News and ebooks mobile application Dailyhunt in association with publisher Westland today unveiled "sachet marketing" strategy to books by introducing chapter-wise billing.
Westland and Dailyhunt will make available India's pop-writer Amish Tripathi's blockbuster Shiva Trilogy series in chapter format for readers to download.
"What makes this offering unique is that readers can download and read the book chapter by chapter, one at a time and can also make payments using their mobile bills instead of having to use credit or debit cards," Tripathi told reporters at the launch while downloading the first chapter for himself.
Tripathi said the app will solve distribution and pricing problems and encourage growth of books written in Indian languages.
"From last few years, the smartphones have taken off. We have 250 million smartphone users. Now, when you get the book on mobile phones, suddenly the distribution problem is taken care of," he said.
Virender Gupta, Founder and CEO of Ver Se Innovation which owns Dailyhunt, said the chapter-wise billing is good for the customer and for the author because the books are not discounted.
"The chapter-wise billing is good for the customer and also for the author because you are not discounting your book. It is win-win for everyone," he said.
Tripathi said with this app, his books will reach over 850 million customers via different mobile service operators including Airtel and Vodafone, at an affordable price.
"India is a country with only two per cent credit card penetration and many Indians do not have a bank account. Mobile payment is the only truly penetrative mode of payment online. With this Dailyhunt mobile app, my books will reach over 850 million customers via Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, Aircel and Reliance, at a cost as low as Rs 15 per chapter," he said.
This first-of-its-kind feature, allows reader to buy and read one chapter at a time, Tripathi said.
Out of the 16 Indian and international languages that the Shiva Trilogy is available, Dailyhunt CEO and Founder Virendra Gupta said, the company will offer chapter downloads for the books in nine languages - Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali and English to begin with.
"Over a period of time, provide all 16 Indian languages," he added.
Westland strongly believe that chapter downloads is potentially a game changer for publishing, Westland CEO Gautam Padmanabhan said.
Gupta said Dailyhunt chapter wise billing was developed with the aim to provide users with access to content across various languages at affordable pricing.
