Creating awareness about the importance and impact of self-publishing for Tamil-language authors, Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) has been the game-changer for the growth of Tamil language author community in online publishing in recent times.
Vaishali Aggarwal, Lead, Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, India said, "Our vision is to have every book, ever written, in every language, available to our readers in less than 60 seconds. With Amazon KDP, authors sitting in Chennai are able to get their books to readers sitting in New York within a few minutes without having to bear the cost of publishing and transporting them. We will continue to work towards creating awareness and adoption of Amazon KDP across the author community, especially in regional languages".
Amazon is transforming the author community in India by making publishing accessible to all via its free self-publishing service, Amazon KDP. The support for publishing in Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam, Marathi and Gujarati languages was launched last year. Tamil is one of the top Indian languages that has garnered traction on Kindle and has paved way for Tamil language authors from different walks of life to contribute and promote their work through Amazon KDP.
"KDP is a platform where the authors can showcase sensitive topics as well. The authors are in full control of their books, they can even change the text at a later stage. To name one incident, a doctor wanted to write about her research of cancer as a book but was struggling to publish it. She then published the book with the help of KDP and thanked me saying that it would be useful at least for a few people," Vaishali explains.
The availability of self-publishing options like Amazon KDP has resulted in a more robust and diverse set of voices telling their stories and also making them available to the readers like ever before.
“Kindle Direct Publishing has created a new wave in the world of Tamil writing. Even a first timer can become a successful author and make a living out of it. Amazon KDP also offers authors the ease of publishing and promoting their work as per my own experience of publishing on it”, said Cable Sankar, a noted writer, director and critic.
KDP is a fast, free and easy service for authors to self-publish their books in digital format to a global audience. Publishing on it takes less than 5 minutes and the book appears on Kindle stores across the world within 48 hours. Authors receive up to 70% royalties on the sale of their eBooks while keeping full control of rights and pricing.
C Saravanakarthikeyan, a self-published author, said, “Amazon KDP is an easy and transparent, investment-less and piracy-free way to reach millions of readers. These days, readers, including Tamil book lovers are moving towards digital medium. With Amazon KDP, a Tamil writer can reach an avid Tamil reader located in any part of the world instantly without any extra efforts or cost”.
Kindle Direct Publishing has been the tool for aspiring writers who never thought that their books would be published. This initiative by Amazon has been lauded by most of the writers that is also paving way for the upcoming generation. “Self-published books like The Martian and Fifty Shades of Grey were transformed into movies which turned blockbusters and the authors came to the limelight. Likewise, platforms such as KDP will definitely help the authors achieve great heights,” concludes Vaishali.
