- Pratilipi, India’s largest digital literature platform, have partnered with a traditional publishing house for the first time
- The partnership will carry books and short story collections by first time and established authors from Pratilipi’s platform
- The first book released on 25th March with three more available to preorder now via Amazon
- Titles will initially be made available in 4 languages including Hindi, Marathi, Tamil and English
5 April 2020: Pratilipi and Manjul Publishing house have launched the first four of 50 books which will see leading novels and short story collections from Pratilipi published in print for the first time. The new imprint partnership titled Ekatra brings together Pratilipl, India’s largest digital literature platform, and Manjul Publishing, best known for translating the Harry Potter books into Indian languages. The partnership will carry books in regional languages including Hindi, Marathi, Tamil and English as both print and e-books.
The first four books include Pratilipi’s top hits Tashree by Sumit Menaria (published on 25 March), Angoothi Ka Bhooth by Manish Sharma, Anakalaniya by Sanjay Vaidya and Bujgavan! by Kanishk Hivrekar (pre orders available now).
The deal with Manjul Publishing marks Pratilipi’s first major association with a traditional publishing house. The Bhopal-based Manjul Publishing are renowned for high quality translations of English language bestsellers in a range of Indian languages. Ekatra opens up their foray into supporting popular contemporary fiction literature in Indian languages. The established popularity of Pratilipi’s writers and Manjul Publishing’s experience in the mainstream publishing sector has set the foundation for a strong reach into India’s growing ecosystem of younger readers and writers, who are accessing content through multiple channels.
The upcoming 4 books highlight the genres of supernatural thriller, horror fiction and adventure, which have built a massive audience following on Pratilipi. The chosen authors include an array of first time and established writers selected from the Pratilipi platform including Kanishka Hiverekar, a graphic designer writing in Marathi; Manish Sharma, a Senior Producer working in journalism and one of Pratilipi top authors, Sanjay Vaidya, a project manager from Northern Maharashtra who writes prolifically in Marathi and Sumit Menaria, a Chartered Accountant and author of the highly popular supernatural thriller series Tashree.
For Sumit, whose debut novel Tashree has been finished by 66,654 readers, this licensing deal represents the first of several deals for the author. A hit comic book based on Tashree launched on Pratilipi Comics earlier this year, Pratilipi is developing a web show with Saurav Mohapatra and Aditya Bhattacharya, and an audiobook adaption is live on Pratilipi FM.
Since its inception, the self-publishing community has encouraged novice and established writers from diverse backgrounds to explore their love for storytelling by creating access to an engaged audience. Ekatra represents a key step towards Pratilipi’s vision to democratize story-telling across languages, devices and formats, particularly with licensing deals for authors in this case.
Commenting on the partnership Shubham Sharma, Head of IP Development at Pratilipi says “We are thrilled to be launching Ekatra series with Manjul Publishing House. Stories and writers selected for this partnership have already built huge fan bases on Pratilipi’s Literature Community. Using this engagement data, we are able to better source & evaluate new stories across languages. Add Manjul’s expertise in the indian language publishing & translations on top of it, and we have the inception of Ekatra. Together, we hope to tell some entertaining and meaningful stories along the way.”
Adding to Shubham’s sentiments, Vikas Rakheja, Managing Director, Manjul Publishing House says, ‘with Ekatra, Manjul looks forward to reaching out to the rich and diverse cache of authors who are already connected to a vast virtual readership on the Pratilipi platform, by offering them a printed-book and e-book space, initially in Hindi and Marathi and subsequently in other Indian languages. The aim is to apply Manjul’s expertise in the Indian languages translations segment and the significant, interactive pool of authorship and readership that Pratilipi has, to potentially provide a new dimension to the art of story-telling and story reading.
About Pratilipi
Pratilipi is India’s largest storytelling community of readers and writers, with 3,23,000 Writers and over 25 million monthly readers across 12 Indian languages and regions, where anyone can write or read stories for free. The platform has received 40 lakh stories yet, receiving 2 lakh new stories every month. The average reader on the app is spending 62 minutes daily.
Apart from the Writing Community, Pratilipi have launched two other storytelling platforms – Pratilipi Comics and Pratilipi FM. Pratilipi is available on both Google Play store https://bit.ly/36ilmQN and iOS App store
https://apple.co/3e7H78V
About Pratilipi FM
Pratilipi FM is India’s finest audio platform where 200K monthly users, discover 5000+ hours of unlimited audio Books in Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati and English across categories such as Motivation, Self Help, Business, Spirituality & Religion, Love, Horror, Crime and Kids. Pratilipi FM has the perfect blend of classic old and the new-age audio stories. Anyone who has a story to tell can upload their audio stories and podcasts and reach out to the world. Pratilipi FM is available on both Google Play store http://bit.ly/38rMEpu
About Pratilipi Comics
With over 700k users doing 7.8 Million reads per month Pratilipi comics puts hundreds of vertical format digital comics in Indian languages at your fingertips across all genres – science fiction, fantasy, action/adventure, horror, humor, romance on the app. Along with beloved classics such as Chacha Chaudhary, Billoo, Pinki, Tenaliram, Motu Patlu and Shaktiman, new-age comics are also available. Pratilipi Comics is available on both Google Play store http://bit.ly/34FgTrV
