Start-ups writing a new chapter in publishing

You might be a housewife trying to publish your first cookbook or a professor looking to print your work. Unlike earlier days, you needn’t wait for your agent to return your call or worry about rejections, for self-publishing platforms are on the rise.

Start-ups such as Notion Press, Pothi.com, Partridge Publishing and CinnamonTeal help not only first-time writers, but also professionals. These start-ups partner with e-commerce platforms and print books only when a customer places an order. It is a win-win situation as books are printed based only on demand, eliminating the need to maintain a warehouse.

For authors like Venkat Kumar, who had been trying to publish his short-story collection for two years, the platforms are a boon. “These platforms make it easier to publish books and have a faster turnaround time. If I want to publish by on my own, it will cost over a lakh rupees and entails risk,” Kumar said.

Professionals such as teachers, technocrats and businessmen cash in on these platforms as they understand its utility. Professor Shobana S says self-publishing alleviates the concern of marketing. “I’m working on a book on organic chemistry. Though buyers are limited, I’m not shelling out more in terms of investment and hence they are appealing,” she said.

Jaya Jha, co-founder, Pothi.com says, “The major advantage is, there is no need for a warehouse.” These platforms are driven by wide customer reach and the high comfort level in buying books online. “Most of our authors are from India. But foreign authors too are finding this medium easy to use, considering the high costs of imported editions. We have authors from the US, Australia and European countries,” she adds.

But it is not all rosy as there are hurdles ahead. A major one is the logistics cost as books are not printed in bulk. Sometimes, the cost of shipping is more than the cost of printing. “We need to continuously evaluate our process to bring the cost down,” says Jha.

“We are relying on a completely digital process. E-commerce platforms keep changing the rules for listing products. We have to catch up with them, otherwise we stand the chance of losing to competitors.” The company prints 100 titles per month and have 4,000 titles to its credit. The customer does not have to invest in anything and the company shares the profit with the author.

To keep ahead of the curve, these companies are innovating. Pothi.com has introduced InstaScribe exclusively for publishing e-books. Through this platform, a customer can create an e-book specifically for Kindle, Macbook or Nook. “Right now, it is available for free as we are testing the market. We are working out the details for making it a paid product,” Jha said.

Naveen Valsakumar, co-founder, Notion Press, said, “We need to constantly innovate and keep up with the trends. So we are concentrating on mobile platforms.” With the advent of Kindle and Kindle app the number of people using mobile devices for accessing books has increased. “We are creating books as apps to cater to this crowd.”

For example, the company is now developing a cookbook as an interactive mobile app. Rather than going by recipes, it suggests a suitable recipe as and when the user inputs the ingredients. “This kind of an app will not work with all books. So we are trying to talk with authors and recommend them only when applicable,” Valsakumar said.

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