It was always our dream to have a book club in Margao. So when we finally moved to a new office space in the city that gave us enough room to host a book club meeting, we jumped at the opportunity. Two months into moving in, we had our first…
More eBook Hype
We’ve just got back from the World Book Fair in Delhi. This time around we were more perceptive to the environment and learnt a few things during the 9 days we spent there. But more on that later. However, if there was one aspect of the fair that could not…
How I began writing
In April 2011, CinnamonTeal published Shruti Swaminathan, who was then and still is the youngest author we have published. Impressed by her command over the English language at such a young age, we asked her to tell us what inspires her to write. Here is her story. I began writing…
eBooks: Digital Immigrants vs Digital Natives and the Impermanence Debate
by K. Venkatesh How much have you shifted online? Do you pay your bills online? Has it got to do anything with eBooks? Probably yes and probably no. In 2001, Marc Prensky proposed the terms “digital natives” and “digital immigrants.” Those born after the introduction of digital technology are digital…
A Bonanza of Goan Books
By Augusto Pinto Goa has had a love-hate affair with books. It has suffered the trauma of book burning during the Inquisition. But it is also the first place in India to print the modern book way back in the 16th Century. Nowadays though things are looking up for book…
No easy answers
The dangers of losing out to e-book piracy is a real one. It can mean hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dollars in lost sales and little to show for the author’s efforts. In situations where the authors themselves have seen rampant piracy affect their books, a debate on whether or not…
Canoodling the Customer
In a rather interesting blog, Jürgen Snoeren, Manager Operations and Digital with Amsterdam-based publisher MeulenhoffBoekerij, exhorts small publishers to establish relationships with their customers rather than with retailers. Obvious as it may seem, it is a step not too many publishers think about. In this blog, Snoeren asks publishers to…
Does Size Matter?
In a world where attention spans seem to be on the wane, the wisdom of publishing thick volumes has often been questioned. Do people have the time to devote to these large tomes? Do these books, that typically run into 500 pages or more, fit in with the average reader’s…
Boom in Indian Publishing?
While attending the Goa Art and Literature Festival, I found myself, quite unexpectedly, invited to a panel discussion on the future of publishing. The panel’s brief was to examine if the publishing boom, that is currently being experienced, can be sustained. Others on the panel included Chiki Sarkar, publisher of…
Last Mile Issues
Today, a rather interesting commentary on the distribution system in India, was made in an article on The BookSeller: Examining the Indian market, Pan Macmillan Asia m.d. Daniel Watts, who is based in New Delhi, said the main challenge for publishers selling in India was payment collection, with distributors under…