How they plan to help authors win by treating books like startups

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There are plenty of perks to self-publishing. You get a lot more control over the way your work is presented. You can also can end up making more money in the long run – e-publishers can take just around 40 percent of sales, much smaller than the 75 percent cut that traditional publishers receive.

Of course, that means that you’re responsible for plenty of the publishing process yourself, including marketing and design. You also probably charge much less for people to buy and download your work.

Notion Press describes itself as an accelerator for books.

For the past four years, an e-publishing startup on India’s southeast coast has been trying to level the playing field for authors who choose to e-publish. The company, Chennai-based Notion Press, describes itself as an accelerator for books. It’s perhaps appropriate as two of its three founders – Naveen Valsakumar and Bhargava Adepalley – have engineering backgrounds. Jana Pillay, the other founder, has experience in publishing, but Naveen and Bhargava found quickly that their skills weren’t out of place at all.

“[Early on,] we looked at our data and quickly found that all the authors who published for us [were] doing well in sales, but at some point, sales started dropping off,” Naveen tells Tech in Asia. Since the authors were having trouble distributing their work in the sea of manuscripts on the internet, Notion’s team figured it would help everyone if they offered a little boost. During a discussion about how startup accelerators work, they hit on their idea.

If Notion accepts the author’s manuscript, that author gets access to in-house editing, marketing, design, and distribution services offered by Notion’s team of 120. To date, Notion has published around 1,500 books.

Turning productivity trash into a treasure

Naveen Valsakumar, co-founder and CEO of Notion Press.

India has seen success with self-published authors like Amish Tripathy (The Shiva Trilogy) and Rasana Atreya (Tell a Thousand Lies). Amazon even zoned in on the market specifically for self-publishing in 2014.

None of this was on Naveen and Bhargava’s minds in 2012, though. They began the year by creating a task management app together, then came to a realization: their cause was hopeless.

“Managing time goes beyond using an application,” Naveen explains. If one didn’t have a good work ethic in place, they figured there was little they could do.

If publishing houses could turn down authors like JK Rowling, traditional publishing wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Instead, they changed gears and spoke to a publisher about writing a book. That’s when they experienced how difficult things could be in the industry.

“[The publisher said,] ‘You guys are not famous enough for me to publish this book,’” Naveen recalls.

He adds that a few self-publishing authors in India caught his attention around that time. He and Bhargava were inspired – they wanted to give first-time writers a chance.

Besides, they figured, if publishing houses could turn down authors like JK Rowling (Rowling was famously turned down 12 times for Harry Potter, then turned down three more times when writing under a pseudonym), traditional publishing wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Heading overseas

Notion Press’ founding team: Bhargava Adepalley, Naveen, and Jana Pillay.

Notion has 21,000 registered writers on its platform who receive writing and publishing consultation for free. Its 41,000-member community, all writers who may or may not have been approved to publish through Notion, can interact with each other and learn (or enthuse) about writing. Naveen says the community is not curated at this point, but it may be in the future.

Last month, the startup raised US$1 million in series A funding.

Cinnamon Teal and Pothi also offer self-publishing services in India. Cinnamon Teal advocates for a just-the-basics approach, while Pothi allows authors to upload print and e-book manuscripts, format them, and design cover art.

We treat every book as a startup and the author as its CEO.

Naveen admits that making money from self-publishing is a challenge for authors. Good publishing has little to do with good writing, so an author sitting on a gem may still have trouble navigating the industry. India brings its own challenges. Smartphone sales are soaring, but that’s still a relative few people who have access to an e-book library.

Notion is working on its international game, though. The startup already claims to sell books in over 100 countries. Last year, representatives visited the US and Singapore to get a feel for the industry there, and to perform a pilot project with 2,000 writers.

Naveen says Notion published 40 to 50 of those books and found that there might be a place for a multi-service self-publishing company, especially one that serves customers for a smaller cost. It launches in the US this month and is looking to expand to three other countries this year. Notion’s also looking to offer books in more Indian languages.

“We treat every book as a startup and the author as its CEO,” says Naveen.

This post How they plan to help authors win by treating books like startups appeared first on Tech in Asia.

from Tech in Asia https://www.techinasia.com/notion-press-book-accelerator-self-publishing
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