Tirupati Kiran and Usha Prathyusha MB of Kathaa Prapancham share their love for books

Tirupati-based Kathaaprapancham Books, a Telugu publishing home, tells an inspiring story of ardour and hope. Behind its rise are the efforts of its founder Tirupati Kiran and editor Usha Prathyusha MB (co-publisher). Their love for books performed a key position in navigating the publishing trade and making print publishing thrive in a digital age. Hailing from Tirupati, the e-book lovers turned enterprise companions to revive a dying publishing home.

Kiran says that he shares his birthday and yr of beginning (Could 19, 1985) together with his favorite writers Ruskin Bond and Gudipati Venkata Chalam. “Manamu antha sahityam srushtinchaka poyina, kaneesam pustakaalu chadavaali. Publishing cheyyali ani oka korika undi (We could not be capable to create nice literature, however we must always learn books. I want to publish books,” he says over the telephone from Tirupati.

Love for books

Kiran’s love for books started in his childhood when he relished books in Telugu and English. Whereas his grandmother’s bedtime tales impacted him, studying the Younger World complement of The Hindu opened up a brand new world. “Now, books are like my breath,” says Kiran, who reads round 150 pages every day earlier than going to mattress.

Kiran got here to Hyderabad to pursue a profession as a author, labored as assistant and affiliate director for Eenadu Tv, and, later, a script and ghostwriter for films. “Books take the credit score for my totally different stints; with out all my studying, nobody would have given me these alternatives.”

Step in the direction of dream

Kiran would recurrently attend literary and movie festivals throughout the nation to fulfill authors, have interaction in discussions and have fun literature with different bibliophiles. One memorable assembly entails ready on the Cambridge E-book Depot to fulfill Ruskin Bond and take his autograph.

Impressed by his literary encounters, he first opened a Fb web page Kathaaprapancham in 2013, the place he wrote about Telugu tales and literature. He adopted it up with a weblog and an internet site. Though he took up a media job in Hyderabad, he was dissatisfied. Later, his return to Tirupati because of private causes allowed him to meet his dream of opening a Kathaaprapancham e-book retailer and a publishing home, in 2018. “I labored alone and did every part,” he recollects.

From publishing books in Telugu to taking copyrights from writers of different languages to publish translations of their books and collaborating in nearly 15 e-book festivals, he did every part to make his publishing home a hit. Kathaaprapamcham took steps to stabilise; its weak monetary scenario deteriorated additional because of COVID-19. ”I used to be about to close down the publishing home and kill my dream, when Usha revived it,” says Kiran.

Contemporary perspective

Books printed by Kathaaprapancham
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Particular Association

“I used to be solely a follower of Kathaaprapamcham’s works,” recollects Usha, an avid e-book lover and a pupil of English literature from Tirupati. Her interactions with Kiran started when she noticed pirated books in her teams on Telegram in the course of the lockdown. She despatched screenshots of these teams to him, and he filed a case in opposition to them and obtained them closed. Later, throughout their interactions Kiran spoke of his plans to close Kathaa Prapancham because of losses. Recalling the heart-breaking second, Usha says, “Being enthusiastic about books, I earnestly needed to attempt to give it a brand new life.”

New concepts

Usha invested her money and time and selected ‘Premchand Kathavali’, an anthology of 100 tales of Munshi Premchand (translated from Hindi to Telugu by Achyuthuni Rajyasree) as her first mission. She additionally took recourse to fashionable publishing instruments. “Kirangaru used to get work carried out in DTP (desktop publishing) with web page makers; that conventional technique is time-consuming. I don’t have the time to sit down in entrance of a laptop computer, I solely use my pill and cell to get the work carried out,” says the mom of two.

Utilizing InDesign to get the pages designed and Canva for different works, she was in a position to get the e-book prepared in a single yr. The success of Premchand Kathavali marked the second innings of Kathaa Prapancham. “We really feel proud that no publishing home has, till now, obtained 100 tales of Premchand translated in Telugu,” says Kiran.

Working in sync

With college students after a storytelling session
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Particular Association

Kiran and Usha work in tandem by combining their strengths. Kiran’s expertise and literary data assist in deciding on works and advertising them, whereas Usha’s concepts convey the works to life. “My thoughts is rarely idle, it’s at all times considering of latest initiatives,” says Usha, who coordinates with translators situated remotely, plans layouts, measurement, paper and worth for the books. To reignite the love for studying amongst children distracted by digital gadgets, Kathaa Prapancham has printed a collection of 10 units of storybooks in 2024; one other 10 units are underway (totalling 100 books).

Whereas Kathaa Prapancham launched 9 titles between 2018 and 2023, the publishing home might convey out 10 titles in 9 months (September 2023 to April 2024) after Usha took over as editor. She additionally made a big distinction in e-book distribution. “Distributors ask for a 40% reduce, which is a big sum for small publishing homes like us. We’re not positive whether or not the books have been bought, because the distributors don’t give us the cash. Kirangaru had confronted losses initially because of it,” she explains. The publishing home started to market its books on-line and on to bookstores; proceeds from the e-book gross sales might then be ploughed again to publishing. Now, plans are on to open a WhatsApp enterprise account to succeed in out to e-book lovers on-line and make the books accessible globally.

Usha coordinates with faculties to organise storytelling classes that Kiran conducts. Thus far, they’ve carried out such classes in 500 faculties throughout the Telugu states within the final 4 years. Efforts to safe rights for translating and publishing prestigious works in Telugu, with famend publishing homes corresponding to Harper, Penguin, Westland, and Viswakarma Publications paid off. They’ve secured translation rights for works corresponding to Ret Samadhi (a Hindi e-book which received the Worldwide Booker Prize) by Geetanjali Shree, a Malayalam novel Randamoozam by M T Vasudevan Nair (a Jnanpith awardee) and Street to Abana by Lata Gwalani.

Hoping to make Kathaa Prapamcham a torchbearer of high-quality literature in Telugu, Kiran says, “We wish to convey nice tales of different languages to life in Telugu and take Telugu literature to different languages.” They’re hoping to broaden the horizons of readers.