Last year when author turned entrepreneur Faheem Bhat decided to start a publishing house in Kashmir the challenges looked enormous and prospects gloomy. There were host of issues ranging from lack of good infrastructure including quality printing press to lack of even a decent readership,” said Faheem Bhat, 20. “But we were prepared for the challenge and thus Lieper Publication was born.”
Barely months into the business, Lieper Publications hit the trajectory of growth that no other publishing house has seen in Kashmir in recent times. With huge social media presence and intelligent promotion of books appealing the younger generation, Lieper got the knack of the market. Authors started pouring in with their manuscripts and the end product had decent sales too.
“We never sweet talk with authors. We have certain packages from lowest averaging Rs 16000 to highest which we offer to authors. They choose whatever they wish and we give equal commitment to every package,” said Faheem CEO of Lieper Publication. “The royalty to authors is 100 percent. If an author witnesses sale of 1 lakh copies, he or she will earn equal amount. Everything is transparent.” Some of the authors like Dr Henana Barjes and Shuja Tasleem have seen good revenue from their books, thanks to the royalty model.
With packages that suit even a person from a lower middle class income group, the otherwise shy and poor authors got a boost of confidence.
The books they have published are also doing anything from very good. One of the biggest success stories has been the The Mahzur by Dr Henana Berjes. The book has received tremendous response from readers not only in Kashmir but outside too. Among the 118541 paid books on Amazon India, The Mahzur is currently on rank 2009 in anthologies category and 7840 in contemporary fiction category on Amazon India. It is doing good even in UK market. People have been loving the fiction and the reviews are equally great. The book set in a middle eastern country has raised bar for Kashmiri authors.
A unique thing about the publishing house has been its encouragement of teens and even children to write books. Of the 33 authors which the house has published 25 are below 20 years of age. The youngest is Gowhar Mubarak who is just 14.
Faheem himself is an accomplished author whose fiction “Wandering for Love” was released in 2017. The fantasy book is a story about Fenin, a reckless young man, and the journey of his transformation from a carefree person to one who loses his faith in reality.
Wandering for love was one of the fast selling books in 2016 to 2017 across India. The success brought following on social media, new connections and a key to further success. The book got 4.8 out of 5 stars in its customer reviews on amazon.
The love for writing made Faheem to ditch his engineering degree that would have made him a software engineer. The book was a huge success in comparison with other writers of same league. “As people particularly youngsters saw my success, there was sort of encouragement in air. Many authors approached me to enquire how to publish their books and how this industry works. At that time it was evident that people with deep pockets could easily get their work published and rest struggled. I got the idea to start a self publishing house to meet this demand. It took almost six months for me do research in the market as I knew nothing about it,” said Faheem. “We carefully planned everything keeping a watch on every variable.”
Lieper’s strength has been its social media presence. Its Instagram page has crossed 10000 in a year and they are now applying for blue tick. Its blog is widely read and very blog gets readership of around 6000. “No self publishing house has social media presence as like us in entire India. Now we are even going national. Very soon we are launching a book by an author from Lucknow. ”
In addition to being available on the platform like Amazon, Faheem also started courier service to cater to the needs of hard cover loving readers. The company has 24 hour delivery commitment in Srinagar.
He proves that if a person has a clearer vision and gives 100 percent commitment then success is not far away. We wish him all the very best.
