Beyond those services, a number of authors also purchase editing services to make sure their book is as good as it can be. Marketing services are not as significant for Indian authors because it is a bit more difficult to cover the market with one service.
Q: Since most of the authors don’t opt for marketing services, what is the average success rate of such self-published books? Keith: Success is defined in so many different ways for self-published authors. For traditional publishers, they have one measure, books sold through the channel, but self-published authors publish books for many more reasons. Some use it to support a business or ministry. Some use it to promote a cause. Some publish to make sure their story is preserved. Book sales are not their only motivation, so we have lots of authors who consider themselves successful even if they haven’t sold a lot through traditional means. Many authors sell lots of books directly from their
speaking engagements or from their websites. Q: Many self-published books get picked up by publishers for traditional publishing. Could you tell us a bit more about how this happens and why. Please share a specific case study.
Keith: There are two primary ways books get found by traditional publishers. First, many traditional publishers operate self-publishing platforms.That gives them early visibility into books that are getting early sales momentum.A second way self-published books get discovered is by agents or editors watching lists on Amazon. If they see a book climbing, they will reach out through social media to contact the author.
A great example is the book, The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying, written by Bronnie Ware. Bronnie was a palliative care nurse and began to see themes among the people she was working with near the end of their lives. From that experience she wrote a book. However, she lived outside of any major city in Australia and had no hope of finding an agent or publisher so she self-published with Balboa Press, which is a division of Hay House, a traditional publisher. Her local paper wrote a story.Then the Guardian in the UK picked it up and it spread like wildfire on Facebook.Within a month, Hay House picked up her book and now it has been translated into 27 languages. Had it not been for self-publishing, Bronnie would have never been published and Hay House would never have seen the book and the world would not have been enriched by her writing.
Q: How do publishers remain relevant in an arena where selfpublishing and purchase of bespoke services becomes easier? What is the future of traditional publishing versus self-publishing? Keith: Publishers are like movie studios.There are some books that would benefit from the expertise and experience of a traditional publisher, just like some movies need the resources of a big studio to make the project come to life. So as long as there are books like that, traditional publishers will always have a role.As for the future, I think traditional publishers will publish fewer books, but they will be bigger books. Just like we see with movie studios. Self-publishing will continue to grow as more titles are made available in the market so readers will
have more choice than ever before.That will be a good thing because more authors who can impact people with their writing will have that opportunity.Also, self-publishers will offer more resources to authors such as The Author Learning Centre (www.authorlearningcenter.com) to help authors produce better books and get to their goal.
keith ogorek is President,Author Learning Centre. He has led many innovations in the self-publishing industry and is featured in the book, Innovation – How Innovators Think,Act and Change Our World. He has written three books and a number of white papers,and speaks at leading industry events. Keith is a regular webinar
presenter for the Author Learning Centre. 60
englIsh anD InDIan language “a book is a product and you should be its Ceo” Naveen Valsakumar
Notion Press is a technology-based self-publishing start-up, which provides high-quality publishing services to authors, who dream of publishing their own books.
Q:What is the role of self-publishing in the publishing world today? Naveen: Self-publishing is, like everything else in the world right now, a more accessible and fair platform to publish an aspiring author’s book. It allows the author to test their content in the market and perfect it until their target readers are happy—until the book has the desired takeaway. It is like creating a Minimal Viable Product, a technique that a lot of app creaters follow.They create the app with essential features, get feedback from early adopters and then modify to cater to their target consumers.
Technology plays a huge role in every industry and the publishing industry is no different. Print on Demand is a boon for publishers and writers—mix that with self-publishing and there’s no stopping writers from writing what they want to and readers from reading what they seek. Self-publishing is the future of publishing and writing.What we’re doing is just taking the best of traditional publishing and creating new opportunities with modern publishing techniques.
Q: How did Notion Press come into being?
Naveen: Identifying a need is vital to any successful business. Jana, Bhargava and I, the co-founders of Notion Press, weighed that against our expertise and found this venture to be a perfect fit. Coming from a strong
technology background, innovation and change were our main objectives. Launched in January 2012, Notion Press offers various high-quality publishing, book printing and distribution options to both authors and publishers from around the world. Notion Press is a launch pad for writers from India to publish and sell paperback or hardbound books and e-books around the world.Authors are mentored by a team of publishing and book marketing experts who assist them at every step of the publishing process. Now being a published author is no longer a distant dream for anyone bitten by the literary bug and eager to narrate their stories.
Within a short span of time, we have published over 4,000 books and sold in over 100 countries, while still growing aggressively everyday. After raising funding worth US$1 million in 2016, we are currently in the process of expansion. Recently, the company has added another feather in its cap by launching India’s first open access academic platform called scholarink.com.The platform has been introduced to provide academics an opportunity to collaborate with industry experts to deliver high-quality academic content.We have 110,000 community members and 85,000+ registered writers.
Q:What are the challenges you faced and how did you overcome them?
Naveen: The concept of self-publishing itself is not clear to people. A lot more awareness has to be built about how self-publishing functions. If your book has nice content, people will read it.We try to create this awareness among people. It is a continuous journey and we are constantly striving to come up with innovative ways to change the industry and make publishing fair, accessible and profitable for any aspiring writer. Our tools, packages and guided publishing programmes are fluid and constantly customized according to the needs of our authors.
We are also always analyzing our data and watching out for emerging patterns to further tailor and better the publishing process.All this, keeping in mind our vision.We are slowly seeing change for the
better but we know we have a long way to go and we can’t wait.
288 english and indian language Q: How does the economics of self-publishing work?
Naveen: The author has complete control over the book.We work to guide authors and provide them the services they need to bring out the book.We have a bouquet of services and the author decides which service he wants. But the author has to be involved and be part of every step, because, like I mentioned earlier, they are the CEO.At Notion Press, we only charge for the services we provide and authors get 100 per cent royalty on their books.
Q:With self-publishing finding credibility, how has the role of publishers changed?
Naveen: Self-publishing is all about the author.We provide our expert services to guide the author. People trust us as being a repository of such knowledge and come back to us for the same.The data, feedback and expert advice, the competition, the marketing for a book which we provide is valuable. Wh
at we provide is quality to an existing product, the manuscript. By the end of the publishing process the manuscript transforms into an industry standard book. Most of our authors are repeat customers.We have published over 50 books for one author alone.
Q:Your take on e-books and print-on-demand (POD)?
Naveen:Though e-books have made inroads, book lovers still love the physical book…the smell of it, the joy of going and buying a new book. As much as the world is tech-driven, readers fondly pick up a book to get away from the virtual world. People still want to dig deep to learn about something or lose themselves in a magical universe they can be a part of for a while.
We suggest people go in for POD, as it is more feasible, logical, and convenient and saves costs. It removes the pressure of immediate sales and allows the author to build a community of followers, create a persona and reputation for themselves and sell the book whenever they want, wherever they want.
Q:What future do you foresee for self-publishing at large and for Notion Press in particular?
Naveen: By creating more awareness, more and more people will start opting for self-publishing, because authors want the publishing process to be easier and quicker. Self-publishing is growing day-by-day and is also finding credibility.Another major factor is transparency as the author always knows how their book is faring in the market.Technology is affecting the industry in ways we couldn’t imagine and we have to accept, be ready and take advantage of it. Innovation is key to any industry, why shouldn’t it be the same for publishing?
Apart from making the process easier and more accessible, we, at Notion Press are trying to come up with ways to help authors write better and be better informed.We are always starting new projects and experimenting with the market to come up with sustainable and practical solutions for our authors. I don’t think we’ll ever stop innovating. Imagine if Google did that.
naveen valsakumar is Co-Founder and CEO, Notion Press, and handles business operations, marketing and sales at the company. He strongly believes in technology’s ability to change lives and leverages it in his endeavour to change the way books are created and authors are launched. Naveen refers to himself as a ‘humour
monger’ who spouts one-liners at the drop of a hat. 61
TECHNOLOGy-BASED SOLUTIONS “Catering to a growing market” Nitin Shah
Q: How would you define self-publishing?
Nitin: Self-Publishing will be defined differently depending on who you ask.According to people who work in traditional publishing houses, authors who pay for their editing, formatting, and cover design are self-publishing their work.The book is traditionally published only if the publishing expenses are paid by the publisher. However, this often excludes marketing services.
In the purest sense, self-publishing occurs when an author handles the entire book publication process, including printing, distribution and marketing.Author execution of all details during the self-publishing process is also commonly called independent publishing.The author either has the skills to carry out the book publishing steps, such as book formatting, or employs professionals to complete the process for him/her. The author largely creates his/her own self-publishing experience, rather than purchasing a company’s services.
Then there are authors who publish with the help of a selfpublishing company.This is also self-publishing as the author is financing the majority of the publishing process.There are many different selfpublishing companies available to authors who want to self-publish.
Some self-publishing companies offer publishing services to authors who are unable or would rather not deal with the details of the publishing process. In this instance, the author pays the self-publishing company to handle the publishing process for her. Examples of services
commonly provided include ISBN assignment, book-cover design,
nitin shah 291 interior layout, editing, distribution and marketing. Some self-publishers only get the book printed, while others mimic traditional publishing houses, providing the full set of publishing and marketing services.
Some kinds of self-publishers specialize in print-on-demand (POD) and commonly work specifically with authors who need very small quantities of printed books. POD publishers don’t screen submissions and primarily offer printing and design services. POD is also used by larger companies occasionally to do test marketing or while reprinting the out-of-print books.
Q: How does the economics of self-publishing work?
Nitin: Economics of self-publishing depends on various factors like author, subject and language.The normal margin that a self-publishing company would work on depends on various aspects including these. Usually a self-publishing company works on a comfortable margin.
The entire production cost like typesetting, editing and proofreading, cover design, and paper is to be borne by the author.Additional cost for arranging a release function and for marketing will also have to be borne by the author.The publisher here will help the author in all such activities.
Q:Why is self-publishing growing?
Nitin: There is positive and growing need for self-publishing, especially in a growing economy like India.There are many budding writers, young and talented, who are interested in writing and projecting their thoughts through the written world. One of the main reasons for this is increase in the reading habit in the younger generation.
Q: How is the role of traditional publishers changing?
Nitin: The regular publishers’ role has not changed so far in any way; instead they are always on the lookout for good upcoming authors in the self-publishing industry to be picked up and taken into their fold.
Q: How did Sapna venture into self-publishing and how has the journey been?
Nitin: Sapna started its regular publishing in 1990 and has so far
292 technology-based solutions published over 6,000 regional titles in Kannada and Tamil and over 500 books in English, including academic titles useful for college, diploma and engineering students. Sapna created its own self-publishing brand ‘Sapna Ink’ two years ago and has so far published more than 100 titles in English, Kannada and Tamil.Authors as young as 13 years have also self-published their books through us.We provide an equal and good platform for marketing the titles too. Our team takes care in designing of the inner pages, of the quality of paper, the cover design, the size, etc. to fulfil the needs of the author and also from the point of view of the book and its subject.We take care of fulfilling an author’s ambition and arranging for release functions and marketing the product at all our 16 stores and also through our online store.A few titles have become bestsellers and have gone in for reprints.
Since Sapna has been in the book trade for 50 years and in publishing for 27 years, entering self-publishing was very smooth. Further, with the kind of brand image that Sapna has built up over half a century, authors and writers trust us.
Q:What is the future of self-publishing?
Nitin: An extremely bright future is visible for self-publishing as more and more authors are opting for it, since it gives them the freedom to market and promote the books from their end too. Moreover, all the regular publishers want to publish only the bestselling authors, making it difficult for the new upcoming authors to be published.
The book industry which has been in existence for a very long time will survive and prosper against the onslaught of the online business. This is visible in the increase in publications, increase in self-publications, increase in bookshops and walk-in customers. In short, every segment will exist and survive side-by-side.
nitin shah is Managing Director of Sapna Book House. He is also President of the Bangalore Book Sellers and Publishers Association,Vice President (South) of the Federation of Publishers’ and Booksellers’Association
in India, and Executive Member of the Federation of
lIst of ContrIButors Aarti David is Vice President, Publishing at SAGE India. She heads marketing and leads books commissioning across all subject streams. She is also responsible for managing
joint imprints with Yoda, Popular Prakashan, Stree, Samya and Vitasta.
Adil Tyabji joined Orient Longman as an editor in 1968 before moving to Oxford University Press India in 1972, where his roles included Assistant Manager of the Bombay branch and thereafter Senior Editor till 1992. He has since been working as a freelance publishing editor for a wide range of publishers, organizations and individual authors.
Aditi Maheshwari-Goyal is Director, Copyrights and Translation Department at Vani Prakashan. She is Managing Trustee at the Vani Foundation and Advisor to Jaipur BookMark, Mumbai Lit-o-Fest and Indore Literature Festival.Aditi is also Curator of India’s first Hindi literary festival ‘Hindi Mahotsav’, and teaches publishing and editing at University of Delhi.
Ajit Kohli is Managing Director and CEO, India and South Asia,Thieme Medical and Scientific Publishers. He joined Thieme in 2007 and was responsible for setting up operations in the Indian subcontinent. He has an over 30 years of experience in managing start-ups, profit-centre operations, business expansion, foreign collaborations and equity dilutions. He has worked extensively in the advertising industry as well.
Anil Chandy is Vice President, Major Reference Works at Springer Nature, where he leads Springer Nature’s global reference publishing programme including the well-known scholarly reference brands Springer Reference and Palgrave Macmillan Reference. He is based in Singapore.
Anuj Bahri heads the BAHRI Group.A third-generation bookseller and literary agent, he worked at the New Delhi’s Bahrisons bookstore for more than 20 years under the tutorship of Balraj Bahri.Thereafter, he looked at other avenues in the book trade and added a small publishing division called Tara-India Research Press, and a literary agency called Red Ink, to the BAHRI business.
Aparna Sharma is Managing Director of DK India, part of the Penguin Random House Group. She began her career with DK in 1999 as Project Art Editor, and quickly rose to become Head of the General Books division in 2003, gaining valuable exposure and experience handling multi-dimensional projects and teams.
Publishers On Publishing Page 29