eChai with Mohak Bhambry, Founder of VoiceVerso : His Writers Voice
In the age of digital media it is lucrative to be known as a "published" author. While the traditional publishing houses are churning out books in thousands there are many who still can't reach there. Not yet. And that's not because they can't. Many don't approach the traditional publishers until they have had some success in the few of their works on the digital mode.
This is what struck Mohak Bhambry from Indore, as one of the many reasons that self-publishing is very essential. His own experiences in trying to dive into the publishing world led to the page turning idea - Voice Verso
Voice Verso is world's first DIY(Do It Yourself) book publishing and book selling platform for authors who wanted to transform themselves as “Authorpreneurs”(that's what they call their users. :D) Currently, it has been launched in private beta, wherein 40 authors in just 2 days tested their platform and have willingly accepted this new innovation in publishing industry.
Mohak Bhambry Founder of Voice Verso, poet at heart and entrepreneur.
eChai Ventures did an interview with Mohak and this is what he says: "From past 50 years there has not much been done in book writing and publication, both online and offline. Voice Verso is here to change that."
1) How did you come up with the idea of VoiceVerso?
Every person has their own bucket list. I wanted to be a best selling author before I turn 25; this was my dream. I tried searching for publishing houses (both online and offline). I realized that, there is no such platform which can help authors to not only provide an interactive experience based personalized book writing and publishing solution, but also there is no book selling and marketing management system. I kept my own manuscript on shelf and started bootstrapping for other “Authorpreneurs” like me. Turns out there are 120 million authors on the planet who have the same problem as mine. This opened a window of opportunity and I handsomely grabbed it. :)
2) What problem are you solving?
Every year 120 million manuscripts of one or the other author goes in fairy dust. Offline book publishing mechanism is strong from past 200 years. But, the process is too lethargic and time consuming. Plus, when it comes to discussion of royalties, authors get cold shoulders from publishing houses. As for online mechanism concerns the process is fairly similar, but with more cloggy manuscript, endless permutations and combinations for editing and lastly, no cumulative book marketing and selling management system. Authors aren't able to track where their niche is and what demographic their book will sell the most.
3 ) How does it work?
Voice Verso currently is an “invite only” platform, wherein authors are allowed to try and test the portal using privileged invites. It provides an interactive DIY book writing and book publishing tool to its authors, wherein authors can feel as if they are physically writing and publishing their books. Not only that, premium authors will have the access of data visualization tool helping them to track and target effective demographics, virtual engagements and marketing for their books- this way making entire book writing, publishing, marketing and selling a streamlined process.
Here's a video of our private beta:
4) What is your target market?
Every budding writer, poet, storyteller, novelist, creative content writer, blogger agnostic of age, demographic and genre ranging from short stories to memoirs, from poetries to articles, from biographies to novella etc., all constitute our target market. 1/4th of the bestselling authors on Kindle in 2015 were indie published ones. With the rate of 1.1% increment in indie publishing titles, we want to reach out to them as our “Go to Customers”. With the emergence of Kindle and people preferring eBooks to read we are targeting our reader demographic to be online eBook readers. We have plans for paperbacks too, but once we cater the emerging market then we will penetrate into the existing one. Also, our market includes fashion bloggers, portfolios, photographers, graphic arts etc. with our coming soon “Voice Gram” feature.
5) How much time did it take you from conceptualization of Voice Verso to actually launching it in the market ?
Earlier Voice Verso started of as just another blogging platform, helping genuine content writers, poets, storytellers etc., to share their individual posts (It is still there). This is to cater the unique writer count of 200 and DAU (Daily Active Users) of 1000. Now, that we see the product rolling out, we have launched our beta. The Private beta just have launched 4 days ago (the interview was taken on 4th August 2016) and we have an overwhelming response.
This was our turnaround in just 48 hours of operations.
No marketing, no advertisements and just via product intuitiveness and word of mouth we were able to garner this much interest. We are looking for more.
6) What is your competitive advantage?
We are doing something in publishing industry which no one has ever tried yet. Our DIY book publishing and book selling management system is our USP and that gives us edge over our competitors. The product is rightfully curated and well builds in order to match authors’ needs. With lot of click baiting sites these days, the art of “storytelling” has been overshadowed from the world wide web for a while, we are here to reincarnate it.
Furthermore, offline and online publication industry is working on same semantic opportunities with no innovation what so ever. We are here to make not only new Authors, but new “Authorpreneurs” .
7) Tell us more about your team.
“You can do big things with small team” - Chinese Proverb.
We have started out from my home with 2 people - me as a Founder and a developer working with me. But, with this launch we are getting tremendous response from developers to be the part of the revolution.
8) How do you plan to market your product?
We want to use social media and other online and offline tools to reach out to a curated and targeted set of authors to deliver our product to them. Our first realistic benchmark is to harness online eBook publishing industry using Kindle, iBooks, etc. With our features like “Voice Gram”, “Voice Aura” , “Voice Commerce” we want to reach out to not only storytellers, poets, bloggers, etc. But also, graphic designers, fashion bloggers, photographers too. Everyone has the right to anthologize their contents in the form of books , this is what we believe and we are determined to reach out. Lastly, our market will also include regional writers like – Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali etc.
9) What is your larger goal or vision?
Content creation online has become a huge market today. But, we as a platform realize that we withhold a very big responsibility, especially in terms of book publishing and selling. We want to target those 120 million unknown JK Rowlings who are still sitting in dim light waiting for their books to go bestsellers. We want to build a strong community empowered by technology that, can put a benchmark for every publishing needs. We are excited about the challenge lies ahead and we are making our efforts to serve our author communities. DIY book Publishing beta is the first step towards making more “Authorpreneurs”.
To know more about Voice Verso, here are the different ways you can get in touch with them:
