 "PragyaBhatnagar")
Noida-based undergraduate student Pragya Bhatnagar is set to change the rules of the book publishing industry through his digital reading and publishing platform, writeconnectindia.com, that enables aspiring and lesser-known authors to reach out to a larger audience.
The website, which allows authors to publish their books free of cost in an electronic format, was set up less than a year ago when the 20-year-old got the idea after his father’s not-so-successful attempt at publishing a book.
“About eight years ago, my father had written a book that was published by Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi. The book was not distributed very well, and there was no revenue that came out of the book. About 1,000 copies of the book were published and my father got only Rs 2,000 from it,” Bhatnagar recollects.
“This gap of distribution exists across many leading Indian publishing houses that would print your book, but the author has to spend from his/her own pocket to promote the book.”
Writeconnectindia.com not only allows authors to publish their books but Pragya, along with his father Ashwini Bhatnagar, helps in promotion of the books and help authors “reach the last mile”.
<b>Free mass emails</b>
Among other promotional services that are offered by the website free is generating newsletters and mass emails to targeted audience for spreading a word about new books and authors. The website also helps writers in converting books written in physical format into electronic, and assists in editing, if the author desires.
Though the website has published only two books so far and is running on a beta test stage, the idea has clicked well with investors. About eights months ago, the website received an investment of $700,000 from California-based software solutions firm Xcelcom Services, which is also helping Bhatnagar in building, developing and powering the website.
Writeconnectindia.com has also received good response from readers, as it gets about 1,500 hits a day. There are now 10 books in the pipeline for getting published on the website.
“More and more people in India are now opting for ebooks and choose to read on eformat because of convenience. Many people do not buy books in physical format any more,” Bhatnagar said. “For a book that may cost around Rs 600 in physical form, the electronic version is sold at about Rs 200,” he added, explaining the price benefit that lures readers towards ebooks.
Additionally, writeconnectindia.com offers a unique benefit to authors, where readers can review the book chapter by chapter and changes can be made even after it is published, if the author wishes.
<b>Downloads charged</b>
While these books can be read free of cost on the website, downloads are charged for. The website, which also generates revenues from advertising, splits all sales proceeds with writers in an 80:20 ratio, with the author getting a lion’s share.
Even as Bhatnagar refused to share the company’s current revenue, he said it is “quite good as per his expectations”. The company is targeting a revenue of around Rs 1 crore in the next eight to 10 months.
The website, with a six-people team, is now looking to increase manpower and believes it would be able to expand operations without any further fund raising.
To expand reach across the country, the website will look to add books across 22 Indian languages over the next few years, and provide authors across regions the opportunity to reach masses.
“Our tag line is ‘read more, write more’ and our aim is to promote the habit of reading and writing among the masses. Through writeconnectindia.com, we have resolved the problem of limited reader access due to high cost of books and the reach of the writers because of vanishing book stores,” Bhatnagar says.
