NulisBuku.com, About a Year Running and Its Future Plan [Interview]
NulisBuku is a self publishing service. By this service, anyone can publish their book. Writers can use NulisBuku service to make their book published and then sell it on NulisBuku site or other places. By the Print on Demand system, writers can order books as they want. You can find the complete information about it here.
DailySocial has contacted Brilliant Yotenega (Ega) from NulisBuku to know NulisBuku.com’s development in a year. He will also explain us what are NulisBuku plans in the future. Here is the short interview about NulisBuku.com:
Would you let us know about the statistic of NulisBuku in this running year? Members, the uploaded books, sold books, and so on?
Here is the statistics:
· There are 11.000 member registered on the site. · More than 750 titles have been uploaded. · More than 15.000 books have been sold.
How about the community development of NulisBuku? I see that almost every big city in Indonesia has NulisBuku Club. Can you share us about it, especially for this running year?
Yes, it’s true. NulisBuku Club (our community name) has been existed in some big cities. According to our data, there are in Jakarta, Surabaya, Jogja, Bandung, Palembang, Balikpapan, Madura, Malang, Medan, Makassar. Soon will be in Bekasi, Bogor, Solo, Semarang, and some other cities (which is now still embrio).
According to my observation, there are some campaign (on Twitter) held not only by NulisBuku itself but also collaborates with other party, for example XL (telco). Would you share us about it? Is it one of NulisBuku strategy to start cooperating with brand owner?
Exactly! We have already collaborated with some brands, such as: Acer, Kimia Farma Drug Store, Es Teler 77, Times Bookstore, and the last is with XL. Our cooperation with brand is usually in the form of writing competition. The theme of the writing competition is usually in accordance with the message of the brand.
How is the development of NulisBuku? In my opinion, the idea of making easy for everyone to publish (publish your dream) has been planted in users’ mind and some of them have been “contaminated” (in positive connotation) with this vision. How does it influence the business? Will you still targeting to add the number of book collections and users for next year?
For this first year, the development makes us optimistic about this business growth. The market is still big. Since, our service is new in Indonesia, it is our big responsibility to educate people and affirm our positioning. There are many people still assume that NulisBuku is like other publishers. It is a wrong assumption.
In addition, targeting to get more book collection and users will be the focus on our initial years.
I see that NulisBuku promotion is maximized on Social Media (Twitter) and through community in several cities. Do you have any comments about it?
Well, in fact, yes. We use social media, especially Twitter and Facebook to promote our service since those media are quite effective to give right information to our target market. With those social media, we get important feedback for us. Especially, it makes us understand what our market wants. Frankly, as a pioneer, it is not easy to give a right standard for our target market, in this case is the writers.
Surely, through social media NulisBuku is known quickly by big media so that they give us chance to promote our service through interview/coverage about our service on their media. Therefore, soon we get trust from people. It surely cut the promotion cost in significant amount. Of course!
While we also grateful to have NulisBuku Club because they are volunteering to make a community for writers. For us, it is a big potency we have, especially with NBC (Nulis Buku Club) existence, it helps us to explain closer about our service and help us to keep the spirit of writing among the members
Would you like to share us the future strategy of NulisBuku?
We will enter the digital or ebook market to publish NulisBuku books on tablet, add the kinds of book can be printed in NulisBuku.com website, and expand our market through Nulis Buku Club which has already spread out in many cities. We will also make offline awareness in some cities especially at certain schools and campuses.
If you follow NulisBuku Twitter account, you will see that they also actively promoted their first anniversary event on 11 November (the place is not yet published) with #11projectsdays. This event will be a gathering moment for Nulis Buku Club, book launching, and so on.
I personally see that the writing campaign in social media done by NulisBuku is quite interesting. As I remember, there are some books also produced by this method. If we see from NulisBuku Twitter timeline, writing enthusiasts actively reply and contribute on its campaign program.
As the comment from my friend, Toni, on other article, one interesting thing to be waited from NulisBuku is their plan to enter e-book market and tablet. Besides, adding the channel which enabling reader to enjoy the book not only in printed version but also in digital version, it is also in accordance with tablet device market. Possibly, it might be available in two versions of books. There might be e-book, and the other is printed books, that had other value such as artwork, poster, post card, pin, and so on. While the digital version makes the access easier - distribution and promotion, the printed one made for collectible items.
Let’s wait and see the surprise and strategy prepared by NulisBuku.com.
ps: The original interviews were in Indonesian, you can find it here.