When I say that the native digital era is finally here I do not mean that the conventional print book is dead. It isn’t. However, reading has been given a power-filled push because books can be read even on the smartphone with all the benefits that the typical Kindle e-reader gives. It isn’t only Sanjeev Jha – Head-Content Acquisition & Demand, Kindle Content, India who believes this to be true. Other bestselling authors like Ashwin Sanghi, Rashmi Bansal, Divya Prakash Dubey, Era Murugan and Sundari Venkatraman agree as they all came together to declare and felicitate the winners of the second Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Pen to Publish Contest recently.
Sanjeev Jha told me that KDP was focused on what the customer wants and that ‘if we are going to be part of the chain, we should be adding value. The way we add value is when it works better’ for the reader of books. He then revealed that out of every 100 top bestsellers published, 33 books were self-published on KDP in the US, 41 in Germany, and has already touched 20 for India. This isn’t just encouraging but has certain elements of creative exhilaration added to the entire exercise. He added that ‘KDP isn’t in the business of saying if your book is good or not. The reader does that.’ The truth is that for an author to be a winner, books first need to be there in every format and easily available everywhere. The KDP sponsored Pen-to-publish contest helps authors reach out faster and without the traditional hiccups.
Participating in this contest means not just seeing your work being published in the digital format but also a chance to get a prize of Rs 5 lakh for long-form writing and Rs 50,000 for short-form, besides every finalist being eligible for a Kindle e-reader. Imagine not bracing for tens of rejection slips from conventional publishers or not spending thousands to get a book published that you never get to see on the shelves of bookstores.
The winners in long-form writing (10,000 words and above) include Escape Routes: Short Stories (English edition) by Aparna Das Sadhukan, Neeli (Hindi edition) by Nandini Kumar, and PARANGI MALAI IRAYIL NILAIYAM: (Detective Karthick Aldo series Book 2) (Tamil Edition) by Senthil Balan. Winners in short-form writing (2,000 and 10,000 words) were Being a mother: It’s a different hormone altogether (English edition) by Deepika Priya, Aatman (Hindi edition) by Anurakti, and Article about Isai’s Poetry (Tamil edition) By Vignesh C Selvaraj.
It will be incorrect to assume that every self-published book reflects mediocrity. A lot of known and liked authors today have experienced the joy of self-publishing through KDP. The Pen-to-publish contest goes a step ahead and includes creativity, originality, quality of writing, and commercial viability as the parameters for choosing the best. The top six winners were shortlisted from thousands of entries across the globe over the span of three months. All eBook entries from the contest are obviously available on the Kindle Store on any device with the free Kindle app for iPhone, iPad, Android phones and tablets, PC and Mac as well as Kindle E-readers. So far as monetization is concerned, authors receive up to 70 percent royalties on sale of their eBooks.
Why I insist on saying that the native digital era is here is because these books aren’t just going through an easy process to go from the author to the reader but also because the audience is largely global. To add to this is the fact that all kinds of strategic decision making is in the author’s domain and thus up to 20 per cent of the Top 100 books on the India Kindle store are published by authors who have decided to keep control by publishing through KDP.
During the event I happened to talk to Rashmi Bansal (click HERE to read the full discussion) and I asked her if it was a good step for any new writer to go first for an E book, and then search for a conventional publisher? She told me that though she didn’t think there was any one universal formula but ‘many authors, new authors particularly, find it difficult to reach out to publishers, because publishers get huge number of submissions, and it sometimes takes six months to reply to you with just one line. No. So in my opinion it is helpful to have been published on Kindle and show that you and your creative output can have some readership. So it’s kind of a test market.’
It is thus obvious that if you’re a first time writer, the two most vital things to consider will be the title and the blurb of the book. The short description that most people surfing the net will read is what influences most. Sanjeev Jha agrees to this and adds that ‘this most certainly interests readers and then they take a call, and may even be willing to pay this price despite not having read this author before’. He also told me that ‘one way to increase readership for your book self-published on Amazon was to opt for Kindle Unlimited though then an author was entitled to only 70% of the revenue. However, being on Kindle Unlimited does enhance the credibility of any book.’
When I approached Ashwin Sanghi, (click HERE to read the full discussion) an author whose book have already been read and appreciated by a lot of readers and asked him if he thought it was a good idea to be published first on KDP and then think of approaching conventional publishers, he said: ‘A lot of the books being published today are by authors who were first on KDP and then moved into publishing in terms of print.’ He added that ‘all the old paradigms seem to be going out of the window. We are seeing, for example, movies are followed by books published on their story. Even TV serials follow this sequence, and if you’re a game of thrones fan you must know that, for example, season 8 of Game of Thrones, which is currently airing, is unique as it isn’t based on any book that has already been written. Whereas the past series were inspired by books, this entire season is coming out without the book having been written and the book will be subsequent to the season.’
The digital era is certainly fascinating as there are a lot of new facets of publishing that have become made their way into real life. This is because people who consume data, do it across platforms. KDP is being closely monitored by every potential author in the country and… well, I am sure there will be a lot more entries in the next installment of their Pen-to-publish contest.
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Arvind Passey
14 June 2019
