We had a phenomenal start to the new decade in January when we set the tone for the future by publishing more than 1000 books in a single month. Moving into February, our agenda for the foreseeable future was clear. Not only did we want to push the boundaries further and make publishing more accessible than it has ever been in this country, but we also wanted to start laying the groundwork to help our amazing community of hardworking Indie Authors get the recognition they deserve and use their stories of success to inspire other aspiring authors in this country. We wasted no time in acting on it. Here is a round-up of everything that we managed to achieve last month at Notion Press:
Building on the success of January
After a phenomenal month where we published 1018 books in a span of just 31 days in January, there were a couple of things that were obvious to us:
- There were still hundreds of authors out there with a manuscript in hand looking for a way to get it published.
- We can address more of their concerns and get more authors published by slightly fine-tuning and optimizing our own back end processes.
This is exactly what we did, and the result? Well to none of our surprise, we went from publishing 1018 books to publishing a little over 1100 books in just one month! Despite having just 29 days to work with, in February. This meant that we maintained our phenomenal rate of publishing 1 book in every 30 minutes or so!
It wasn’t all about the quantity either, with our published authors giving us a satisfaction rating of 4.7/5. Our authors are right at the core of everything we do and this is the one piece of data that pleased us the most!
Providing a solid platform for Indie Authors
Independent authors form the backbone of the writing community in India. Although some of the most renowned and successful authors of today started off as Independent authors themselves, not too many of us get to hear the story of their rise to the absolute top. Going into February, we wanted to set this straight by providing a solid platform for our Indie Authors to get the recognition they deserve. Here is what we did:
- We launched a brand new bi-weekly newsletter and social segment – Indie and Proud – to help showcase and amplify some of the most fascinating success stories of our Independent Authors to the community of aspiring authors in this country.
- We launched a weekly segment – NP Recommends dedicating every Monday to showcase and recommend the latest and the best books published by our Indie authors to the huge community of readers who follow Notion Press.
- And finally, we started NP giveaways, a weekly viral book giveaway contest to scale up the visibility and build traction for our books by throwing it open to thousands of book lovers on Instagram on the lookout for new books to read.
With thousands of readers and writers engaging with the content posted in these segments every week, we have received plenty of encouragement and hope to build on this in the next few months.
Building a more intuitive publishing experience
When we launched Xpress Publishing, we got rid of some of the major roadblocks that were in the way of authors getting their books published. However, we knew we had to keep improving upon the functionalities and user experience to help authors make optimal use of the platform and publish the best version of their book.
After weeks of planning and strategizing, we finally launched the latest interface of Xpress Publishing, to enable a faster and better publishing experience for our authors. We managed this by making the platform more intuitive and by providing publishing and design tips for authors from within the platform to help guide them to make the right choices when it comes to publishing their book.
Overall, February was a month where we had to lay the groundwork to build on the success from the previous month and we couldn’t be happier with the results.