About Word Bank

Word Bank International Magazine publishes non-fiction: political biography, cultural biography, and two volumes on enterprise. The readership is Nigerian and Nigerian diaspora, and the books are written for readers who follow public life closely enough to argue about it.

The catalogue is deliberately small. five titles since 2021, each one taking a subject the reader believes they already understand and working forward from the record instead of the reputation. Most of the subjects are alive and in office, which sets the standard for everything else the imprint does.

Research. A title begins with the documentary record: the legislation, the budget lines, the published timelines, the contemporaneous reporting. Interviews follow the documents rather than leading them.

The verified fact ledger. Every claim of consequence is entered in a ledger with its source before it reaches the manuscript. Where a claim cannot be sourced it does not appear, and where the record is genuinely contested the book says so. In the Tinubu title the ledger is printed as an appendix, so a reader can audit the argument rather than take it on trust.

Print production in Nigeria. The recent titles are set at a 5.75 by 8.75 inch trim and printed in Nigeria. Printing at home keeps the books priced for the readers they are written for, and keeps the production money in the economy the books are about.