Aishwarya speaks with Naveen Valsakumar about the benefits of self publishing and how his company Notion Press is helping authors publish their books.
How does the self publishing process work? Is it a better option than traditional publishing? What exciting new features is Notion Press developing for writers this year?
Naveen Valsakumar studied aircraft engineering and then went into the IT industry. But ever since he co-founded Notion Press in 2012, the publishing industry has all his focus. Today, Notion Press has become India's biggest self publishing platform that has published over 55,000 books and counting. Find him on LinkedIn.
Aishwarya Javalgekar is a writer, book editor and podcast producer. As the Head of Originals, she specializes in creating stellar content across formats - books, podcasts, newsletters, etc. She is a member of WICCI - Print Media and has a publishing certificate from Humber College and previous experience in Zubaan Books and Simon and Schuster Canada. Follow her on Linkedin, book a consultation call with her or drop her an email at aishwarya@boundindia.com.
Bound is one of India’s leading storytelling companies that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
Produced by Aishwarya Javalgekar
Edited by Kshitij Jadhav
Aishwarya speaks with Naveen Valsakumar about the benefits of self publishing and how his company Notion Press is helping authors publish their books.
How does the self publishing process work? Is it a better option than traditional publishing? What exciting new features is Notion Press developing for writers this year?
Naveen Valsakumar studied aircraft engineering and then went into the IT industry. But ever since he co-founded Notion Press in 2012, the publishing industry has all his focus. Today, Notion Press has become India's biggest self publishing platform that has published over 55,000 books and counting. Find him on LinkedIn.
Aishwarya Javalgekar is a writer, book editor and podcast producer. As the Head of Originals, she specializes in creating stellar content across formats - books, podcasts, newsletters, etc. She is a member of WICCI - Print Media and has a publishing certificate from Humber College and previous experience in Zubaan Books and Simon and Schuster Canada. Follow her on Linkedin, book a consultation call with her or drop her an email at aishwarya@boundindia.com.
Bound is one of India’s leading storytelling companies that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
Produced by Aishwarya Javalgekar
Edited by Kshitij Jadhav
To be published a new book every 17 minutes,
00:05
like a different book, or you mean a different note a copy, different title. Right? So every year we publish about 30 30,000 35,000 books, people who are passionate about that particular topic. It's faster to market. Right? So as soon as by the time you realize there is a trend, already, there are so many books out there, there are self published themes because the rebuilding the haystack, and then we are finding the needles based on data. Right? It's a very different approach. So we give the give people the access, and they go and innovate. It's not us. Right? So And every year, we turn the dial up on democratization a little bit. So we have this in our head, where how democratized? Are we right? Are we truly offering authors a way? Or are we a gatekeeper ourselves? These are all existential questions that we keep asking.
01:15
Welcome to the BookPeople. I'm assured as our kicker, writer, book editor, Podcast Producer, and the head of originals at bow. In this heartbreaking podcast, I demystify the publishing and creative industries, and uncovered the biggest opportunities and challenges for writers in India today.
01:36
Everyone has an opinion on self publishing today. There are people who think self publishing is this amazing thing that has democratized publishing needed accessible, and is letting anyone who wants to publish a book become an author. On the other hand, we also have a lot of people who say that, you know, self published books are badly written have poor quality, or that readers have a really hard time finding good self published books, or being able to identify which book would be good amongst all the self published books that exist in India today, or even globally. So to respond to all of these different opinions and ideas on self publishing. And to get a deep dive into the reality of it. I'm talking to Naveen balsa Kumar. So now he is an engineer at heart. And he actually started notion press in 2012, with two co founders. Today, notion press is the biggest self publishing platform in India. And they have published over 55,000 books. So I'm going to find out with Naveen, exactly what the self publishing process includes, from start to end, we're gonna discuss can self publishing actually be a better option for writers or for people who want to write books than traditional publishing. And finally, we're going to find out some exciting new things that notion press is currently working on in order to make publishing even more accessible for writers in India today. So let's dive kind of in Welcome to the book people. Hi, Ashley, thanks for having me on the podcast. Yeah, no, I'm really, really glad to have you. Because, honestly, self publishing is something that everyone is curious about. And even when we do our classes, or when I'm talking to writers, you know, one of the major questions they have is this sort of traditional publishing versus self publishing, what is the route to go? And so I'm so happy to have you here to just have this very honest breakdown of exactly what self publishing is, and what happens behind the scenes. So super happy to have you here. And the first question I have for you is, you know, I, so obviously, you are the you know, co founder and CEO of notion press. But I also saw that you were an engineer earlier, right? Like you have a background in engineering, and then you started this. So what led you to starting notion press in the first place? And how did you get into books? And publishing? Yeah, so very interesting question. Right. So because
04:04
I think it's very common, if you look at look at publishing, or people in publishing, to see this, you can't find this anywhere else. Right. So I started out as an aerospace engineer, yeah. always had a passion for books, and then moved into cybersecurity. I worked with one of the largest cybersecurity companies in the world. And I don't know somewhere along the line, I felt that my calling is still with books. And also because I saw a clear problem that could be solved for a lot of people. And
04:41
like everybody else, I guess I stumbled into books.
04:45
Okay, yeah, actually, that's very common. You're right. You know, I had interviewed in last season I had interviewed the Shanaya, who again was in finance and then she moved to books, like move to publishing visit a lot of these stories of people who are always passionate about books and
05:00
then move on with your study. I'm just so curious. Aerospace Engineering is something, you know, when I was young and like I had friends who were doing engineering, that was the ultimate thing, right? Even within an engineering, they were like, Oh, my God, I want to do aerospace. The fact that you move from that to books I find very fascinating. But do you think that, you know, your background in,
05:25
in engineering in cybersecurity adds some perspective to the publishing industry that is different, or that people who have just had a very direct formal route to publishing might not have?
05:38
I think we still think like engineers, right? And it's like, hammer and nails. For us, everything looks like a problem that can be solved with some technology. Right. So I think that's the perspective. And one of the most difficult things for us, as engineers in publishing is how to not dilute the art part of it. Right. So it's greater using technology, but how to make sure that the art side of publishing, which is the more beautiful side, right, how you do not dilute the process?
06:15
How do you not dilute that process? What is the secret? We have? We have we have teams here who hold us accountable?
06:23
Right, so and we have our team is about 60% Are creatives right, and 40% of engineers. So a lot of decisions are made together keeping in mind. Are we going to for example, now there's a lot of talk about generative AI, right. And there are engineers who are saying, Hey, can we just do books ourselves? Right? Yeah, that on one extreme. On the other extreme, there are arts people who have been working with us for a while. So they also think, like, they are savvy with technology. So they are thinking about how do we help writers increase productivity?
07:06
How does the right have become more productive? What are the challenges that we can solve? Right? So this building this synergy is what I think we are very good at? Yeah.
07:17
I think that's the biggest currently the chat GPT question. Right, which is, is it replacing? Is it replacing writers? Or is it helping writers cut out some of the work that they have to do or, you know, write faster or write better? I think, is the question that everyone is still sort of trying to answer right now.
07:38
That's the question we've been answering for the last few months. Right? So not generally chargeability. But we are also looking at the technology that powers chargeability. And I don't think it will replace anybody. Right? Maybe very mundane roles that would have already been replaced, or would definitely be replaced, can be replaced through GPT. Or replaceable in a way, right? Yes.
08:07
I don't think creative processes are work like that.
08:13
So see, we have tried, we have tried a lot of different approaches, right? But everywhere we go the road leads to helping writers be more productive. How do you avoid writer's block? How can this technology help somebody write better? I have a great story. I have a vision for a great story. But how do I write it well.
08:34
So all roads lead to that. So you mentioned that when you started notion bricks, you had this clear idea of your is a problem that I've identified. And now I'm going to go about solving again. So going back to, you know, when you start a notion present 2012. What was the problem that you identified? And what was what did you think was the solution? And has that changed over time? I think this calls for a long answer, right? So.
09:00
So I first started exploring publishing because I wanted to publish a book, right? So after a lot of rejections, I couldn't figure out what I was missing. So I spoke to a friend in publishing, I told him, but this is the book, what do you think? And he gave me the nuanced approach. He gave me the different layers of how the business of publishing works, right.
09:26
Somehow, I was not fully convinced because I felt publishing was still operating under constraints of the 20th century.
09:35
And so many things have changed since then. So I'll give you examples right. So I feel there are four nodes that a publisher has like a large publisher, leave alone curation, but other than that, if you think of a publisher as a service provider, right, so there are four primary books one is access to creative talent. Right. And and the expertise that comes with
10:00
Back
10:01
in today, you could go online and find really good designers and editors
10:07
to work with you, right? Second is mass production.
10:12
Basically, a publisher would invest in a lot of copies, right? That can be replaced by print on demand.
10:20
And the prices are constantly dropping for print on demand to the extent where today for notion print, it's cheaper to print on demand than to print in offset at our scale. Right? So the scale gives very different perspectives on problems, right. So the third is a physical supply chain network. That was one of the modes for a publisher, they could push your book into all the bookstores. But as sales started shifting online, to ecommerce, that mode started getting diluted.
10:54
Right. And the fourth is, you needed to do expensive mass marketing, to push a book, which got diluted by social media, or improved by social media where you could target a specific niche. Right? So the question that we started with was, if every mode has been democratized by technology, then why should publishing still be kept behind dP plus, the rules were formed many years ago, because all these large publishers are 100 years, 175 years old. And most of how they operate we formed many, many years ago, and somebody forgot to keep up with times, you start operating in a certain way, and then you you as a large organization, it's difficult for you to adapt. Right. And the interesting observation from that is there has not been a lot of disruptions in terms of business model, or any other innovation that's come from within the industry.
11:59
Right, as in people within the industry, in my opinion, the last great disruption, where it democratized access was mass market paperback. That was in 1930. Right? So after that you have, you have DTP, you have ebooks, you have digital platforms, all of these have come from outside you have audio, right. So for some reason, large publishers have not been able to be at the forefront of this change, or they are not incentivized to change, I think that's where an alternate system helps more people. Where
12:40
if we can do this without the rights rights grab, if we can do this without having to wait for 18 months, or six weeks for a reply. If we can do all of this really well and use technology to solve these problems, then I think we have a good business. So that is the thesis with which we started. And every year we turn the dial up on democratization a little bit. So we have this in our head where how democratized how, right? Are we truly offering authors away? Or are we a gatekeeper ourselves? So these are all existential questions that we keep asking
13:20
whether that's a great question to kind of, you know, keep asking yourself, because that's the only way you're constantly thinking about what do I need to change? How do I need to adapt? Do I need to do something different? Because I think otherwise, again, you sort of get stuck in that same stagnation of you know, the current system is working, so why change it? Or why adapt? So I think that's a great sort of existential question.
13:44
I think it comes with this tinkering, engineer attitude, right? So even if it's working things apart, and then put them back together and see how they can work better. You've done it so many times. So if we look at how notion tests work, currently, right, like, what is the self publishing process as a whole, to sort of understand that, for example, if I have a manuscript, right, that's finished or almost complete, and I come to notion pressing? OK, I have a manuscript now what how do I you know, get this published? I want to put it out in the world, what is kind of the process that I have to go through as a writer? So now I think that slightly All right, so now we have different segments of writers, ranging from student copywriter to somebody who's the CEO of a very large organization trying to build their brand using the book, right. So the use cases have evolved. So now we have different programs for different people.
14:44
So you could if you're a writer, you could go on the notion press platform, you could design your book yourself,
14:51
using the tools available, and you could publish it for free, or about 90% of our books get published that way
15:00
It's a fairly new platform, it's only about two and a half years old. So when you say design the book, I'm just trying to understand. So as that mean, if I have a finished manuscript, basically typesetting part, which is how the text will look in the book, and the cover it too, you could either upload a design book that you have typeset elsewhere, or you could come in and use our tools to design the book. So we follow CMS for the design. So the tool will just take in raw content and convert it into a styled book, where it will look like a professional, professionally designed book. Right? And, yeah, so and then
15:46
you we also have a another program for people who want very high quality book,
15:53
where there's a lot of TV offer editing and design services. But there are approaches evolved now. Because I feel
16:03
it's not just enough to edit and design the book. But we are now taking a very product approach, looking at what this product is, how do you position it in the market? How do you build a marketing plan for the author so that they can see, one thing that's very evident is
16:20
any form of publishing traditional self publishing whatever it is, it doesn't work without the author's involvement, right? In promotions, because nobody wants to hear from a publisher,
16:31
a reader, a reader wants to connect with an author, I the product is such that it's probably one of the only products in the world where the person's name goes on it. Yeah, right. You don't pick up an FMCG product and see the name of the scientist who has done it, right. So it's very interesting, you know, I've actually come across a lot of people who don't even know publishers, or don't know, publishing houses are something that exists. Like when I was going to do my publishing course, I had people who are like, What do you mean a publishing house? Like, what do you do? Because doesn't an author just write a book and then publish the book? Like, why are you even need it? So I think that's so interesting. Well, books has products, for sure, where a lot of times, unless people are very, like avid readers, no different publishers who know where to look for the publishers logo, and know sort of who has published this, they don't care about the, I don't think people should care also, right? So this whole thing is so
17:34
transient, whether you call it a transaction, or an engagement, or an interaction between a writer and his reader, right, everybody else is a facilitator. You don't go and see where something is manufactured, which country, which province, you don't worry about all of that, right? So you consume the product, because it's advertised to you, right? Because you are able to resonate with the product, or you have a need for it. Right. And especially in books, where it's such a personal relationship that you can build between these two parties, I think all of us should just get out of the way, and focus on what we do well, which is the supply chain and making sure that we are enabling these creatives. Yeah. So we spoke about obviously, in the publishing process, there's the writing, right, where the writers writing the book, then the book gets edited, either by whatever freelance editors or friends or the author themselves sort of edits, and that's fine. Then you have the typesetting, where the book is put, the writing is put in that book, template or format. And so you have the cover design. Do you also, you know, because a lot of times, because bound also sort of works in this editing sort of space? Right? Some of the questions we always get is, you know, okay, if I want to book my book out in self publishing, you know, can you also help me get the ISBN? Can you also help me, you know, print the copies and kind of be involved in that aspect, which is literally like, firstly, registering the book, and then getting the copies and print copies and kind of being able to distribute the book in a sense. So are you also involved in that I know you're involved in printing, but like the ISBN and things like that. Everything right, so we offer end to end.
19:18
So from and everything is automated, so there's no human being required. So from from getting the ISBN for the book to apply it inside the book, and
19:33
pushing the book through supply chain in about today, I think 100 countries we do.
19:39
Just as a stat we in the last two years, we would have sold about 50 to 60 lakh copies. That's great. And how do you define sort of the success you know, because traditional publishers for example, obviously, they keep a record of how many sales men they have this idea of, you know, what is a good sort of book
20:00
doing? I mean, all books are good. But what is the book that's doing really well, in terms of sales? And you know, they want to do a reprint or what is the book that's not doing that? Well, in terms of sales? So for self publishing authors, how do they kind of measure that? Or how should they be able to measure that?
20:20
I think it's not a one, one number that fits all. Right. So because there are so many different types of books, and different reasons why people publish themed traditional publishing, the publishers intention is only one, right, I want to sell more copies. Right. But once self publishing started growing, it started adapting to different use cases, we have writers who use their books as a business card.
20:47
I have a writer who's gone and who's impressed somebody that he got a seven crore order. And he wrote to us saying that, hey, my book helped me in this, right. So there are so many different use cases. So on one side, success is not absolute. It's measured against what the author's objective is. On the other side, we have two ways to identify content that's doing well. One is we have a team that reviews every single book that goes in, right, that's published by notion press, they review it, they score it on different metrics, they even score it for can this be adapted into a Netflix web series? Can this become an audio book? Okay, does this author have scope for building this book into a course. So there are so many parameters on which our team judges the book, and that's done internally. And that part is not shared with authors only for success cases, we reach out and say, Hey, I think people would be interested, we are going to reach out for probably a movie rights or web series rights. Let's see what happens. So that does not impress your users for movie rights. And we have a book to scream program using which we do. Okay, what about audio?
22:10
Audio is something we want to do. And we'll be starting next month. We've done couple of audio as experiments. For example, we published caribou divers autobiography as an audiobook. Right in in Tamil.
22:28
We published it last year, and it did really well. So now we are we are taking see one of the biggest challenges with audio is that it's expensive to produce. So you need to have a lot of conviction on whether this can work well in audio, and also audio to use, you hear the growth numbers. And lastly, last year, it was 1%. This year, it's 2%. And then you say 100% growth, then in absolute terms, it's not still
22:59
having that mass adoption. Right. So having said that, I think we want to be one of those people who are bringing these 10s of 1000s of books into audio. You know, I also asked about audio, because obviously bound is also you know, doing original podcasts sort of getting into the audio space. And with audiobooks. Obviously, we have, you know, audible and we have storytel. But now, for example, Spotify is getting into audiobooks. They're also seeing these bigger platforms getting into audiobooks in a way where maybe, for writers, and for authors, that's an opportunity to directly be able to sell their book to an audible or directly be able to sell their book to a Spotify when Spotify kind of started doing that in India, which it was not doing yet. As of now, that is also an interesting opportunity, because even for authors who are getting traditionally published, one of the things that you know, any advice that has been given to them, or one of the things that they are becoming savvy about is when they sign these contracts with traditional publishers, can they retain audio rights? You know, can they retain screen rights, and then try to sell those rights themselves? Because obviously then that for them, because it's their book, so they will hustle a little more for it. And if they do sell their eyes, and obviously they get a larger portion, like they get a lot of return back because it's just them doing it directly. So audio and screen definitely very interesting. We're We're super bullish about audio, right? We just have to get over this hump of how do you produce high quality audio at a fraction of the cost that it costs today, so that you can make it affordable to more people, since the space is very nascent.
24:40
You have to curate content and then go put it on these platforms, otherwise your engagement numbers will get skewed and you won't learn anything. Right. I want to get back to you know, something you said earlier in terms of there are different reasons that authors publish a book, right? It's not traditional publishing. Obviously it's
25:00
Hold off, like, Okay, you want to publish a book, you want people to read it, you want to sort of be out there
25:05
in the world as an author, like you said, some people are publishing books to just show credibility, right to either sort of sell, like, establish their brand, you know, establish what they do as a service and sort of that professional credibility. A lot of people are turning, you know, if they've done any research, like PhD research, or master's research, they're turning that into books, to kind of put that forward, then I think, some books also very good for awareness, right? Like I remember, in 2020, there was this book from notion plus, I think, which was go pick up a course book Beyond the blue, which was about autism. And, you know, again, sort of that awareness thing, where he's writing the book very clearly to sort of break down autism and create awareness about it in India. So in that sense, you know, where there is, obviously, with traditional publishing, because, you know, the books that do get published, or books that are ultimately chosen by the publisher and the editors or something, you know, that they want to publish, but also something that will guarantee them a certain number of sales numbers, a certain number of sort of like a certain amount.
26:13
Do you think that what Self Publishers also doing then is allowing for these more diverse topics? Are these more taboo? I guess, subjects that are not spoken about much in India to also come out more?
26:28
Yeah, too. So one of my favorite things to do is to go on the Russian press Store and search for ridiculously niche topics and see if we are published a book, right? And what is the most ridiculous niche thing?
26:43
So
26:45
right now, it's mainstream. So but many years ago, I remember when blockchain was just getting started. I went and searched for Okay, do we have any blockchain books? Right?
26:57
So we had, I think, at that time, about 25, to 30, Blockchain books. And I was like, nobody's even on this trend. Right now. publishers get on a trend after it's very popular and right, yeah. So towards the end of the wave, we are already having this content. And I went and saw each of these writers. And I saw that all of them were really good experts in the blockchain field, people who are passionate about that particular topic, it's faster to market. Right. So as soon as by the time you realize there is a trend, already, there are so many books out there that are self published, right? Yeah. So
27:39
now, this whole chart GPT books, right, you see how many books are going to be self published, that are written by AI?
27:49
I think because of the the timeline that's required to self publish that shorter. And also, these books that don't prescribe to mainstream they work really well. Please, because the rebuilding the haystack, and then we are finding the needles based on data, right? It's a very different approach. So we give the give people the access, and they go and innovate. It's not us. Right? So somebody goes and builds an audience on Instagram. And Instagram is very friendly to poets, right? So you have it's very visual, just few lines, and you can build an audience. And I'm going in saying who this writer is, how did she manage to sell when even mainstream writers are not able to write, and she's got 500,000 followers on Instagram.
28:39
It's half a million followers, and you can sell easily 1015 copies you can sell.
28:44
Right? So
28:46
the exciting thing about self publishing this, you constantly learn from writers on. So I didn't know this was possible.
28:55
Yeah. What are you seeing in terms of numbers? You know, because there are self publishing success stories, obviously, a lot of them. But then what is sort of the ratio of those success stories, as compared to say, authors who are, you know, investing that money and getting the book edited, or getting it designed putting it out there? And then I'm not able to sell any copies? Because, in a way, they don't have that sort of just marketing support that maybe a traditional publisher would be able to give in a way.
29:27
There are there are two ways to look at this one. It's a misconception that a traditional publisher will give you marketing support.
29:36
Right, a traditional publisher takes somebody with enough
29:40
top of funnel users, which is already unseeable right? market themselves, correct. So if so, you can have Kareena Kapoor's book, you publish it. Obviously, she's got a lot of influence, right. And that then drives things. And one observation that I've made over the years is
30:00
publishers are fast moving more and more towards that. That trend. Right. So
30:08
having said that our approach to marketing is the one we need to supply chain to be very clean, make sure that our titles are always available at all times. Right? So
30:21
the first item that we published 11 years ago, that's still available for sale, there is no concept of out of sale. Right? Okay. Yeah. Once Once you saw the print on demand, we only do print on demand. And we do print on demand at a scale that is extremely well executed, right? So for example, if you if a book is sold now, in about 45 minutes to two hours, it's ready to ship.
30:52
Right? So at that scale, then you are offering next day delivery prime. All of this,
31:02
despite the fact that it's printed on demand, right? So once that is sorted out, which is a hygiene, then you go help people with data of how books the book is selling, where is it selling? Right? The third problem is not discovery and discovery follows, what I've observed is either the topic is popular, or the problem, it's a
31:25
it's a problem that a lot of people are looking for looking
31:31
into a book as a solution for write. So sort of like a painkiller.
31:36
If otherwise, if you're thinking about it like a vitamin, then it only works if your author is consistent in promoting it. So more often than not, I found that people who are consistent in terms of promotions,
31:53
are able to sell much better than
31:58
people who think that I publish it, and then I forget it. It's somebody else's problem. Yeah, my part I've written the book, it's out. Now it will sell itself is you can't you can't blame writers also, because they are putting a lot of energy into this. And by the time they finished writing, they realize that, I mean, they only want the book to be out. And they're not thinking about anything else. Right? So how we are solving it specifically is we're building a marketing stack. Right? So we've integrated with all of the supply chain partners. Now we're building a marketing stack, using which we are guiding authors on how to promote at different stages. So what all our learnings from helping Authors Sell for the past many years, we are now productizing it and bringing it as tools into our platform.
32:51
Yeah. Can you give me an example? I'll do two examples. Right? So So what sales fiction content is, either somebody resonates with the story, or it's very topical, right? Or the author is known as a storyteller.
33:09
Or he's built an audience, right? So now we're looking at, can you help writers publish, as they write, gain an audience build engagement? And then in one click, I can convert it into a book and send it to the supply chain? Okay, right. Exactly the publishing sections, which I think a lot of digital platforms are looking at that sort of section by section publishing, and then finally
33:33
episodic, right, yes. All right. I think that way, what happens is the feedback loop is sorted.
33:42
Also, you're able to have something that the writer can go out and see, hey, the second chapter is ready, the third chapter is ready. And then eventually, that leads to books. So we have done about 400 such books in our experiment stage. Some of them have done really well. So we're very bullish about that. For fiction. For for nonfiction, I think it requires a lot of thought leadership content on
34:11
these large social channels. So what we're doing is we're building tools where it picks from the book and tries to write it, right social content in their voice.
34:23
Oh, that's very interesting. So I mean, you have that as a part of the platform where the book is, I think it's going to go live. It's right now rolled out to very few authors who are using it, it's going to go live on the platform, maybe end of the quarter. Right.
34:44
So that's interesting, because it's I think it's also that repurposing content kind of thing, right, where you're taking those same thoughts, but instead of making that effort repeatedly to sort of put the same thought out in different formats, it's doing that automatically and also
35:00
So in not just repurposing the content, but also we're exploring if this can become sort of like a carousel or video presentation format, right? So again, it's a long build long way to go. But
35:16
one fundamental is content serves more content. Right? So if you're going to just write a book and sit quietly, I don't think anybody can help yourself.
35:27
Yeah, that's fine. Ultimately, it is the onus is on the writer to,
35:33
but how do we make their life easier? A little better? Right.
35:39
Well, immaculate marketing and distribution question, you know, I agree with you completely. You know, right now, I'm also seeing a lot of authors who have published traditionally with, you know, sort of the biggest international publishers, but the onus of marketing ultimately falls on them, because I think publishers are now being selective about how much marketing resources they want to put into what book right like you said, like a Kareena Kapoor book gets all the bells and whistles and all the, you know, huge marketing campaign that, say, a book that is more niche, or, you know, they don't expect to do much sales is not gonna get that kind of support, in order to publish, but, you know, at the same time,
36:20
they just the credibility, right, or say, just the basic thing that a publisher might do, which might be put out a press release, right? And then maybe like, they get one two interviews are they get, they go, you know, they get featured on, say, Bookstagram, or booktube. You know, they come on one to book podcasts, like, we have Books and Beyond, right. So, even in that, like a lot of the, the way that we discover a lot of books is again, sort of publishers, sharing catalogs or sharing press releases to tell us what of these books are coming up next. So even that basic network that those authors are able to find to get some kind of visibility, which I think is still lacking for self published authors. How can self publish authors in a way?
37:08
sort of get over that gap? Or close that gap?
37:13
I think of some of the efforts that publishers have put in
37:18
I don't agree with them, because we've tested it, and it doesn't work. Right. So I'm not a huge fan of PR with ever dwindling newspapers. And right, so and, again, we've tried Bookstagram
37:36
it works for certain kinds of books, where there is a lot of passion among young books to grammars for that topic. I think, I think specific fiction category, I think more more towards poetry, more towards poetry, than and secondary, secondary will be fiction. But like I said,
38:00
if you have to solve this problem, and how we are doing it currently is we in all of our services, we help authors define the audience. We help them on how do they define their audience on social? It's very different from your books, audience, but how do you find that audience associate? And then what are the ways in which you can run ads to them? Right, so and then there are a lot of campaigns, we do giveaway campaigns. So over the last many years, we realized, we've learned what works, what doesn't work. And I feel we've sort of stayed away from doing things that don't work now anymore.
38:43
So what do you think then works. Naveen? For the writers who are listening or watching this podcast? What What would you say bearish, channel their energy in a way when they want to promote the book effectively?
38:59
So a couple couple of things, right. So one is a lot a lot of writers, what they what they do is they spread their marketing across many, many days. A lot of ebbs and flows. Right. So I'm thinking from what I've learned from my successful writers, they've all concentrated their marketing efforts in a certain period, because then there feels like there is a lot of buzz.
39:28
Right.
39:29
Second is the most important problem is that writers think book is for everybody, that their book is for everybody. Have Eyes will read. Right? So
39:42
it doesn't work that way.
39:45
Because you want the right reader who will give you word of mouth, right? Who will you want the person will fall in love with it? Yes, you want a specific audience who will read a book and who will say this is exactly what I
40:00
Wanted, this is what I need it for. Now, I love this enough to go around and you know, recommend this to people tell people and tell people similar to me who are the right audience for the book to kind of pick up the book versus reaching someone who picks it up and then, you know, is not the right audience and so doesn't find it useful or finds it, you know, not as effective, because then again, that's kind of,
40:23
then they are, again, spreading the message that okay, this was not as good as I thought it would be, which
40:30
is why one more hack that now it's working, is that if you're writing a book in a specific topic on a specific topic, right, so find micro and nano influencers, who will help you.
40:46
And that really works, right? Because these big influencers are building audiences
40:55
that are very general in nature, while the micro and nano influencers are very specific reach audience, and if you're able to reach them. And if they promote your book, it really works. Right? A general call to action would be for writers to go and explore this trend while it lasts.
41:14
And that could be the next big thing, right? Because in the US, you see all these book talkers and book talk is super big,
41:22
super big in the US. And it's driven completely by people in these Micronesians. So
41:31
if you're to parenting book, find, find a influencer in the parenting space find some they will be passionate bomb giving health tips. Right? And that would be a great plug for their audience also. Yeah, because their audience, other people will find a book relevant. So it makes sense that they would be sort of best people to talk about the book as well. What about bookstores? You know, because as I mean, especially
41:58
physical bookstores like brick and mortar stores, I see a lot of them, you know, still heavily just featuring traditional publishing, mostly they don't have self publishing books, or they have like the one section at the back somewhere where they will have self publishing books. So like you said, obviously, you know, one way to go is have print on demand, mostly self published books are being sold online, rather than in physical bookstores. But I also have authors who want to self publish, but they want to also be in bookstores, I think it's that credibility or that dream, right of like, seeing their book in a bookstore and feeling good about it. So if authors want to do that, how can they you know, get in these bookstores? Or how can they get into basically these?
42:43
What are, I guess now the mainstream distribution channels to get that visibility?
42:51
As well as into Amazon, the mainstream distribution channel today, right?
42:57
Yeah, I agree what I'm, that's I'm saying that a lot of writers still do get about No, I understand. I understand that. Right. Amazon is definitely the main distribution channel. I don't know. So. So. I have I have worked with bookstores in the past. Right. So, three COVID, we used to have exclusive display racks for motion plays. Right? But
43:20
there are a couple of challenges in this one is to be published a new book every 17 minutes.
43:29
Like a different book, or you mean a different note, a copy? Different title. Right? So every year we publish about 30 30,000 35,000 books. Right? So now, I need book malls to host host the stores.
43:50
It doesn't work. Right. So. And also it begs the question, which look has to go to the store, and what's relevant for which store? So you also have to think about the audience. Right? So just because I want my book written for the cycling community,
44:06
it's best reached online, right? The cycling community is organized online, reach them online, have a call to action, where you convert immediately. Yeah, like supporter cific bookstore where all the cycling community people will gather kind of that doesn't work. Correct.
44:24
It's not all books for maybe for very general trade books like fiction. And
44:33
if it's a very powerful, hard hitting nonfiction book that the market doesn't have to read, then maybe it'll work. Right. So again, it's a lot of impulse purchase. So authors need to think about whether my book is great effort, right? Whether I put my investment effort, time energy into bookstores, or will it work better online? Right, so second is so I've had
45:00
stores come back to me and give sales reports greater than what I supplied.
45:05
Oh, okay. So the operationally I feel
45:11
they're not yet up to the mark, where we would like to sub where I can do a lot of writers, I can help them get a lot of interesting books from self published writers, right? See, because our writers are used to instant reports, when your book sells on Amazon notion, press will report it immediately. Right that your book is sold without your word. So I don't think bookstores can aspire to do that
45:42
at this point, but we are having very promising conversations with some large chains
45:50
to solve this, but also recently, I think two weeks back, we rolled out bookstores, we rolled out bookstore distribution for about 50 off our top selling books that we have high conviction on, right. It's something that we experiment and on and off. Yeah. But I don't even necessarily mean you know, authors were publishing with notion press. I mean, self publishing authors say we're not going with notion press or who are directly uploading their manuscript, say to Amazon, you know, Kindle Direct Publishing or something like that, who also still want to get into these bookstores. So in a sense, what notion race is also doing is providing some kind of infrastructure, right? Where the author themselves is not going and having this conversation at the bookstore, you are doing it for them, in the same way that a traditional publisher in a way or distributor would do. But if you
46:46
write, you get better terms.
46:50
If they have no infrastructure at all, you know, whether it's Motion Plus, or traditionally, what can they really do like Canon? Also, I think this is the question that we get, can you just, can I just walk into a bookstore and be like, Hey, I published this book, here are five copies, will you you know, these copies, and if you sell the copies, then I'll give you more or whatever it is, like, can you add that transaction conversation yourself as an author when you don't have that support? See, bookstores don't like to they call it account, right? Which I don't want to keep this account with so many people, right?
47:25
I am understandable, and account to the relationship that they have to build their credit distribution term, so many factors come into play. And they want a constant supply, they want to rotate cash, all of this business, Biz Ops things they want to be able to due, which is very unlikely for them with with an individual, right. So second, if I was an author going and approaching a bookstore, I need to approach the right person, not everybody in any organization is incentivized to take action,
48:00
or has the authority to take or has the authority to take action, right? So I need to go to the right person in a bookstore, probably somebody in merchandising, right, so and find out if I can provide some data that gives them conviction on this book. So maybe I start my sales online, I build it up, I think it to a level. And then I expand it into physical stores, where I can show them the traction I've built on the digital platforms and create some amount of FOMO. Right? Yeah, third factor would be if the author is a local. If, let's say I'm in Delhi, and I, then I think my first port of call should be Delhi, because bookstores have this bias, that local author means he will drive some traffic. Yeah, I think all of these questions are coming down to this base question, which I think there is this
48:58
assumption or this criticism that permeates you know, whether it's traditional publishers, like people working in the industry, or
49:06
writers, or even to some extent readers, which is, I think this question of quality, right? Because on one hand, you know, we're saying that, okay, traditional publishing, there's a barrier to entry, and then self publishing, there isn't. But sometimes what that means is with traditional publishing, you know, because you have an editor working, you know, your script is kind of like your manuscript gets edited multiple times and gets fine tune or you have sort of professional typesetting you have a professional cover design, and all of these things are happening which guarantee a certain quality when a book is published with self publishing, I think a heavy criticism that we see is that a lot of books out there, which don't have quality or you can't guarantee when you look at any you go to buy a self published key, okay, it will be well written, or you know, sometimes the cover is not professionally designed, and so it looks like there is this sort of almost physical
50:00
The difference in sometimes what a published book looks like and what a self published book looks like, often times and I think that is something where a lot of readers feel,
50:11
not incentivized by a self published book, right, when they would rather go the traditional way, because there is this guarantee. Yeah. So there are two questions in this. Right. So one is from the publisher, author perspective. And another one is from the beginner perspective, right? See, poor design puts off everybody, whether it's it, whether it comes from traditional publishing or self publishing a subpar product
50:37
is not the desired outcome, right.
50:41
As writers, you have, we have a huge responsibility to readers. You're not if you wanted to publish something today, you can go create a blog substack there's so many ways to just put out content, right? Yeah. But now, once you take the call, that I want to sell this to somebody, then you have to be very conscious that I want to make the best product available.
51:09
And then sell right, especially when you names going on. So there is no compromise on quality. We keep educating authors every single day, that you can't compromise on quality and expect outcomes.
51:25
Right.
51:27
I'm saying quality problem is not a problem of what how you choose to publish. It's a problem of what BAP bar you set for yourself. Right? Yeah.
51:40
The second is from an industry perspective, right? Because I think over the years, it's changed because we talk to authors a lot. So we run a community of about 450,000 writers. And we have a 40 people team who talk to constantly talk to writers. And I think the people find it more efficient,
52:07
to self publishing.
52:10
And people are also now getting used to the fact that, hey, I know I don't need somebody telling me that my content is good. I don't need that validation, I will I will go out, see where self publishing works really well is if you are
52:28
thinking like an entrepreneur,
52:30
right? Self publishing works really well. For folks like that.
52:35
I work very closely with the industry, with a lot of interesting stakeholders.
52:42
Sometimes taking help, sometimes giving help on things that they are not able to solve, I have never come across a person at the top, who feels these are, this is one versus the other. They all feel it's one leading to the other,
53:01
you will realize that eight out of 10 of them have started by self publish, right?
53:07
If my my superpower is curation, if my entire business model depends on curating great content, and finding great content as a traditional publisher, and if a lot of top guys in the country, at that point, have had to self publish their book to get visibility, then you're clearly not doing something. Yeah, there's a lot of that you self published first then get discovered by traditional publishers and then get up. I think it poetry also rupee card has that example of that, right. But I think she also built herself on Instagram, then self published and then got a better name a non celebrity author, who got first picked up by publishers. I mean, non celebrity top author who first got picked up by accomplishers. Right? That's very rare.
53:59
All the all the top guys have to do it themselves. But one thing in common was they didn't compromise on the quality of they always thought about this as a product that they're putting out in the market. So the minute you put a price on it, you have a responsibility. Yeah. Right. So very interesting times
54:23
where I think there's a lot of power in the hands of writers to dictate how the book has to be presented, how what vision they have, right, and they are all willing to collaborate with us on
54:38
our understanding of how this book has to be presented, right. The most of the battles we have our creative brackets. Yeah. With our authors, right. And upfront, we tell people birth. This is a creative process. It's going to be a little difficult. You will have ideas, we will have ideas. We'll work it out. Right? So I think that's how good products are bought. And that brings me back to
55:00
First thing that we spoke about, how do you balance? They cannot?
55:04
Yeah.
55:06
What about, you know, resources or just like purely money, right, because to for self published authors say to guarantee a certain amount of quality, sometimes they do have to, because that is one thing with traditional publishing, right, which is that once you sign a contract, sure you're getting less royalties, you're getting less return on the sales of the books. But also, the idea is that publisher is paying to get book edited, like it's the publishers money, right, which is getting the book edited, getting it typeset, getting the cover design getting the printing done. And that's why you're getting less royalties. Now here, because the onus falls on the author, in terms of, you know, with these systems as well,
55:48
doesn't that make it more difficult for authors to ensure
55:53
high quality and you know, be able to get the book out, but they have to shell a certain amount of money, because then I think it again, comes either or right, like, either I will compromise on quality, or I have this much money to spend immediately, to be able to get the best version of the book out and to be able to publish it, and hope that I'll be able to recoup that money or make even more money with the sales of the book. See, like everything in life in business.
56:22
Right? So see, unfortunately,
56:27
we have this thing where, if you're a writer, you're poor. Right? So I still have that artist. Yeah, we have that thing in our head, right?
56:38
We have to imagine, before we started motion trace writer would have to invest a couple of flags into printing, and a lot of money and energy into finding resources, right? So you've solved all of that, right? Today, we also have a tech platform where you can do it yourself for free, you can design a good quality book, you can design, you can edit your book, and all of this is free as a tool, right? But it's sort of like an evolution, it cannot happen overnight. As more writers support us, we are incentivized more to work towards helping writers
57:19
bring that quality barrier down.
57:22
But for writers who invest today,
57:27
the quality is
57:29
extremely high, right? Because one of the one of the biggest convictions that we have is
57:36
a very small percentage of people get a publishing contract with a publisher.
57:42
But even without a publishing contract, right, so the benchmark is if I were to public put my name on a book, and I'm willing to spend that money, would I get top quality?
57:53
What we're trying to achieve is
57:56
how do you bring the price barrier down?
57:59
How do you how do you make it more and more affordable, so that more writers can build their publishing businesses?
58:07
And publish a high quality book, right? But we're still a 10 year old company battling a 400 year old industry, right?
58:17
What do you think about prizes, you know, like literary prizes, awards, these kinds of platforms, where authors are given the recognition, you know, or sort of some kind of reward, which again, most of these platforms only look at traditionally published books. Do you have an opinion on this? Should self published books be included? Or do you think it doesn't matter at all, to Self Publish?
58:44
Personally, I would say don't include because I don't want my writers to be corrupted by Vanity. Right? I want them to think very strict on what my goal is. So no, but that aside, I tell I'll tell you, there are there are
59:02
two, two things in this right. So there are real,
59:07
very well curated, well organized awards. And I think they are extremely important that we recognize writers, but that award also leads to so many scams.
59:24
Right? So there are so many scam awards
59:29
that are happening, that we constantly keep getting email saying midnight novel award. You pay 5000. For any written award. Yeah, yeah. And we have to, we have to send a response saying please don't do this.
59:45
It's not necessary for you to promote it's not going to help you. Right. So yeah, there's so much work then. Surely you are doing to just educate the authors to tell them don't fall for these scams? Correct. So see what
1:00:00
Once you bring this awards culture, then very organically, it leads to a kind of a scam culture. Right? So, which is what we're trying to avoid trying to educate users on. And
1:00:14
my wish is that we would have
1:00:18
an indie author award to recognize independent writers. But it shouldn't be, again run. Like how these awards are run with the closed room? I don't know who's judging. I don't know what, how it happens, right.
1:00:36
I think when we do it, it will be a lot more transparent.
1:00:42
And what is the whole point of bringing a watch without involving reverse?
1:00:47
Yeah, that's
1:00:49
a different notion, Press book tomorrow God, say, shortlisted for a JCB prize.
1:00:55
That would still be a huge credibility, points, credibility for all of us, right. So see, like I said, I'm not against
1:01:05
these well run awards. But there are four or five of them. And there are some 400 stamps, right? So I'm very scared to, to tell writers about awards, how to encourage writers to aim for awards or to try to get awards in case they fall for the
1:01:24
you know, going back to because you've explained so much of notion presses model today, which honestly, I also didn't know a lot of these things. I think the last time I really properly checked out Motion Plus was three, four years ago, because I'm also a writer. So at some point, I had looked at it as you know, a platform. And I think there's been a lot of development over the years that I also didn't know. But with all of these things that you're telling me about, you know, how a lot of writers can do these things for free design their book for free. What is your business model, then, like how I have this notion of sustaining itself to be able to offer writers one of these things.
1:02:01
So a very small percentage of our revenue, I would say roughly about 15 percentage today is from services that we offer, right? Everything else is from sale of books.
1:02:16
Okay, so we can monetize with writers. So writers get 70% of the profits, and we get 30% of the profits.
1:02:25
Okay, that makes sense. So it's the opposite, in a way flips, the traditional publishing thing where writers usually get less than 30%. Even. Yeah, so also,
1:02:38
our model is completely where the writer has a non exclusive arrangement with us, which means they can publish with us and with somebody in some other format.
1:02:50
A lot of the same format at the same time. Okay, so you will just make money off of the copies that are getting sold in
1:03:00
is that they are publishing with you in that particular? Correct.
1:03:06
Oh, that sounds very interesting. Okay, going away from no tests for a quick second.
1:03:12
What do you like to read? You know, I mean, as an Indonesian
1:03:16
athlete, my a lot of readings have been just reports. Right? So, no, but I try to read one book every weekend. Right? So weekends are for reading. And my personal favorite is
1:03:34
business biographies, right? So I love business biographies, especially the ones that are told well, the most recent one I read was about Trader Joe's. Right? And very interesting. So
1:03:52
every time I see a business biography, I buy it, I hold it, and then when it's turned comes,
1:04:00
how many how many books do you still have pending to read?
1:04:05
Hundreds
1:04:11
it's my retirement plan. It's your retirement plan is to keep reading these hoarding these books to read.
1:04:17
You will see it more often once you retire.
1:04:21
Maybe.
1:04:25
And, you know, what, if you had to give sort of one advice to writers who are today trying to figure out regular traditional or self publishing what approach they choose, what do you think should be the sort of decision making factor that they should think about?
1:04:45
I think for different purposes, different things work, right. But as a first time writer, your starting point should not even be publishing your starting point should be to be known as
1:05:00
writer for that audience, so start generating, start writing online, building your audience online, I think that is more important. And whether you choose self publishing or traditional publishing,
1:05:15
that that audience that you build is what is going to affect everything else. Right? Having said that, I think
1:05:25
to choose or one against the other is, see if you get a contract with a good publisher in India, go for it. But no, go for it knowing that there would be a celebrity book in your pipeline, and your marketing would get completely sidetracked. Right? Yeah, I have a lot of writers who have come back from who published a book with one of the large publishers, and they felt like, at that time, they were promoting this one book, and then entire attention went, and
1:06:03
nothing against that. But it's the nature of the business, right?
1:06:08
There, you need one or two big outcomes for your business to be sustainable
1:06:14
in traditional publishing, and they will always play for that outcome. If you're bad luck, you end up with
1:06:24
in the similar time period where Sachin Tendulkar is book comes out.
1:06:30
Forget about promotions, you won't even get email responses back.
1:06:36
Right. So, but go fully knowing that
1:06:41
this is the game, right? That you're playing. On the other side. If you're very entrepreneurial, and you feel you want to control this, your outcomes better
1:06:53
go for go gravitate towards self publishing, because the deals are better, the outcomes are better. But don't drop the quality bar. Thinking that you just have to publish and it will sell. Yeah,
1:07:10
you need to still build a product that people will want to have. Right. So yeah, I think and either ways. If you're successful in one manner, and you're known as a writer, then the choice is yours. Right? So as different team today, I would decide how I want to put my put my book out. Yeah. So. So if you want to optimize for your outcome,
1:07:39
make sure make sure that whichever path you choose, you understand which game you're playing. That's, I think that's really great advice for writers everywhere. I know sort of figure out what their writing journey will be. So right now, what is your day to day look like? As the CEO of national games? Wow, what do you do?
1:08:01
Okay, so it's a it's a sad story.
1:08:06
Today, they started at doing, right.
1:08:11
Usually it starts at 3am. Right? So I work for a bit on product ideas that I have. So three to five is my time where I work on product ideas, right? And five to six is workouts when I'm trying to get a little fit, right. And by 630 out of the house by 7am in office. After that, it will just be endless meetings, aligning people
1:08:48
to goals. So there are days when there are 15 meetings, there are days where there are 17 of them, right. So yeah. Which is why I wake up so early to finish all the stuff that I want to work on. And then just by two o'clock I'm a zombie. Right so
1:09:08
my team knows that only poor decisions you will get from this man.
1:09:13
So I'm so happy we're not doing this after two then.
1:09:20
Yeah, so at two o'clock ish. I think I've completely drained out and I'm just waiting for the day to close by 530 I go back home. At least it's 530 I was assuming when you started with like 2am 3am I thought that even the end of the day would be really late. No, I see. I don't see a point in so I have this thing where my body rhythm is like I'm fresh in the morning as soon as I wake up, right? I'm super fresh and then it goes down. For a lot of people. They are groggy through the day and then at night they get some energy boost, right? I don't know how they do
1:10:00
that, but I'm not one of those people. So I plan it so that my most mentally challenging things would be at the beginning of the date. And then slowly it will taper towards things that don't require as much attention. Now, I totally understand I also am like, at my desk at 6am, for no reason I have nothing to do, but it's just like the mind is so active at that point. You know, right. Yeah, I get that feeling that that's my time when there is nobody?
1:10:34
Yeah. Where are you seeing the industry, you know, publishing as a whole or self publishing, headed, say, five years down the line? Like, where do you think we should be at and what publishing should look at at that point, ideally, the publishing will look like the way it is today.
1:10:54
Just ideas, just just with less power, in the hands of publishers, my personal big battle is to make sure that the power shift that happens from publishers do not go into the hands of intermediaries, platforms, right? And instead goes back into the hands of writers middlemen platform like Amazon, the I love Amazon as the consumer, as a customer, right? But
1:11:25
but they have more power than a publisher. Yes, right, who has more power than an auto, right? So the shift is happening. But the unhealthy shift that's happening is, more and more power is accruing in the hands of the middlemen. And
1:11:42
without any incremental value, addition, they get a lot of power, right? So even you take digital platforms,
1:11:52
let's take Spotify for music, or let's take platforms like Wattpad, right? They have so much data, and it's so powerful, but still, their business model is leaning more towards now that it's evolved, it's leaning more towards the top 1%.
1:12:10
Or the top 1% division makes far more than everybody else. Right. So eventually, what happens is everybody gives up content for free, just for the privilege of being there. For that, hoping to be in the in the top 1%. Right. So I so my wish is that
1:12:32
this shift that's happening, shifts towards writers, and the creative people who are I don't mean writers, as a standalone, I need writers, editors, all the creatives who are involved, right. And collectively, I think they have to be more powerful
1:12:55
to be able to control their story, right? than,
1:13:01
let's say, a publisher or a supply chain partner. So, so that's one thing. The second thing is that
1:13:10
there will be a lot of cross format content flow. Right? So like I said, books, two courses. So you have as an author, you have a book you bring in a reader, can you convert him into also buying your course? Can you can you then build a consulting business on top of it? Right. So I think that we super primed for that. That requires a very evolved ecosystem. Right? And a very educated
1:13:48
authors who are
1:13:51
when I say educated, I mean about how content businesses work. Right? So and that's happening now. The kinds of writers that I'm talking to the meeting, and they're all leaning towards, how do I build my business, on top of content?
1:14:08
So that's going to have that shift is going to happen very squarely very quickly.
1:14:14
So as a company, we want to be there when that happens? No, that's a great point in both of the points that you actually mentioned, for sure. That seems to be where the, you know, the industry should be headed towards which is, you know, power with the individuals with people being able to monetize book not just as a book, but also then monetize it based on you know, their knowledge that the book is sort of almost a product, you know, so can we treat it like a product? Another thing I would ask you is where do you see the industry headed in terms of currently what is happening, which is these, blurring the lines between different formats, right, like a book as printed sort of, or like a only written thing versus, you know, an audiobook or a podcast, so
1:15:00
the written format versus audio format versus,
1:15:04
like screen like video formats, or even, you know, there's this sort of cause of episodic books coming out that is sort of this blurring of the lines between what is a newsletter and what is a book. And, you know, like authors also be able to make those kind of decisions, right? Like, if I have knowledge and I want to put it out, should I write it as a newsletter? Or should I write it as a book? So how do you see these current sort of integrations that are happening playing out in the future, I think at a much more accelerated rate,
1:15:36
primarily, because the cost of content creation is going to go down drastically, right? So let's, let's say,
1:15:46
you're a writer who's written long form content. And now you want to convert it into audio, or you want to convert convert it into video, it's going to the cost is going to go down. So it's going to go near close to zero, right. And as that happens, you will see the content explosion happening, then new problems will emerge of curation. How do you curate this? How does people discover this? Right? So I'm very excited about the fact that so many stories out there can be made into movies or web series. Right. So but also, outside of the, again, I would say those are traditional channels. Right? Outside of that. Can you have,
1:16:34
like the how it has it's happening in China? Right? Can you can you have YouTube series more democratized? And can that go? And can this book be told on YouTube as different videos serialized inside a playlist? And can that go and generate enough views? Yeah, right. So there are so many interesting ways. I think we're lucky to be alive with this time where
1:17:03
these sweeping things that usually take a year happens in a compressed time. Right? So it's about how we keep up and position ourselves.
1:17:15
Absolutely, because that's one thing that we are also really excited about, because that is also the space bound is in right, which is how these formats are blurring and how these different things are sort of happening and how these power balances are shifting. So definitely, I think, you know, this repeated conversation, which comes up every year, which is like, oh, are books dying, and is the industry ending, and now it's like always AI gonna kill all like, creative industries, and like all writers are going to lose jobs, that sort of doomsday kind of conversation that almost happens on a yearly basis. It's so interesting to see that that conversation is still ongoing, while all of these interesting, new avenues are opening up at the same time, and all of these opportunities are coming. So that balance, I think, you see, you hear these conversations
1:18:04
all the time, right? So
1:18:07
and I, and it's going to be there forever. But see, the fundamental is if you don't adapt, you perish, right? So. So if you don't adapt, you get outdated. And
1:18:22
business models will change formats will change, but the need to have great content. That is fundamental right? And we look at book as a form factor. You have flip phones, you have smartphones, these are all different form factors, right. So
1:18:42
there is no sanctity about the form factor. You never go and see the flip phone, how can you say that about a flip phone? It's so sacred.
1:18:51
Right? So whether it's a digital platform, whether it's video format, whatever format, great story, the author is going to be told, right? Today, we are all lucky that
1:19:03
a 200 500 year old format is still surviving. And it's still growing, right? We're lucky that that's happening today. But
1:19:12
you can't count on it. Right? So you can't you need to give some credit to the
1:19:19
skeptics also, you can't, as a large business in publishing, you can't just close your eyes and say, No, this won't affect me. It's not done in the past 400 years, this won't affect me. I think you should you should probably say, Hey, here's this amazing opportunity.
1:19:38
How do I take advantage of that? Right?
1:19:42
So
1:19:45
one interesting side note is that
1:19:48
we're working with this generative AI right. And so now we are all of the age where we have kids. When we started out we all we will kids
1:20:00
So, and the minute is a great way I came in our team got over a weekend, they got into a hackathon. They wanted to build something. And the first thing they wanted to build was, my kids are not reading. Can we? Just on YouTube? Can we do a book where it's hyper personalized, right? Where the kid is illustrated into the story?
1:20:24
Oh,
1:20:26
so we're launching that this Friday. Right? So if you have a child and your child you are AI will learn how your child looks, and then illustrate your child weave your child into the story. And across the story, right. So that is so cool. Yeah, so this is on, you
1:20:50
know, this is as a political book.
1:20:55
Okay, so you, you buy the book, and the physical copy that you get will have your child as the main, your child likeness as the main character, the physical copy? Yeah. Earlier, it used to be just the names you could customize, and all that and you call the personalization. But now you can actually customize the character. And it could be it would be, let's say, your child as a fire marshal, or your style as a cop, right? So it would be your child and your child's journey in the story. So we launching it this Friday. It's got nothing to do with the core business. But again, as a fun project, we wanted to do innovation, right? It's something new and how we are personalizing the stories of growth in terms of you know, what we are looking at a storytelling, right? For us, again, I think perception on books is something which is very stagnant, which is like, Okay, once it's written, and then it is just this fixed thing, like this immovable, unchangeable object that exists. And just to, I think, create this variation, where, you know, there can be all of these changes in the book itself, and in the way that a book looks, I think, can be very interesting for children, definitely to get them to read. So
1:22:12
I think it's just two engineers who are solving real world problems, right? And looking at it like, hey, my kids are not reading there all the time on YouTube, how do I solve this? Right? So and then they are. So I think,
1:22:26
as businesses if we adapt these changes, and see, you have two ways you can say, this is not our business.
1:22:35
Or you can say, what's the worst that's going to come out of it, we'll have a lot of fun, but let's learn how this works. And as a business, if you adapt it, I think it's better for everybody.
1:22:49
In the long run, and eventually, if we are able to bring more kids to become better readers, right? It's good for the industry as a whole.
1:23:01
Has, have you ever considered writing
1:23:05
a lot of things? What What would you write?
1:23:09
On? How would you write and publish a book?
1:23:13
Like a how to publish? How to Self Publish kind of manual? How to publish or publish? Nice?
1:23:22
Alternate cardio? If you are not doing this? What would you want to do? And you cannot say aerospace engineer, or you're not ever going to be an aerospace. Right?
1:23:33
I love the hospitality industry. Right.
1:23:38
So I'm dabbling in some experiments there.
1:23:43
So as an alternate career, I think either I would be a
1:23:48
hydroponic farmer.
1:23:50
Okay. Or,
1:23:52
or
1:23:54
I would be
1:23:56
brewing beer. Right. Doing beer. Nice. Yeah. So
1:24:02
very specific niche things. Yeah.
1:24:07
It's, again, sort of brew beer, read great books thought of my retirement. Right? Me Maybe this is your retirement alternate career, when you will be reading those business books that you're holding right now.
1:24:25
Okay, if you're on a deserted island, and you could only carry one book, let's say one self published book.
1:24:32
What book would it be?
1:24:35
There is this book by Guy Kawasaki, right.
1:24:39
It's called Eight. Author, Publisher, entrepreneur. Right.
1:24:44
It's a so he self published the book. And I think that would that's a book that I keep going back to, to remember what our thought process when we started. Right, so I think that would be the book. Okay.
1:25:00
What is one surprising thing that very few people know about you? In your public person?
1:25:10
A lot of people don't know that I'm an introvert. Right? So I've been on social media
1:25:20
going on social. Yeah.
1:25:23
So a lot of people believe that see, I like in person conversations, right? But they assume that, hey, this person must have a lot of content on social, he must be writing, right? And then they go and see that I don't do anything, anything online. So I have had people come back and say, why don't you do more social? You should post more to gain a following that kind of things. Correct? Correct. I think that doesn't work. So biggest introvert engineer kind of thing works better for me that you said introvert, I was like, that should not be a surprise with engineer and with you know, most people who work with books tend to be introverted. It's very rare for people to be very, very extroverted, in their personalities in notion of how it works is
1:26:14
my co founder is a better engineer. So he's, he's a tech guy. Right? So he handles tech, right? So I handle the public facing side of the business. So when when people realize that I am not so public, I'm a super private person.
1:26:34
Despite the fact that in in person conversation, it's not as bad. Right? So that's sort of like a surprise to a lot of people. That said, No, in this conversation, I couldn't tell that you were an introvert.
1:26:49
But that's good. So now, I mean, that's the end of this conversation. Thank you so much for coming on the book people for answering all of these questions. I think this was one of the best conversations I've had so far on this podcast. Thank you so much.
1:27:04
Thanks, Aishwarya and wish you the best for bone.
1:27:09
Hopefully, we'll we'll work together someday. Yes, that would be amazing. Right. So thanks a lot. Thanks a lot for your time. Yeah, I'm very excited to see all of these new things that you're you've been telling me that notion presses doing so I will check them out for sure. Don't follow me on social I wouldn't even post a
1:27:30
motion.
1:27:32
If you want that update, my team will boost.
1:27:37
Timing a lot. Thank you so much. That marks the end of another episode of the book people tune in every Thursday for some breakdowns, some truth bombs, and some insightful and real conversations with industry experts about all things books. This podcast is created by Bob. We work with writers and brands to create content across formats, whether it's books, podcasts, newsletters are seen. So get in touch to see how we can help you grow through stories and follow us at bound India on all social media platforms. I'm your host Aishwarya
1:28:14
you can follow me on LinkedIn where I share many many more insights about books and content. Or you can get in touch with me at Ushuaia at bound india.com If you have any suggestions on topics I should cover, or if you want to book any of my services or consultation calls. Until then, keep writing