is not. We have used print-on-demand internationally, e-commerce, direct sales, book fairs and partnerships to reach readers. A physical bookshop is not essential either, but access to books absolutely is. That distinction eventually led us to create Livroteca in Marracuene, which is simultaneously a bookshop, a library and a space for reading activities.

The same applies to format. Publishing does not necessarily mean producing a conventional printed book. For us, it can mean Portuguese and a Mozambican language in the same edition, an audiobook, Braille, or several of those formats working together.

Perhaps the biggest lesson has been that the publisher's function is essential, but many of the structures traditionally surrounding that function are not. When those structures are absent, you do not necessarily wait for them to appear. You build another route to the reader.

Translation is at the heart of your work, but in Mozambique it is not simply a matter of acquiring a book and bringing it into another language - you also have to create the conditions for that book to find its readers. How do you decide which international titles are worth translating when demand may not yet be visible or measurable? And how much of that decision is about responding to an existing readership versus helping to create one?

Sandra: I don't believe that the absence of visible demand necessarily means the absence of readers. Sometimes it simply means that nobody has offered those readers the book yet.

That distinction is fundamental to the way we acquire rights. If we relied exclusively on historical sales data, we would probably reproduce the same narrow catalogue indefinitely. Translation allows us to challenge that.

We look for books that are excellent, of course, but also books that can enter into a meaningful conversation with Mozambican readers: stories about identity, race, gender, family, migration, disability, language or experiences that may be geographically distant but emotionally very familiar.

I also think carefully about what is missing. Part of an independent publisher's role is to identify gaps before the market can quantify them. When we publish international Black writers, women, queer voices, children's literature or books in Mozambican languages, we are not always responding to a category for which reliable market data already exists.

Translation therefore becomes both an editorial and a market-building exercise. Publishing the book is only the beginning. We may have to introduce the author, explain why the work matters, take the book to schools or reading clubs, create an audiobook, produce an accessible edition, or physically bring it to communities where there is no bookshop.

So I would say we do both. We listen carefully to the readership we already have, but we refuse to let existing demand define the limits of what that readership can become. Sometimes publishing is about satisfying demand; sometimes it is about creating the conditions in which demand becomes possible.

From your experience, what could publishers in more established markets learn from the way publishing businesses are being built in Mozambique and elsewhere in Africa?

Sandra: I would start by questioning the language of lack. A market may have fewer bookshops or weaker distribution infrastructure, but that does not mean it has fewer stories, less intellectual curiosity or less potential readership. What it often has is a mismatch between conventional publishing infrastructure and the ways people actually discover, access and consume culture. That forces us to be inventive.

African independent publishers frequently have to think beyond the boundaries of what a publishing company is supposed to do. We publish, translate, sell rights, organize events, create reading communities, work with schools, experiment with digital distribution and audiobooks, sell directly to readers and sometimes even create the spaces in which those readers encounter books.

Those activities might be divided among several organizations in a more established market. For us, they can be parts of the same ecosystem.

That produces a very direct relationship with readers. If something does not work, we often know quickly. If a distribution route disappears, we find another one. If the reader cannot access the printed book, perhaps the answer is audio, digital, a bilingual edition, a library, a school visit or a completely different partnership.

There is also an important lesson about scale. Innovation does not always mean sophisticated technology or large investment. Sometimes innovation is simply refusing to accept that a missing piece of infrastructure means that something cannot be done.

I think established publishing markets could learn from that willingness to question inherited structures. Instead of asking, “How has publishing always worked?”, we have often had to ask, “What does the reader actually need, and what is the simplest way of getting the book to them?”

That is not a temporary solution until our markets become more like established ones. In many cases, it may actually be a model for where publishing itself is going.

If there’s one idea you hope people take away from your session, what would it be?

Sandra: I hope people take away the idea that a market should not be defined by the infrastructure it lacks, but by the readers it has the potential to reach.

As publishers, our job is not simply to produce books within existing systems; sometimes it is to build the pathways that allow those books to find their readers.

Constraints can force us to question inherited models, and in doing so, create publishing businesses that are more flexible, accessible and responsive.

Sometimes the absence of a traditional route is precisely what allows us to imagine a better one.