binod takiawala
National 26-09-2019: India’s largest book publishing platform, Notion Press, announces its entry into Indian Language publishing by building support for as many as eight major regional languages. Apart from English, the platform now supports books in Hindi, Marathi, Konkani, Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. Indian writers can soon publish their stories in their preferred vernacular in both paperback and eBook which can be sold to readers in over 100+ countries.
Last year, Notion Press launched Xpress Publishing—a first of its kind do-it-yourself platform—that enables aspiring authors to publish high-quality books in as little as 30 minutes. It provides a suite of tools that covers the publishing process from start to finish. The best part of using Xpress Publishing—it is entirely free for authors.
Speaking at the launch, Naveen Valsakumar, CEO of Notion Press said, “There is a growing demand for quality publishing in India. Xpress Publishing is the solution for aspiring authors in this country who don’t get their work published because they don’t have access to quality publishing. We are taking a major step forward in fulfilling our vision of making publishing accessible to everyone in the country.”
Started in 2012 with its headquarters in Chennai, Notion Press operates across India, Singapore and Malaysia. The company has already published more than 10,000 writers and sells books in over 150 countries. Naveen explains, “Every month an estimated 20,000 people search the internet to find out how to get their books published. Yet, only a fraction of that number go the final mile. We are currently handling at least 3000 queries every month from authors in different stages of their writing journeys. We are publishing close to 750 books each month, averaging at 1 book every 55 minutes! With the expansion of Xpress Publishing to Indian languages, we plan on scaling this number significantly. This is a giant leap towards achieving our target of publishing 100,000 authors over the next 5 years.”
A Neilsen study in 2015 pegs the size of the publishing industry in India at about USD 4 Billion, growing at a CAGR of 19.3 percent. It is the sixth-largest publishing market in the world and the second in terms of English language publishing. There are over 9,000 publishers publishing books across 16 languages. The industry is largely unorganized and extremely fragmented. This has led to low technology adoption, making it difficult for budding authors to publish. Bhargava Adepalley, CTO of Notion Press, says, “Our agenda for the future is clear. Not only do we want to make publishing accessible to everyone in this country, we also want to give each published book the right platform to thrive in its market. We are already working on building more automated marketing tools for our authors to promote their books and be discovered by more readers.”
