Adedotun Eyinade: A Book Seller is Like an Emotional Therapist

Adedotun Eyinade is the co-founder and CEO of Rovingheights, a chain of bookstores. In seven years, Rovingheights has grown into one of the most recognisable bookselling brands in Nigeria, with footprints in Lagos and Abuja. Eyinade, who holds a Bachelor’s degree in Microbiology and a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the Obafemi Awolowo University and University of Oxford, UK, had previously lived and worked in East Africa, where he was leading business development for a renewable energy company. When  Raheem Akingbolu sat down with him recently in Abuja, Eyinade spoke on his journey from the corporate room to the bookstore

You started your career in a management consulting multinational firm. What was the attraction in books that lured you to think of opening a store?

I have always loved books. I was only friends with neighbors with whom I could swap books together. One of the first things I did after I got a place of my own was to hire a staff to help self-published authors distribute their books. I had noticed a gap when I worked with two self-published authors to sell their books in my final years in the university. So even though I had a demanding job as a management consultant, I had a side hustle selling book. Alongside my friend, Tayo Amogunla, I had a monthly book reading event at the then Debonair bookstore in Yaba called ‘Book N Guage”.

I loved the ambience of the store and I knew the question of starting a brick-and-mortar store was only a matter of time. We ran the event for 30 months non-stop. By the time I was in my senior associate years, I became too engrossed in my 9-5 and I had to quit consulting to do a fellowship in the US. My sister Tobi came on board and she ran the business and brought a lot of flair into it. Bola, my wife, also came on board. We incorporated the business in 2016 and opened our first brick and mortar store in 2018. We were strictly online before then.

Did the establishment of Rovingheights have anything to do with your upbringing or your penchant for reading?

You need to have a deep love for books to run or own a bookstore. I and my sisters read a lot growing up. I read everything I could find in the house as a child. I would go to the houses of neigbhors to borrow books. When I grew older, I noticed a gap: there were few bookstores carrying up -to-date inventory, and in the part of town where I grew up, it was even worse. When we started, I often wondered if anyone would buy the books and we would console ourselves by saying even if no one bought them, we would gift them out to our friends.

 What is your take on the declining reading culture in Nigeria?

I think the declining interest in reading is as much an access problem as it is an economic problem. And it seems like a chicken and egg one, too. There are few bookstores to find books for a country of this size and books are also priced out of the reach of most Nigerians. Truth be told, most Nigerians are too poor to read. There are huge swathes of this country where you cannot find decent bookstores carrying new books. In some of these places, even if the literacy rate is well over 60 percent, the bulk of those in paid employment are in the civil service and they are owed salaries for months; no factories, no productive ventures that can sustain a middle class. If the public libraries were functional, they could offer some reprieve but they are all in coma. So, fix the economy and more folks will have disposable income to buy books for themselves and their children.

Do you consider technology vis a vis the internet revolution as a contributing factor to why youths are shying away from reading?

I don’t think so. Infact, there is a lot of reading going on phones, tablets and on computers. Some young people who cannot afford to buy books are reading free PDF versions on their devices. As controversial-intellectual property concerns- as this option is, it signals that perhaps if physical books become more affordable and more accessible via brick-and-mortar bookstores and libraries, more young people would be favorably disposed to buying and reading.

It has been 7 years since you birthed the Rovingheights brand; what is the experience like, what is the feedback and what type of books Nigerians patronize most?

The experience has been incredible. We are fortunate to enjoy the goodwill of customers across the country and even across our borders. We have delivered books to customers in Belgium, Ivory coast, Qatar, Potiskum,Jalingo, Ado Ekiti and have enjoyed the patronage of eminent Nigerians including the immediate past Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo and the incumbent Vice President, Kashim Shettima. Our customers have kept faith with us all these years, giving us critical feedback that have helped us become better. We remain in their debt.

Fiction is a popular genre in our stores. We devote a significant amount of shelf space to Fiction. I am happy that Nigerian literary fiction is experiencing a renaissance of sorts, and this reflects in the demand that we see. We also enjoy a decent demand for business and self-help titles. We are aspirational people, so, Nigerians want to become better at running their businesses, they want to make more money. So, books that speak to these aspirations do well. Non-fiction books such as Politics, Memoirs and History also do well in our Abuja outlets.

It is believed in some quarters that economic challenges contribute to why some Nigerians lose interest in reading, do you agree?

Absolutely. Nigerians are too poor to read. Books do not come cheap these days. If you must spend a fifth of the monthly minimum wage to buy an original paperback, then books will become the exclusive preserve of only the upper middle class. In some other climes, the comparable price is slightly less than the hourly minimum wage. In Nigeria, it is worse since the public libraries are also in a deplorable state. So, in a sense you are right to say Nigerians are too busy with the quotidian details of putting food in their bellies to worry about reading.

Reaction of your loved ones?

Our business is family owned. my sister Tobi and my wife, Bola are co-founders. My family is a huge supporter of what we do. We are really blessed to have family and friends rooting for us.

How has the book venture impacted you?

I have loved books all my life and some of the closest folks to me are readers. On the business-side, it has helped me deepen my capacity for risk taking and helped me become a better manager of people, relationships, and resources. On the social side, it has brought a lot of interesting people my way. Some of the finest people in this world are readers and as a bookseller, you need to listen to them a lot to be good at the business. A bookseller is also a therapist of some sort. Sometimes, people tell you what mood they are in and your recommended book becomes a catharsis for them.

How are you and your company giving back to society?

We are very big on giving back. We donate books to public libraries, schools and prisons. Last year, we donated some books to school for the deaf, IDP camps to mention a few. We also support literary competitions, literary festivals and art events.

How was life growing up?

I am the first of three children and the only son of my parents. My late dad always stressed the importance of modelling the right example for my sisters. I became aware of the political realities around me from a young age thanks to the years of military dictatorship and my dad’s involvement in the labour union. I admired a lot of writers and journalists because of the courage they demonstrated in those heady days. My parents were primary school teachers. They were always on strike in those days, so childhood was also a time of some privation. Thankfully, we always had books at home. My dad ensured that we had books. I was always top of my class, and he never expected anything less of us. I read a lot while I was growing up and I didn’t get into a lot of troubles that my peers got into because my head was always buried in books and in religious activities.

How did you meet your wife and what was the attraction?

Bola and I were colleagues at KPMG. Fortuitously, a mutual friend of ours had used Bola’s picture as a Display Picture on her birthday and her beauty was what piqued my initial interest. I asked our mutual friend for her contact details after she told me she worked in the same firm as mine, albeit in a different division. I raced to her unit the next morning to meet her in person and we hit it off. I was even more drawn to her intelligence. Her shared values deepened our relationship.