General – Booknomics

Celebration of Teachers’ Day: Six Books About Teachers and Mentors

Teachers’ Day recognizes the unique role that adults play in the lives of young minds and in shaping a country’s future.

Teachers’ Day is observed annually in India on September 5 to commemorate the birth of the country’s former President, scholar, philosopher, and Bharat Ratna awardee, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, on this day in 1888.

The significance of this day is paramount. It is a day to acknowledge the significance of teachers in shaping the young minds of children. For students, the day also means gifting roses, chocolates, and handmade cards to their favorite teachers to express their gratitude. Teacher’s Day is a day of role reversal and celebration for senior students.

Books to Read on Teachers’ Day:

Literature pays a great due to teachers. Here we have put together a list of books where teachers play an important role in molding their young students.

Matilda by Roald Dahl

Matilda develops a bond with her kindergarten teacher, Miss Honey, who encourages her academically and emotionally when no one else does. It is the most adorable and heartwarming book there is, and it shows how a good teacher can shape the mind and life of an innocent child.

Villette by Charlotte Bronte

Lucy Snowe begins a new life as a teacher at a boarding school in a fictitious city in Belgium. She is attracted to all the things that are adventurous and romantic. Lucy Snowe is the counterpart of Jane Eyre, a more patient reserved version. Villette is Charlotte Bronte’s last book.

A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines

This Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award tells the story of a young man who returns to 1940s Cajun country. His aim? To visit and teach a black youth sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit. They learn about the heroism of resistance as a group. Gaines brings to this novel, a sense of place, a deep understanding of the human psyche, and compassion for people and their struggle against racism and ignorance. His story is just as relevant today.

Anne of Green Gables by M. Montgomery

Miss Stacy, Anne’s teacher, uses unconventional and liberal teaching methods that others criticize, but she becomes a much-needed role model and mentor for Anne.

The English Teacher by R. K. Narayan

The English Teacher is a part of a series of novels and collections of short stories set in R. K. Narayan’s fictitious setting of Malgudi. The story follows Krishna, an English teacher, his little triumphs and follies.

Teaching Yoga in an Upside-Down World by Susan Hopkinson

At the Pothi.com Store, we have a book about self-care for teachers, yoga teachers in particular. Susan Hopkinson discovered yoga in 1985, began teaching in 1998 and qualified as a yoga therapist in 2007. She negotiates the path a teacher needs to take in the modern world where fitness instruction and yoga asanas are often confused as one and the same.

We can never thank the good teachers in our lives enough! Share a memory of your favorite teacher or a book on teachers that you read and admired.

National Nutrition Month: Four Books to Show You How to Eat Smart, Starting Now!

All around the world, there are millions of resources being employed to find the most nutrition-dense diet there is. It is no news to us that a proper nutrition intake in our diet is so necessary for our bodies to function properly and keep deficiencies at bay. Many campaigns and activities are conducted all over the world to spread this message. In order to educate people on the need for nutrition in our bodies, National Nutrition Week is celebrated from 1^st to 7^th September.

History Behind National Nutrition week:

After being introduced in March 1973 by the members of the American Dietetic Association, National Nutrition week was an initiative to deliver a nutrition education message to the people. It gained a lot of support during the 1980s, after which the Indian government started the National Nutrition Week commemoration in India in the year 1982. This campaign was initiated to encourage people to adopt a healthy and a sustainable lifestyle.

Theme of 2021 National Nutrition Week

Every year, the first week of September focuses on a new theme. For the year 2021 it is: Feeding smart right from start. It aims to promote the consumption of nutritious and healthy foods. The goal is to promote the idea of a balanced diet, which in turn will promote good health and well-being.

Books that Promote Good Nutrition and Healthy Lifestyle:

The Baby Elephant Diet by Ravi Mantha

With a super cute title, this book focuses on adding fiber to your diet to help maintain a healthy weight. The author describes the use of readily available fruits and vegetables in India. A large part of the Indian population in India is vegetarian and this book is a boon for them.

The Healthy Indian Diet by Dr Raj R Patel, Anuja Balasubramanian and Hetal Jannu

With modern diets and refined foods causing a slew of chronic diseases, this is the book of the hour. The focus is on traditional home cooking with natural ingredients, which helps to control and prevent health problems like obesity, insulin levels, and chronic inflammation. In addition to that, the book contains dos and don’ts related to nutrition and healthy lifestyle. It also has delicious and amazing recipes.

Prenatal Fitness 360°: The Way to a Healthy Pregnancy by Sonali Shivlani

Sonali Shivlani’s book has provided valuable information to soon-to-be mothers about a healthy pregnancy. The book is divided into five sections that cover diet plans, nutrition charts, a prenatal exercise regimen, a postnatal weight loss diet and exercises, and breathing techniques, providing a 360-degree approach to a healthy pregnancy.

The Wholesome Kitchen by Pooja Dhingra

Pooja Dhingra is the founder of Mumbai’s famous Le 15 Patisserie and she writes about healthy desserts and wholesome breakfasts in her book. Her focus is majorly on the idea to consume locally grown ingredients, which are fresh and nutrition-packed.

Are there any books on nutrition that you recommend?

Haiku Extravaganza with Pothi.com

There is a pandemic that is raging around us and a lot of things that we have taken for granted have now been postponed indefinitely. So a haiku challenge at Pothi.com felt like the perfect way to alleviate the mood.

A haiku is a seventeen syllable poem usually about nature. The Japanese poet Basho was a famed exponent of this form of poetry. This is a translated haiku by him:

In Kyoto,
hearing the cuckoo,
I long for Kyoto.

When you write a haiku in English, you follow the #fivesevenfive structure which means five syllables in the first line, seven in the second and five in the third line. A syllable is a unit of sound, e.g., the word haiku has two syllables.

What the Pothidotcomers did was frame a haiku each after a small session with me. We then decided to extend the haiku challenge to twitterverse. What started as a one day enterprise turned into a three day haikuthon!

We received over forty submissions and decided to frame each haiku in digitally beautiful picture frames. We got poems about the corona virus, the beauty of nature, summer holidays, folktales and the daily routine of living in pre-Covid times. People from all walks of life emailed us- first time writers, established writers, students, bloggers, teachers, friends….we were simply overwhelmed!

Here are some gems.

For more of these you can check out our twitter moment. Have you ever tried writing haiku and has it lifted your spirits?

Free Resources for Your Lockdown Leisure

COVID-19 has taken the world by storm. Never before has an invisible enemy created such a global catastrophe in recent history. Countries are going into lockdown and the daily rut of pre-coronavirus days seems like privilege. But on the flip side, whether we are social distancing, in self-isolation or under quarantine, those of us who stay in a safe environment have an opportunity to introspect and work on creating healthier routines.

The silver lining of this crisis is the large number of institutions and individuals who have gone on a knowledge-sharing spree. We are especially grateful to everyone who has gone out of their way to make this dystopian present more meaningful.

Here’s a list of some free resources to keep you occupied and to help you get through these hard times.

Wordnomics: Books and Writing

Writing during lockdown: If you have tried writing 50,000 words for the NaNoWriMo, you may want to use this lockdown to pen down a chapter, a short story or the outline of a novel. Try to achieve a daily word count with #StayathomeWrimo. It isn’t easy and you don’t have to beat yourself up if you don’t get the required word count but even a paragraph can stand you in good stead.
Read at Home Initiatives: Although books are now considered non-essential commodities, there is a huge supply of books and stories online:
- Fatima Bhutto and Sanam Meher are presenting short reads by writers in different genres.
- Roli Books has also organized live conversations with well-known authors.
- For children, the #ThodaReadingCorona project driven by Bijal Vachharajani encourages children to listen to stories. You can catch authors reading their stories on the facebook group Reading Raccoons.
Many publishers are sharing great reads.
- Juggernaut – This publishing house is offering books on their mobile app platform for free. You can spend your lockdown leisure diving into historical fiction like Rebel Sultans by Manu S. Pillai and romantic comedy like Combat Skirts by Sahana Ahmed at the tap of a finger. Read quick!
- Audible – The audiobook store is also sharing plenty of free book content And if self-isolation isn’t perfect time to listen to classics and children’s fiction, what is?
- Digital subscription to Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle – If you are a fan of Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle or you want your children to read what you loved as a child growing up in India, this is the option for you. Subscription lasts for a month from signing up and you can read the comics on your mobile!

Virtual Wisdom and Documentaries

Many libraries and presses are providing free content access during these trying times.

JSTOR –This digital library features the best of peer-reviewed scholarly journals and research reports, and has announced that all their open access content is now available without having to login. Catch up on your academic reading while in lockdown.
Oxford University Press – The biggest university press is providing free access to its educational resources to students and teachers, to aid efforts at creating a home learning environment for kids while schools are closed.
Scholastic – One of the world’s largest publishers and distributors of children’s books has also launched a website towards this end.
The Internet Archive- This library has even courted controversy by suspending waitlists for 1.4 million+ titles to create a National Emergency Library for the benefit of displaced readers and of those in quarantine.
Library of Congress: The largest library in the world has select works on offer.
Project Muse– Publishers who wish to make their works available at this time are able to do so here.
The KKV Repository – You can also browse through Supreme Court lawyer K. K. Venugopal’s personal library archive.

The Google Arts and Culture site is mind boggling. There are scores of museums, artworks and street scenes that are on view. If you feel too cooped up in the house, hop into the Uffizi Gallery and browse through Renaissance paintings or visit the Museum of Modern Art and examine the passionate brushstrokes of Van Gogh’s The Starry Night.

Miscellaneous

Chat apps are a great way of being with friends or colleagues even in this time of isolation.

Bunch: A group video chat app for live mobile games.
House Party– A video chat app that enables you talk to up to eight friends in real time.
Zoom– An app that is now being used all over the world to conduct office meetings for those working from home, as well classes and workshops on various subjects.
Netflix Party – This simple Chrome extension allows you to watch Netflix episodes and movies at the same time as your friends, and the chat function lets you comment and react to what you’re watching in real time. Who said isolation had to be so… isolated?

The Metropolitan Opera is running its Live in HD series of free streamed performances every night this week. You can check this week’s schedule here.

For those of you who are tired of seeing only your pets, you may want to explore some nature documentaries of peaceful places here in India. Check out these youtube channels for more:

Let us know how you are getting through quarantine. Stay home and stay safe!

Some Indian Magazines/Portals Where you can Submit Fiction and Non-fiction

There are a few places in India where you could consider submitting your fiction and non-fiction pieces. In this post, we explore a few of them; so get submitting!

hilarious kermit the frog GIF

eFiction India

eFiction India focuses on content that is linked to the Indian subcontinent in some way and publishes international writers as well. It is available online and in print.

Terms: Simultaneous submissions are acceptable but each submission should be sent separately through the submission manager.

Rights: One-month exclusivity for your story as well as first publishing rights for unpublished stories.

Payment: None.

Pros: You can submit not just short stories and poetry but also book reviews, interviews, flash fiction and non-fiction. Full-length plays and screenplays, complete with camera/stage directions, are also accepted.

Submission: http://www.efictionindia.in/submit/

Out of Print Magazine

The Out of Print Magazine is exclusively devoted to short stories and is published online every quarter (March, June, September, December).

Terms: Submitted work must not be published elsewhere. Stories should be between 1000 and 4000 words. Check these guidelines before submitting.

Rights: Copyright remains with the author.

Payment: None.

Pros: A good editorial team featuring many prominent names in the publishing industry.

Submission: Cut and paste the story into the body of an email and send to outofprintmagazine@gmail.com. The subject line should contain the word ‘submission’ only.

MITHILA REVIEW

Mithila Review is an international quarterly journal on the lookout for literary speculative fiction and poetry with emphasis on the marginal.

Terms: Use New Roman with Font Size 12. doc. And docx formats are accepted.

Rights: First world electronic rights (text), and non-exclusive audio and anthology rights for the planned annual anthology.

Payment: They pay for fiction in their upcoming anthology. If/when Patreon funds permit, $10 for original poetry, essays, flash stories (under 2.5K words), and reprints; $50 for original stories between 4-8K words or longer.

Pros: A good opportunity for speculative fiction writers.

Submission: As part of a fundraising campaign, MITHILA REVIEW is seeking short stories and comics for ‘India 2049: Utopias and Dystopias’ from around the world. Read the guidelines.

MITHILA REVIEW is also open to poetry, fiction, and film and book reviews. Send one story, essay, film or book review or up to three poems in a single document at a time to submissions[@]mithilareview.com.

Response time is 2-8 weeks.

Open Road Review

Open Road Review publishes short fiction, including translations, creative nonfiction, poetry, interviews and artwork. Stories with an element of horror, science fiction or stories for children are not encouraged.

Terms: Different genres are to be sent to separate emails provided in the guidelines. Any inflammatory content will be rejected.

Rights: Rights revert to the author upon publication. Open Road Review holds the right to include the works published on its website in future anthologies.

Payment: Rs 1000 for selected stories.

Pros: Multiple genres are considered.

Submission: Make sure that you go through the guidelines as depending on the kind of writing you are submitting (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, visual art), you will need to send the attachment and in the body of the email to the respective editor.

Are there any Indian magazines that you would like to recommend here?

Disclaimer: The above-mentioned information should not be treated as recommendations, but only information. The reader should go through the guidelines carefully before submitting.

5 Common Mistakes Authors and Self-publishers Make While Assigning ISBNs to their Books

It’s not enough getting the International Standard Book Number (ISBN). This numeric identifier that contains thirteen digits needs to be properly understood before you add it to your book. In this article, we look at five common misconceptions that people have about these much-coveted ISBNs.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

1. Using the same ISBN across different titles
An ISBN doesn’t represent an author, so you can’t use the same ISBN across all your titles. It is even more specific than a single title.

2. Using the same ISBN across eBook and print book
ISBN not only represents a title but also a specific format and edition of the book. It cannot be shared between eBook and print versions of even the same title.

3. Using the same ISBN in paperback and hard cover
Even using the same ISBN for different formats of print books is incorrect. Paperback and hard cover must have different ISBNs.

4. Using the same ISBN across different editions
An ISBN has to be unique to a specific format of a specific title. It also has to be unique to a specific edition. If a new edition of a book is being brought out, it can’t reuse the previous edition’s ISBN. Reprinting with the same ISBN is fine. This concept, however, runs into some trouble with print on demand since you can keep making small changes in the books all the time.

At what point does a book deserve to be called a new edition? When you make significant changes, calling it a new edition and assigning a new ISBN will be good from a marketing perspective. Another recommendation we have is if your changes are significant enough that they change the physical specifications of the book like the number of pages or page size, then you should treat this as a different edition and assign a new ISBN.

5. Using the same ISBN across different country editions
Even if the content is the same, if you are creating different editions to sell at different prices in different countries, you should use different ISBNs for them. ‘Price change’, as such, does not require changing the ISBN. But having two differently priced editions at different places at the same time is not exactly a price change. It is really two different editions. Keeping the ISBN the same across differently priced editions can also create confusion in the listing of your book on online stores. So, use two different ISBNs in such cases.

Let us know if you have any ISBN related queries that haven’t been answered.

Benefits of Not Reading- Author’s Perspective

Are there are any benefits for a writer who doesn’t read? Turns out there could be:

You get more time to write

Instead of sitting with your nose in a book all day, a writer must write a minimum word count on a daily or weekly basis. Instead she uses all her free time to finish the latest fantasy trilogy or swim in a book of poems. So if you are not obsessed with all the latest books, you get that much more time to write.

You eavesdrop a lot more

A writer is someone who should know what’s happening around him. If he’s in a busy railway station reading a book, he wouldn’t hear the story about the grisly murder that just happened in that town. He wouldn’t scout around and inspect his surroundings. He would be watery-eyed and dreaming of another writer’s plot and characters.

You get your plot lines from TV

Why do you need books to get a good storyline? There’s enough material on TV to create many series. Good excuse to be a couch potatoes.

You wouldn’t waste time reediting your own work

If you read books by the greats, you become a perfectionist. You become too ashamed of your sentences. So you reread them and rewrite them so much that it takes you far too long to write the chapter at all.

You stop focusing on other characters

So you have a fantasy book in your head. You have sketched out your characters and the dialogues run through your mind, only to be interrupted by Harry Potter or the Hobbit. Why would you want to be immersed in another author’s world when you are creating your own?

You market your own book better

Instead of being enamoured by the words of other authors, you find worth in your own words and you frantically facebook and tweet your latest words. You want everyone to read what you have written and you become the n=best promoter of your work.

You just might write a bestseller!

Many writers swear by the books they read but some writers have hit the bestseller lists by not reading books at all. They are pretty sure about how time consuming marketing a book is and wouldn’t even try drinking in other’s words.

You become a mentor writer

It’s easier to be a mentor if there is no burden of greatness of other writers on your shoulders. Ignorance is bliss. You think ‘If I can write a book, anyone can!’ And this becomes one more income stream for the writer who wants to reach out to millions of wannabe writers.

Disclaimer: There is no guarantee that not reading books will make you a bestselling writer. We recommend that you read books with an intent to emulate and when you write, just focus on writing the book.

Where can you get Free Images from?

We talked about a major issue with self-publishers in India being using images from the internet. Most images are copyrighted and are not for indiscriminate use. But there are many sites which provide free images.

NoCopyright

Here are five websites which provide free images you can use In your books:

Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/

Unsplash has some cool high-resolution images, 10 new photos every 10 days. All images can be used whichever way you want.

2.Pixabay: https://pixabay.com/

Pixabay has 620,000 images and also links to some sponsored images, which are not free. For free images, stick to the non-sponsored ones. All images can be used whichever way you want.

3. Realistic Shots: http://realisticshots.com/

All photos published on Realistic Shots are licensed under Creative Commons Zero which means you can copy, modify, distribute and use the photos, even for commercial purposes.

4. Life of Pix: http://www.lifeofpix.com/

This site is free and all pictures have no copyright restrictions, with pictures being added on a weekly basis. All images can be used whichever way you want.

5.Flickr: https://www.flickr.com

Flickr is a free service. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo in 2005. You can share, store, search, and sort your photos here. You need to use the license filter to get images that can be used whichever way you want. Follow these steps:

Go to flickr.
Search for a term.
There is a license filter available, select “Commercial use and mods allowed” there.

Advantages of these sites:

The images you get are high resolution images that can be used for print.
The license is not restrictive. So you can use the images in any way you want.
Many good quality images are available.

Disadvantages of these sites:

While there will be ample choice for generic images, if your needs are very specific they are unlikely to be satisfied. For example, most of these sites won’t have many Indian images. They are also unlikely to have images of celebrities or historical figures.
Since the images are free to use for anyone, they aren’t going to be unique to your book, especially when used as is. So you have to be prepared to see those images pop up at all kinds of places.

Let us know if there are any websites that you have come across that provide free images.

Disclaimer: Licenses were checked at the time of writing the post.

Self-editing your Manuscript

Before you shoot your manuscript off to the press, you need to do one thing.

Read the book, your book, a few times. Many writers are hesitant to do this. You might remember an old-fashioned teacher asking you to read your paper once before submitting. You may have never followed this advice, but it makes sense to read your manuscript at least once before sending it to a publisher or literary agent for review and also before you self-publish.

read

Why should you self-edit?

Self-editing could help you make important connections that could improve the story.

You could catch a few unnecessary typos, repetitions and grammatical errors.

Since your story benefits from the extra read, do it!

If you find reading from the computer hard, you can take a print out and read. Otherwise, the computer is a good option as you can track changes and go back to the original if you wish.

What should you be looking for in your book?

Once you’ve written the book, and left it alone for a while, you can go back to it and check for plot problems, inconsistencies, anachronisms, etc.

You can separately look for grammar issues, typos, and punctuation. A simple spell check can save your manuscript from loads of mistakes.

Are you using big words just because they make the manuscript look more sophisticated? If the word makes no sense, remove it even if it is a big word and makes you look smart.

Entrust a couple of beta-readers to fill you in on different aspects of the book to give you a perspective of any areas of the book you might need to rework.

Before sending your book to an editor, you need to make sure that your copy is readable. If you can’t read it, nobody can.

Don’t hesitate to take professional help if your manuscript requires it. A fresh eye can do wonders for your manuscript.

Some links that can help you with self-editing:

http://www.jerryjenkins.com/self-editing/

http://amandashofner.com/5-tips-self-edit-novel-effectively/

http://thewritelife.com/self-editing-basics/

What makes for a bestseller in India?

A bestseller could be defined as a book that sells at least 10,000 copies every year. Any book genre can be a bestseller, but there are some books that sell more than others.

Education Books: Yes, this is number one in the list! According to Nielson’s India Book Report:
The K–12 market (school books) has grown from 63 billion INR ($956 million) in 2007-08 to 186 billion INR ($2.8 billion) in 2013-14. Higher education book sales have grown in this period from 16 billion INR ($242 million) to 56 billion INR($849 million).

So if you want to write a bestseller, why don’t you write a book about how to ace an exam? Take one of the books at Pothi.com. Cracking the Coding Interview by Gayle Laakmann Mcdowell is a fast selling book . “This book is proof of how the Indian book market caters to a textbook bestseller phenomenon,” Jaya Jha, founder of Pothi.com says.

Romance fiction: If fiction has any say at all in the bestselling space it is primarily in the romance genre. Though forums like Quora lead you to believe otherwise, books by Chetan Bhagat are quite popular. Other romance authors who have aced cupid’s formula are Durjoy Datta, Nikita Singh and Ravinder Singh.

Mythological fiction: It’s impossible to ignore myth in India. You may be an urban yuppie, but everywhere there is the memory of myth- stories you have heard, stories you see sprouting up as architecture, television dramas based on epic heroes. Writers like Devdutt Pattanaik and Amish Tripathi have spun stories out of existing stories and now have a huge fan following.

Once you write the book for the appropriate target audience, a lot of marketing goes into making the book a bestseller. You have to remember that if you are writing for a traditional publisher, you earn 5-10% royalty; with self-publishing you bake the cake and eat it too.

When it comes to both kinds of publishing, authors are expected to pitch in when it comes to marketing effort. The author’s platform is often a criterion.

Says Jaya Jha,“The real difference between traditional and self-publishing isn’t so much that author gets to rest after writing in traditional publishing but that the ultimate responsibility as well as control lies with the author in self-publishing.”

It takes a great deal of effort to sell your book. You can earn a lot more money self-publishing but for this you need to do your homework right by spending a lot more of your time in marketing it by participating actively in the launch, perfecting your social media pitch and actively promoting yourself. Once the sales starts picking up by word of mouth, you can sit back, relax and see the book turn into a bestseller.

Check out these links for more ideas about writing a bestseller in India:

Can Indian Authors afford to pursue writing as a full time career?
Hot Genres in India
How to sell 150000 copies of your books in India
The secret to writing a bestseller in India
How to write a bestseller in India