FastPencil and Friends of African Village Libraries Partner to Spread Literacy Around the Globe

CAMPBELL, Calif., April 15 /PRNewswire/ -- FastPencil today announced their partnership with Friends of African Village Libraries (FAVL) as the publisher powering the initiative that brings books and literacy programs to African villages. FAVL now has the ability to take advantage of FastPencil's end-to-end publishing platform, while providing FastPencil with the opportunity to participate in the program that is helping spread literacy throughout the world.

Friends of African Village Libraries' mission is to assist the rural poor of Africa with the creation of village libraries every step of the way from transforming buildings to stocking shelves with books in local languages. FAVL refurbishes community-donated buildings, creating comfortable spaces for members of the community to read, and empowers locals with skilled employment by sponsoring librarian training and salaries.

FAVL has recently expanded the scope of its activities by linking with Santa Clara University's Reading West Africa study abroad program. Through the program undergraduate students spend three months in Burkina Faso, with six weeks spent in a rural village working at a FAVL village library. The Reading West Africa program provides students with the opportunity to study West African literature, French, development economics and photography in a hands-on manner. The six-week village stay offers an unparalleled immersion experience to a group of diverse students.

Students pair their photography skills and experiences at FAVL libraries in Burkina Faso to create original works in French, English and local languages tailored to the villages and their residents. The students are using FastPencil's Color Book Creator™ to easily manipulate and incorporate pictures of the African villages they visit with the text they have written. By combining FAVL's established libraries, Reading West Africa's student experiences and FastPencil's innovative publishing technology, the alliance will bring more books to African villages at a lower cost. To view and purchase the FAVL publications please visit http://www.fastpencil.com/users/favlafrica.

"FAVL's goal is to establish and provide long-term support for libraries throughout Africa and we are committed to providing new educational opportunities to the people of African villages," said Michael Kevane, Executive Director for West Africa at FAVL. "FastPencil provides unparalleled support and publishing options at a fraction of the cost, powering our mission to democratize literacy and reading in Africa."

"Together FAVL and FastPencil will focus on creating a variety of books for these African villages with the hope of increasing readership and participation both from locals and authors," said Steve Wilson, FastPencil's CEO. "We look forward to working with FAVL's aspiring authors and volunteers to help them get published and by providing them with the templates, tools and services they need without having to navigate the traditional publishing process."

To donate to the cause, please visit http://www.favl.org/.

FastPencil's core services provide writers with free access to an end-to-end solution that enables them to write a book utilizing writing and formatting tools as well as a variety of templates. Authors can then publish their finished work to hardcover, paperback or eBook. FastPencil gives authors multiple distribution channels to expand their readership, including the new Apple iPad, and the write-once, publish anywhere approach that ensures an authors book can be read anywhere today and in the future.

FastPencil Features:

• Collaborate with a professional book creation team, personal network of colleagues or fans during the authoring process
• Publish in print and eBook formats supported by the iPhone reader, Kindle and soon the Apple iPad
• Flexible content upload through blog to book or direct PDF to publish
• Author concierge services including consulting, design services and formatting to simplify the book authoring process
• Integrated self-publishing wizard for step-by-step assistance

Availability:

For a list of FAVL publications please visit http://www.fastpencil.com/users/favlafrica.

About FastPencil

FastPencil is leveraging the disruptive trends of self-publishing, social media, print-on-demand and eBook distribution to deliver a new unified online service that streamlines the book publishing process offering more control and higher margins for authors. The FastPencil writing and publishing service enables authors to create books online, collaborate, publish and distribute from one engaging, simple, cost-effective solution. For more information please visit FastPencil.com.

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About Friends of African Village Libraries (FAVL)

FAVL's goal is to assist the rural poor of Africa with the creation of village libraries and is dedicated to increasing access to reading material and other information in rural villages in sub-Saharan Africa. FAVL has established and continues to manage and improve upon a dozen libraries, seven in Burkina Faso, three in Ghana, one in Tanzania, and one in Uganda. FAVL also supports the Uganda Community Library Association, with 28 member libraries. For more information or to donate to FAVL please visit http://www.favl.org/.

FastPencil is a registered trademark of FastPencil, Inc. All other registered or unregistered trademarks are the sole property of their respective owners.

SOURCE FastPencil