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September 12, 2023 16 mins
Arjun Chaudhuri is the Founder & CEO of the organisation Ukiyoto Publishing. He is an emerging entrepreneur of the year AACC '21 and has a innovative start-up of the year.
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(00:02):
We want to welcome to the writer'sclass. I'm going with writer's class today
because I feel like what you're talkingabout books just as like writer's class.
There's no way I can be likeand this and that, because I mean,
when you're speaking with the publishers,it's and books, so I'll be
talking about books and books. Ohwow, I think that's the end of
my comedian value today. I apologize. I think it's the new wavy hair.

(00:27):
Every time I look at it,I'd be like, that's funny enough
if you can't tell my hairdresser messup. But that's okay. I'm living
with it and making the best movingon. I wrote a books. There's
normally a jade on this side,so it's normally what you wrote books.
But it's just I wrote books today, which means I am occasionally intelligent enough

(00:50):
for seventeen books. So you canget books are and I thought Divorces bad,
and I thought being grown up witheasy, if only our mem and
were in verse foreign coffee, Widows, web and widows that those six books
are audio books, so you canfind them wherever audio books are. You
know, it's just still six.I thought there was a seventh out there
somewhere, but now it's just six. There's a seventh coming and then you

(01:11):
can see the other eleven books anda few tiny mistakes that we have made
that I still need to take down. Oh and also listen to the new
author reality show that out at wwwdot and I thought ladies dot com.
I'm done talking about me, whichfeels weird because I'm a narcissist. Yeah,
just checking. I'm done talking aboutme. So you're not here to

(01:33):
hear about me. You're here tohear about our wonderful guests. Wonderful guests.
Would you like to introduce yourself beforethose guests introduces themselves. It's one
in the morning where they are Helloguests, Hi, hi em So thanks
a lot with Donna for the introductionand also speaking about yourself and all your
books and all the wonderful book thatyou've been doing. So I'm a June.

(01:57):
I run a company called europ Publishing, So we are about traditional publishing
of books, audiobooks, paperbacks,hardbacks, he books and all aclause.
We started around in nineteen and we'reregistered right now in US and India,
so we've got around five thousand authorsand writers with US produced around three lacks

(02:17):
printed copies of books, and youjust started off with audio books, which
is a new edition, and comicsas well, so comics, illustrations,
creating illustrations, and and another newedition is the translation part. So we've
been translating a lot of books intoEuropean languages and Asian languages and then producing

(02:38):
them far and right, and wehope to do a good job, and
our feedback has come up nice andgood from the authors, translators or the
last rators weever, and we hopefor the west ahead. I'm sorry,
when did you extort it? Whendid we started? We started in two

(03:01):
nineteen, so the first year wehad only five or six books. Second
year we had around I think sometwenty twenty five. Thirty year was the
one where the COVID started going out. That was in two twenty two.
Then we had a an three hundredbooks, and then the next year it
just yeah, okay, wait,wait, maybe maybe one second question formulating

(03:30):
buffering, buffering, Okay, questiondone, I'm just going to start a
lot of books. Okay. Firstof all, I want to say,
let me preface this by my astonishment. We just did it a reality show.
As I said, and we havefour publishers come on in the CEOs
of publishing companies and they've been aroundfor a while and the most books that
they have ever produced was like twohundred and one year. How do you

(03:53):
handle that volume? Where do youfind that many authors? Do you even?
Because I feel like now I'm noteven disturbing you. You were up
doing work, weren't you. Yeah, So we sleep around three to four
hours in a day. We havean excellent team. We have a great
team who is ever cooperative and ofcourse I should be handing them and so

(04:17):
a lot depends on the team membersas well. And we've been reading.
We've been producing good quality and onceyou produce a good quality, the word
of mouth spreads and then you haveanother author and one author getting another book.
So that's how it keeps on increasingand multiplying. And what matters is,
fortunately we are doing a pretty goodjob. That's how the market goes

(04:40):
in and that's how the books areincreasing, the authors are increasing and the
name. But managing is stuff.Yeah, managing is stuff. It's a
very hectic job. You need tobecause behind one book, you need to
work a lot read, you needto scan, you need to format,
typeset, design, color, andthat is one part of production. After

(05:00):
that, the post production comes whereyou need to upload on the channels market
that promote that. So it's anentire face and you have to do that
parallely for all the books with equalimportance, and then figure out which is
the best or which is working outthere with geography, and then move on.
I love that you said with equalimportance. I know here are a

(05:21):
lot of times publishers so like thisis my a like a one list,
and those are who are hitting allthe time with the booksellers, with the
publicity, with the marketing, andthere's PC and D list and you're like
everyone, that's amazing. We startwith a base that everybody is fine,
everybody is equal, and then youknow that ABCD comes in after three or

(05:43):
four months, then you can figureout, Okay, this one is good,
this one is faine, this oneis not so good. I mean
that has to happen. You can'tput in money everywhere. It's a business.
You can't put in money on allthe books and everything is not going
to sell. So that's all thatmakes sense. So oh, question is
I did talk to someone before aboutthat that was a publisher in India.

(06:05):
I'm assuming India. I've read India. Just want to make sure. Okay,
I's talked to somebody before that wasa public in India and they mentioned
that they do English books instead ofHindi books. Do you do Hindi an
English as well? Go down toHindy. No, So ninety five percent

(06:25):
is English. Hindi is hardly oneor two books. We have I think
five books we have an India.That's it. It's it's very difficult for
us to figure out the I meanhonestly, it's very difficult for us and
our team members to figure out theIndian languages and also make them even though
we are Indians. But it's verydifficult for me personally to write in the
Indian language. Isn't also understand andalso about this, So we have ninety

(06:47):
five percent in English books, twoor three person European books and hardly yeah,
yeah, one second. I've stillfind it very interesting that ninety five
percent books are in English. I'mgoing to ask the same question that I
asked the Niche, which was why, Yeah, so I know you it's

(07:13):
comparatively much easier to I mean curatedthe English books is one everybody knows.
See, India has a lot ofland because there are so many stages,
there are so many languages. Hidthese a maximum spoken one. But I'm
from a place in the eastern side, which is Begali, my native tongue,
and we have a lot of speakersin Megali. Hid the table and
all the books, but you needto have someone who understands these languages as

(07:35):
well curate them, design them,and modify them. And unfortunately in our
team, that's the biggest point thatwe have. And everybody knows English.
It's easy to do and then justcirculate and populate, and that's why that's
why English is a maximum volume thatwe have. I remember when I was
also, it's much faster, it'smuch faster personally for me, I can

(07:58):
heat it fast faster than the Indianones. And then yeah, that makes
sense. That's I remember. I'mgoing to tell a story because I'm a
narcissist. So I remember I wasplanning a trip to India to sign language
for free, because I do signlanguage. And I was like, oh,

(08:18):
i'll, you know, try toget some Hindi done and just enough
to order food. And they werelike, so what about all the other
dialects and languages, and I saidwhat and then someone just started listening to
them and I were wow, onecountry, you may languages, so many

(08:39):
languages. Oh my god. Soyou said that you're like and then all
the languages. I was like,yeah, and don't forget dialects and oh
my god, wow, even thedialects are different in the city to speak
differently. If you go to thedistricts, it's a different language. If
you go further, it's a differentdifferent language. It is very, very

(09:03):
interesting. I have to say.I had some fun writing so like writing
Hindi was was fun. It wasdifferent, it was It's fun though,
Okay, no one cares about myHindi, my Hindee little journey. That
makes me sound very like I'm tryingto do something weird with this. Yeah,
what's a little bit like me too. Soon I learned how to say

(09:26):
that man is fine, because youknow, these things are important ones.
And I learned how to order myalcohol. That was the first thing I
asked, because everyone was like,oh, you'll have to learn to order
that later, and I was like, I will get a one on one
tutor. And I paid for aone on one tutor to learn to order
my whiskey bourbon wine. It's veryimportant to me. Okay, moving on,

(09:54):
So how everyone's gonna want to knowthis one question and then I will
Then I'm gonna be done and letyou go to bed because it's one in
the morning, one seventeen at thispoint. Yeah. So the one question
everyone wants to know is how doyou find your authors? Like, what
do you look for in a manuscript? Do they have to be agented?

(10:16):
Because I mean, that's a minute. So we have a Yeah, so
since we are having so many books, we have a great already in place.
So one of the grade is whatlet's say we have an Indian author,
we have an author from from USor Asia. So we need to
figure out geography bus which genre isworking out there? Let's say in India,
fiction works on in fiction? Whatromance is working out or LGBT or

(10:39):
what is it? So we havea great line, automated great line.
This is the genre, this isthe topic, this is the framework.
Now let's say one framework passes throughIndian author getting into romance in India.
Okay, second checklist, what isthe quality of the content, So we
check the quality of the content,sentence, construction, theme, story parameters,

(11:00):
everything as a quality check. Secondparameter. Third parameter is how much
what is the profile of the author? That is very important if you are
an influencer or if you are youknow, you are vibe brant on social
media or something and all, honestlyspeaking, the author has to go along
with the publish shoes, so youcan't be an introvert. And you also
have to a good network, bothof us. So that's the third point.

(11:22):
Fourth point is definitely where can wepitch this book. Is it an
institutional book or a children or whichwhich is our market that we can do
for Marden and what is the potentialthat we can watch And once we assess
these values and then we go forwardwith the manuscript and the process goes on.
So since we have a brilliant place, it's a bit faster for us

(11:46):
and it has fortunately worked out tillnow. But this keeps on changing.
It's not that this year and nextyear is going to be seen. Maybe
next to something different will come upin India. Something different can be there
in years, or something different canbe an Asia. It's different. Just
keep continting. How do you howdo you keep up with two countries like

(12:07):
trends and India. So like thatmeans you every year you have to know
what's coming in, what's coming outas a trend. And I heard from
an age before that fiction is notthe trend in India. Is this still
true? Yes, yes, it'slike right now. What is the trend
is nonfiction. Motivational inspirational stories areworking out more. They are more long

(12:31):
lasting. Fiction will go on forone or two months and then it dies
out. But something like motivation,inspirational, how to make financial implement or
something like that that goes for along time. And keeping in DAFT,
we have two major markets. Oneis India, one is Philippines. Actually
it was not US, I mentionedusers just like that, it's India and

(12:52):
it's Philippines. These are the twomajor markets. So we cater West as
a combined of US and Europe ortwo. So that becomes see broad categories
overall, I am learning so muchabout the publishing side of the world that
is not Wow, okay, you'revery I just have to say you.

(13:13):
I can see the advocacy, theefficiency in your systems in order to push
out that many books. You havereally streamlined the process that has been amazing.
You tell us what publishing how you'rewith one more time. So I'm
the u Kyoto Publishing and I'm listeningyet the companies that we get and I

(13:37):
forgot to ask you, So I'masking now, how did you get started
and writing for you your journey?So I was writing my own book long
time back into those fourteen and fifteenThen I figured out there are problems that
are issues that are book distribution,you know, pricing problems, geographical values,
many values, and there are manystories lying in the world which can

(13:58):
be taken up and projected forward outward. And personally I had a lot of
contacts outside in different places of theworld. So I figured out a publishing
methodology where if it works out wellwith your imaginations and stories, if it
can be if it can be modifiedand defined properly and channelized, and it
may be a good proposition for thebusiness. And also publishing gradually. Is

(14:22):
was on a declining side because thebook reading habits were coming down because of
the digital eta coming in. Soif you have to combine a digital data
along with the paperbacks and hardbacks,then you have to do something different with
the low cost better quality, andthat's how it came out. That's how
the idea came out. How itwent out is all I can say.

(14:45):
Hard work, good team spirits andall those things. Thank you so much
for being here. Can you tellus of the books that you feel like
that our listeners should definitely check outright now or coming up? I think
what you can check out his farright now. You've got so many books,
it's not coming to my mind.You can check out a website to

(15:05):
Kyoto dot com, so all thenewcomers new there's a vessel and list out
there which is on the website.You can check it out and all of
them good. Yeah, I agree. Yes, there are so many languages
and so many, so many bookscoming out. I can just specifically pinpoint,
but just go to the website onthe home badge and you will just
find them. Thank you so muchfor taking the time out to be here.

(15:28):
And I want to apologize you againjust from listeners. I had paused
the recording because I was burning mydinner because I did not as you can
tell, this is my home studio, not my actual studio today, so
I was burning my dinner and Ihad the run. So I apologize but
you guys might find that funny.Check them out at Uki Yoto Publishing dot

(15:54):
com. Please buy a book.Better yet, buy a book and an
audiobook. Well, come on,twice the rep twice the revenue, make
twice as many books. Although thisis the first time I've ever thought about
this, maybe not so many books. We don't need you with seven hundred
next year. I'm joking, weneed seven hundred books in the world.
So you guys, buy a book, buy an audio book. You can
check out everything that your ladies areup to at www dot and I thought

(16:18):
ladies dot com. And if bysome chance you just have some spare change
lying around and you guys want tohop a trip to frank for Germany,
you can check us both out thereand buy a book for me. Y'all,
That wisdom is all around you ifyou're open to finding it and accepting
it. So Piacea, Love youguys from Willinona and the Missing Jade.

(16:40):
Oh yeah, thanks for listening.
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