Many authors can identify with the frustration Vincent de Paul faced when trying to find a publisher for his manuscript. No publisher was willing to take his manuscript.
He did not let the frustration get to him. He registered Mystery Publishers Limited in 2016.
While the manuscript he submitted remains unpublished, that rejection became the foundation of a publishing business that has produced 70 titles, all by debut authors, including writers from across Africa.
In an interview to mark the company's tenth anniversary, de Paul, its founder, chief executive officer and publishing director, discusses why he entered publishing, the economics of independent publishing, authors' rights, artificial intelligence and the challenges facing African literature.
He had submitted his manuscript to publishing houses, receiving polite responses explaining that poetry was a difficult market or that his work was not on the syllabus.
What troubled him more was discovering that he was not alone. Everywhere he went, writers recounted similar experiences, with manuscripts gathering dust because publishers were unwilling to take a chance on them.
“It dawned on me: nobody was going to publish any of them, and when those people died, their stories were going to die with them.”
De Paul believes this reflects a deeper problem in Kenya's publishing industry, where educational textbooks dominate at the expense of general literature.
“The Kenyan publishing industry was organised almost entirely around school procurement. To me, that was not literature, but a supply chain.”
Mystery Publishers was established to offer an alternative, helping writers produce professional books while retaining ownership of their work.
The company has since published authors from Kenya and countries including Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe.
What has kept the business going? De Paul points to financial discipline, diversified revenue and editorial quality.
The company has never borrowed money, taken donor funding or accumulated unsold inventory. It operates without physical premises and relies on freelance professionals rather than a large permanent workforce.
The cover of the book 'Inevitable Desires' by Vincent de Paul.
Photo credit: Rumona Apiyo
His philosophy is straightforward: “We will not fail because we published a bad book. We will fail with a store full of good ones and a printer's invoice we cannot meet.”
The company has diversified into digital publishing, audiobook production, children's books, creative-writing training, anthology publishing and book-launch management.
“In a market this small, every author speaks to every other author, and there is no advertising budget that can outrun a reputation for cutting corners,” he says.
One of the company's defining principles is that authors retain ownership of their work. De Paul describes Mystery Publishers as a self-publishing and author-services provider, rather than a hybrid publisher.
Under its model, authors pay for professional services, including editing, proofreading, cover design, typesetting, printing management, digital conversion and distribution, while retaining their copyright and subsidiary rights.
“In our model, the author is the publisher. They commission us the way you would commission an architect,” he explains.
“Then they own everything. Copyright in their own name. The ISBN theirs. The production files theirs. Subsidiary rights, all of them, undivided.”
He insists that professional self-publishing should not be confused with vanity publishing, where payment alone determines whether a book is accepted.
Manuscripts remain unpublished
What should authors expect in return for their investment? De Paul promises professional production, transparent costs and a process that takes months rather than years. But he is emphatic that publishing a book does not guarantee sales.
“If a mainstream publisher will fund your book, publish it well and market it, that is a good outcome and you should take it,” he says.
His concern is that many Kenyan writers never receive such an offer, instead enduring prolonged silence while their manuscripts remain unpublished.
Marketing presents another challenge. The late publishing guru Henry Chakava famously described it as the Achilles heel of African publishing. De Paul agrees, arguing that the problem is structural.
Independent publishers lack a functioning national trade-distribution network, while newspaper book-review pages have dwindled and bookshop shelves are dominated by curriculum titles and imports.
“We use social media as our primary channel, and we are building a book-review and discovery platform for African titles, because a book nobody writes about is a book nobody finds.”
“A writer who hands over a manuscript and considers the job finished has just killed their writing career.”
Other challenges include taxation, inadequate financing and limited public procurement opportunities for general literature. Government book purchases remain overwhelmingly curriculum-driven, leaving independent authors with few institutional markets.
De Paul argues that public libraries need funding to acquire a wider range of published books. Otherwise, reading-promotion campaigns risk having little material to promote.
Does he agree that Kenyans do not read? “That it is one of the laziest things said about this country,” he says. “Kenyans read a lot. They read newspapers, scripture, court filings, WhatsApp forwards of extraordinary length, and social media all day.”
The problem, he argues, is that reading is often treated as an examinable chore rather than a pleasure, while the price of books competes with households' other essential needs.
Technology offers opportunities but also raises questions about authorship. Mystery Publishers produces print, digital and audio editions, with digital formats providing independent African writers a more affordable route to readers across the continent.
On artificial intelligence, De Paul says the company does not publish AI-generated works, although it allows limited use of predictive text and ordinary word-processing features. Suspected machine-generated manuscripts undergo independent screening.
“AI is a fine tool and a poor author,” he says. “You can use it to brainstorm and do quality checks, but the actual writing is yours.”
The company also established the Afrika Redefined Indie Book Prize to recognise professionally produced self-published books often excluded from literary competitions requiring publication by a recognised house. Funding and credibility challenges have forced it to postpone the prize in 2026 as it reconsiders its structure.
Looking ahead, De Paul wants Mystery Publishers to become a Pan-African publishing group with stronger distribution networks, translation programmes, digital and audio catalogues, and a broader presence in subsidiary-rights markets.
For a publisher whose business began with an unpublished manuscript, the ambition extends beyond commercial survival: building an ecosystem in which African writers can tell their stories, retain ownership of them and find readers beyond their immediate markets.
