On-Demand Publishing market is still in it’s infancy and guess, the right model still needs to be worked out. We have covered On-Demand companies like Pothi and CinnamonTeal, and the latest to join the gang is If I Were a Book.

If I Were A Book’s publishing platform lets one publish a book/blog and the company has tied up with publishing houses like HarperCollins India, Random House India, Hachette Book Publishing, Hay House (present in US/UK/Canada) etc for printing.

If I Were A Book has a strong community factor – one can upload their books/blog, which is then rated by visitors of the site. Publishers can simply filter the books based on readers’ popular opinion and can then contact the author through the website for print publishing.

I am not really sure how much of value does a ‘middle-man’ service like this provides – essentially, on-demand publishing should short circuit the big publisher route and not be the funnel for access (I mean, how many authors would really hear back from HarperCollins of the world? )

As far as the If I Were A Book’s site is concerned, it has a strong sense of focus, i.e. community factors (like rating/most commented etc) and a good range of categories (mostly empty now) to engage the visitors.

Maybe, they might want to relook at their adsense placements – after a while, it starts looking as MFA, i.e. made-for-adsense site and not really a platform.

What’s your opinion on If I were a book?

Do you think on-demand publishing needs to be very transactional in nature? (i.e. come over, upload the book/doc, print and pay?) or is there a need for community play here? (most rated book etc?)

Tags: Indian Startups