MyKitaab: How To Publish and Market Your Books

Kovid is the creator of Calibre, an ebook management and conversion program. He has a Ph.D from California Institute of Technology and has worked on quantum computing. He has many and varied interests. He is a book lover and reads close to 100 books an year. In addition, he has written poems and essays . Kovid was one of the panelists in the Jaipur Literary Festival -2016 . He has 2 daughters and his wife is an author of children's books.    

Naveen Valsakumar is a former technologist who co-founded Notionpress with his friends in 2012 with a INR 3,000 investment ($50). In four years, the company has grown to INR 6 Crores (nearly US 1 million) in sales, and is one of the non traditional publishing companies in India. Naveen and I talk about his professional career before founding Notionpress, the story behind his company, growth plans, and services offered. We talk about the Notion Press Accelerator Program, which provides INR 100,000 (nearly 1,400 Dollars) to authors who have been able to sell 30 books with atleast 30 positive reviews. A not to miss part of this discussion is where Naveen provides some facts and figures about the book publishing market in India, based on the FICCI+Nielsen report released in November 2015. India is the second largest english language book publishing market in the world, at US 4 billion dollars, it is a large though unorganized industry.

Leonard Fernandes is a former IT professional who co-founded Cinnamon Teal Publishing with his wife Queenie in 2007. He can be described as a "parallel entrepreneur", with four different ventures included Dog Eared Books and Publishing Next conference.During our discussion, we talk about Leonard's journey from an IT professional to his move back to Goa, and launching his ventures, We discuss about Cinnamon Teal Publishing, and how the business has grown over the years. We spend considerable time over ISBN, and weigh the need as well as the importance of getting iSBN for books. Other topics we talk about in this rather long interview incvlude Cinnamon Teal Blog, audiobooks, and nearly half a dozen entrepreneurial ideas in the book publishing space.

Jaya Jha is an alumnus of IIT Kanpur and IIM Lucknow. She is the co-founder of pothi.com, a self-publishing platform. She is an ex-googler and has two other ventures- Instascribe (for ebooks) and Summary Town (summaries of business books). She is a published author herself, with one novel in English  and 3 collections of Hindi poetries. Jaya and I talk about her interest in books, the idea behind pothi.com; how the self publishing service works. She also discussed numbers- how the service has grown over the years (from 3 or 4 titles in first year to about 100 titles per month at present), and cost of self publishing a book. We also talk about audiobooks and translations. Finally, Jaya talks about her nomination to L'Oreal Paris and NDTV - Woman of Worth award, and her request that listeners should vote for her if they like the podcast episode! Shownotes will be available at mykitaab.in/pothi

V Raghunathan is an academician turned banker who is currently the CEO of a non profit .He dons the hat of a columnist and is an author of 14 published books. His academic affiliation was with IIM, Ahmedabad (1982-2001) as a Professor of Finance & Accounting, banking association with ING Vysya Bank as its President (2001-04) and corporate/Foundation role is with the GMR Group since 2005. He also heads the India Campus of Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto, Canada, where he is an Adjunct Professor as well. He has been teaching annually at Bocconi University, Milan, Italy, since 1990.Collecting old and antique locks (as in pad locks) is his serious hobby , has played chess at all India level and have done a bit of cartooning for a national daily briefly and some competitive sketching in the past. Apart from these, he has flirted with a vintage car (a 1937 Austin 7) for a few years, occasionally fixes mechanical clocks and travel a good bit.  

Dr. Satish Deodhar is the Author of two bestselling books - “Day To Day Economics” and “Why Am I Paying More?” His books are a lighthearted read, but by no means they are light reading: Dr. Deodhar has explained complex concepts used in economics in simple easy to understand terms. We talk about his writing, translations of books, his interest in archaeology in this podcast discussion. Dr. Deodhar has a PhD from the Ohio State University in the United State and his undergradate degree is from University of Pune. To do justice to the writer in him, he is able to squeeze time apart from his day job as a Professor of Economics at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. He lives in Ahmedabad with his wife Deepali and two children - Sylee and Yash. Shownotes are available at MyKitaab.in/satish

Rajeshwari Victor is a faculty at XLRI in Jamshedpur and author of the book “My Life, My Choice: Midlife Career Choices.” She is an alumnae of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, and has over 15 years of experience in the corporate sector. She has worked with organizations such as Hindustan Unilever, CavinCare and Nippon Paints. She loves listening to music and she is a marathon runner. She is a columnist for the Business Line, where she covers the topics of sales and marketing.   Shownotes are available at mykitaab.in/rajeshwari

Vidyanand Vartak is a software engineer who lives in the UK. He is the originator behind Bolti Pustake. This is a volunteer driven project under which narrators record Marathi language books which are in the public domain. Listeners are able to listen to these files through the website Boltipustake on blogspot    Anand and I talk about the response to his initiative, listener preferences, managing time for this volunteer driven project, and finally how can interested audio narrators contribute to his project. Anand can be contacted via the facebook page for this project or on the contact page on tbe boltipustake site.   Please subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or Stitcher and if you like this podcast, please leave a review! 

PC Balasubramanian (Bala) is an entrepreneur and a bestselling author. His first two books  have a very interesting theme: Tamil movie icon Rajinikanth. Rajinis Punchatanra and Grand Brand Rajini are essentially management books. He followed up his nonfiction books with a fiction novel - Ready, Steady, Exit. Bala and I discuss his journey as an author, his passion for writing, how he manages time between running his company and authoring and marketing his books. We also talk about how bookwriting has led to him getting invited to speak at corporate events. We of course talk about Rajinikanth, and for the first time on MyKitaab Podcast, we end the discussion with a punchline from a Bollywood Tamil movie. In his professional avatar, Bala is a Chartered Accountant and the Executive Director & President of Matrix Group. He also contributes articles now and then to newspapers and magazines especially on subject relating to Retailing and FMCG industries.   Please subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or Stitcher and if you like this podcast, please leave a review!    Shownotes from this episode are available at mykitaab.in/bala

Apurva Purohit is the author of the national best - selling book on successfully managing the merge between home and work “Lady, You’re not a Man” – the Adventures of a Woman at Work. Apurva and I discuss her journey as an author that began with a blog, finding a publisher, writing the manuscript on flights, and the impact the book has had on readers. We also talk about marketing the book, a few unconventional approaches for marketing books (partnering with HR organizations in companies) and the importance of family support for women in demanding careers. Apurva  is the CEO of Radio City 91.1 FM, an IIM –B alumnus (Batch of 89) and has been managing media organizations for a large part of the 25 years she has spent in the corporate world. She has launched TV Channel,  Media Agency, and is an independent Director on boards of Companies, and a partner in Social Venture Partners India.   Shownotes from this podcast episode are available at mykitaab.in/apurva   Please subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or Stitcher and if you like this podcast, please leave a review!         

Kiruba Shankar is a Social Media consultant, Professor, Organic Farmer and Author. He has varied interests including photography (over 7,000 photos on Flickr and counting!) and podcasting: he is the host of Kiruba.tv , where he interviews exceptional leaders. Kiruba has written five books, including Wikipedia for Beginners, Crowdsourcing and Copyright and Copyleft. His latest book is titled First Book, which is a compilation of the best advice on writing from authors who have together sold millions of book. Kiruba and I also discuss his journey from his engineering college days, to the dot com bust, working with Sify and Sulekha, his 20 year career in social media, organic farming, and Creative Commons. Special Mention: Kiruba has offered his latest Book titled First Book, as a free download to listeners of MyKitaab Podcast in exchange for an honest review. Interested listeners can visit mykitaab.in/kiruba to download this book.   Please subscribe to the podcast in iTunes at www.smarturl.it/mykitaab; Stitcher Radio at http://smarturl.it/mykitaabcast or on Google Play at goo.gl/kAadZ7 and if you like this podcast, please leave a review!

Kiran Manral is a former journalist turned author of four books, including All Aboard and Once Upon a Crush. Her fifth book, The Face at The Window, will be released in February 2016. We talk about her journey as an author, writing style, audiobooks, translations, and self publishing.  Kiran writes humor, but all four of her books have a different theme and are practically in a different genre. Equally interesting is that she has published all of her books with a different publisher each time. Please subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or Stitcher and if you like this podcast, please leave a review!  Shownotes for this episode are available on the Mykitaab site at mykitaab.in/kiran

Rich Amooi is the author of Romantic comedies. He has published five books , including Dog Day Wedding, Five Minutes later and Mr. Crotchety.  His latest book, an Eclair to Remember, was released in January 2016 and has received great reviews on goodreads.  Rich and I talk about his journey into writing books, reviews from readers, his upcoming book An Eclair To Remember. Please subscribe to the podcast in iTunes at www.smarturl.it/mykitaab; Stitcher Radio at http://smarturl.it/mykitaabcast or on Google Play at goo.gl/kAadZ7 and if you like this podcast, please leave a review!  Shownotes from this episode will be available at www.mykitaab.in/rich

Aditi Chopra is a former technologist turned author, who has published about 20 books in both fiction and nonfiction genre. She describes herself as author of NRI fiction and nonfiction books.Her fiction books include Mr. Imperfect and Desi Girl Series, and her nonfiction books are on leadership, particularly her book Leading Without Authority.has received positive feedback.  In this podcast episode, we discuss her journey towards becoming an author, publishing multiple books in a year, and her advice for aspiring authors. Please subscribe to the podcast in iTunes at www.smarturl.it/mykitaab; Stitcher Radio at http://smarturl.it/mykitaabcast or on Google Play at goo.gl/kAadZ7 You can view the shownotes and the resources discussed in this podcast at  at www.mykitaab.in/aditi.

In this podcast interview, Ben Wurth talks about how he started Upliterate. We also  the future plans for Upliterate and what Genres they will focus on. Upliterate was one of the sponsors of Nanowrimo 2015, something that we cover in our discussion. Particularly for authors who write in Science Fiction and Fantasy as well as Young Adult genres, it is great to have one more option, though it is still a little rough around the edges at the time or recording.  Please subscribe to the podcast in iTunes at www.smarturl.it/mykitaab; Stitcher Radio at http://smarturl.it/mykitaabcast or on Google Play at goo.gl/kAadZ7 and if you like this podcast, please leave a review!  Shownotes from this episode are available at mykitaab.in/ben