Join the celebration as The Bookshop Podcast hits a fantastic milestone, receiving the accolade of the number one bookish podcast by Feedspot.com! In a heartfelt expression of gratitude, I want to extend a massive thank you to everyone who tunes in and to our dedicated team. This episode is a special one, as I'm joined by Leonard Fernandes, a trailblazer in India's literary scene, the co-founder of The Dogears Bookshop and CinnamonTeal Publishing in picturesque Goa. Discover Leonard's riveting pivot from an engineering career to establishing the first self-publishing platform in India, and how he's transformed a cozy bookshop in Southern Goa into a thriving cultural haven.
Our conversation is a treasure trove of insights, from the meticulous art of translating literature to celebrating Goa's mesmerizing blend of Portuguese and Indian cultures. Leonard and I traverse the unique events The Dogears Bookshop hosts, which serve both as a window into Goa's soul and as a beacon for community engagement. Recommendations for experiencing Goa's rich heritage, from its architectural marvels to its stunning coastline, are sure to spark wanderlust. Moreover, we revel in Leonard's prestigious recognition by the British Council, emphasizing him as the Young Creative Entrepreneur Award for Publishing. Leonard and co-founder, Queenie Rodrigues, strive to enrich the literary landscape and connect the threads of community.
The Dogears Bookshop
Feedspot 20 Best Bibliophile Podcasts 2023
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, Satoshi Yagisawa (author), Eric Ozawa (translator)
Join the celebration as The Bookshop Podcast hits a fantastic milestone, receiving the accolade of the number one bookish podcast by Feedspot.com! In a heartfelt expression of gratitude, I want to extend a massive thank you to everyone who tunes in and to our dedicated team. This episode is a special one, as I'm joined by Leonard Fernandes, a trailblazer in India's literary scene, the co-founder of The Dogears Bookshop and CinnamonTeal Publishing in picturesque Goa. Discover Leonard's riveting pivot from an engineering career to establishing the first self-publishing platform in India, and how he's transformed a cozy bookshop in Southern Goa into a thriving cultural haven.
Our conversation is a treasure trove of insights, from the meticulous art of translating literature to celebrating Goa's mesmerizing blend of Portuguese and Indian cultures. Leonard and I traverse the unique events The Dogears Bookshop hosts, which serve both as a window into Goa's soul and as a beacon for community engagement. Recommendations for experiencing Goa's rich heritage, from its architectural marvels to its stunning coastline, are sure to spark wanderlust. Moreover, we revel in Leonard's prestigious recognition by the British Council, emphasizing him as the Young Creative Entrepreneur Award for Publishing. Leonard and co-founder, Queenie Rodrigues, strive to enrich the literary landscape and connect the threads of community.
The Dogears Bookshop
Feedspot 20 Best Bibliophile Podcasts 2023
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, Satoshi Yagisawa (author), Eric Ozawa (translator)
Hi, my name is Mandy Jackson Beverly. Welcome to the Bookshop podcast. Each week, I present interviews with independent bookshop owners from around the globe, authors, publishing professionals and specialists in subjects dear to my heart the environment and social justice. To help the show reach more people, please share it with friends and family and on social media, and remember to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to this podcast. You're listening to episode 232. Last week, I received notification from Feedspotcom that the Bookshop podcast was voted number one bookish podcast from thousands of podcasts worldwide. In this category, ranking is based on expertise and credibility, content quality and relevance, longevity and consistency and audience engagement. October 2023, march 4th for the Bookshop podcast and I'm super grateful to you for listening. You inspire me to keep going. Every week, we continue to support indie bookshops, booksellers, publishing professionals, experts in social justice and the environment and authors globally. Our listeners tune in from six continents in 98 countries and territories and 2,780 cities around the world. Thanks to the TBP team who continue to help me put this show together Brian, adrian and Francis. Now do me a favor and hit the subscribe button wherever you listen to podcasts and let's get on with this week's interview.
Speaker 1:Located in Goa, india. The Doggis Bookshop is a small town bookstore with a big vision. They stock children's books in English from around the globe, fiction and non-fiction titles from independent and mainstream publishers, as well as books on Goa. They also offer pre-loved second hand books sourced from tourists, making their selection unique. The Doggis Bookshop embodies diverse cultures and experiences and serves as a community hub that fosters a love of the arts. To make books more accessible, they organize book fairs at local schools, colleges and marketplaces and host film festivals, author discussions, seminars, panel discussions, poetry slam events, theater and other workshops for children. These initiatives bring people together, foster a sense of community and highlight the power of books to connect, inspire and inform. Hi Leonard, and welcome to the show. It's lovely to have you here.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you for having me on your show.
Speaker 1:It's my pleasure. Let's begin with learning about you and what drew you to open an independent bookshop and online business with your co-founder, Queenie Rodriguez.
Speaker 2:So I was born in the same place. It's the state of Goa in India. So I was born here, I did my schooling here, I did my engineering here and then I took up a job with a software company that sent me first to Cleveland and then to Columbus, ohio, and I spent about six years in the States. I did my MBA at Ohio State University and after that I decided so. During my MBA I realized the market for used books in the United States and I thought that if I go back to India I should start something similar that will allow used books to be bought and sold over the internet. So in 2005, I came back Queenie was in the UK, sorry. She came back and we started something called Dog Years etc. Which was an online bookshop for peer to peer selling of used books, and the Dog Years was a nod to used books.
Speaker 2:But that didn't go very well because I think we are not we Indians are not very okay with the idea of selling our books or giving away our books At least that's what we thought. But we got a lot of requests for publishing. So in 2006, we started our self publishing company called Cinnamon Deal. At that time it was India's first self publishing company. We moved to a new office in 2012. And in 2016, a storefront in the same building as our office got weakened. So the landlord said can you help me find a tenant for that place? And something came over us and we said we'll take it up and we opened a bookshop. So there was nothing premeditated about starting a bookshop, we just found this place. We thought it was nice. It's a very small place, it's 210 square meters square feet so but then we also put a mezzanine, so it's about 40, 400 square feet now.
Speaker 1:So the businesses that fall under the dog is Bookshop are the Bookshop, the online Bookshop and your self-publishing business. Could you explain for our listeners a little bit about how that works?
Speaker 2:What it means is that if, unlike traditional publishing where you know, the author goes to the publisher and says, can you publish my book? And then the publisher takes a call on many things whether it fits in its list, whether there is a market for it, whether it thinks that it's the right book to publish at that point of time, in self-publishing the author takes all these calls and puts his puts their own money into the publishing of that book. So what we are providing is basically services to help you get that book out. So editing, design, design of cover, design of pages, printing and marketing some marketing. So the book is from manuscript to completed book. We help them put it out in the market.
Speaker 1:And could you talk a little about distribution.
Speaker 2:So there is still reluctance by Bookshops to carry self-published books. That is because that is because, quite obviously so there are issues with self-published books. Many of the other self-publishing providers tell you you know, you don't need to edit your book, that's okay, and things like that. So the book that goes out is not really value for money, and so booksellers the retail booksellers are a bit hesitant to stock self-published books. So what we do is we put them online, we put them on our own website, we put them on several other online websites and we make the book available. That way, if the author can speak to a retailer and get their book stocked in that bookshop, we provide those copies also. And internationally we make the book available through Ingram. So Ingram arranges for the books to be here almost everywhere, across all continents.
Speaker 1:Yes, leonard, I agree with you. As an example I'll use myself. When I first published my books, I self-published and the first one definitely needed more editing. By the second one I was a little happier, but by the third and fourth I'd found an excellent editing team. I had a developmental editor, line editor and a proofreader, and this brought the books up to the standard which I was really happy with. And yes, editing is expensive. Then you have the formatting of the text, you have the book cover and you have the marketing, which is expensive.
Speaker 2:That's true. We asked the author to be hands-on with the marketing because many authors think I've written, that's my job, I'm done. Now it's up to the publisher, or the market needs to, but the market will not know of your book unless you push it out there, unless you talk about it. So we asked the author to be hands-on with that because we think that the author is the best person to explain the book to the audience and so, yeah, so we do a little bit of marketing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as someone who speaks weekly with independent bookshop owners, whenever I bring up the topic of self-published books, there are two things that come up, the first being it has to be good quality. It must be of traditionally published book standard, and that includes the editing. It includes the as we've said before, the formatting book cover, but also your copyright page, which must follow the guidelines of a standard copyright page. The other issue is ask yourself, as a self-published author, where do you buy your books? Do you buy them from Amazon or do you buy them from your local independent bookshop? Because if you aren't buying from your local independent bookshop, then why would you expect them to carry your book in their bookshop?
Speaker 1:It's important that you build up a relationship with booksellers prior to asking them to put your book on their bookshelves. For various reasons, many bookshops can't they're so small, they have a limited amount of space, or maybe your book is a backlist and they're more likely to put front-list books on their shelves, the books that people are asking for. Maybe they have a local author section, which would be ideal for your book, but you can't do any of this and you can't expect bookshop owners to place your books in the store unless you've built up a relationship with the booksellers and that you make sure that is where you buy your books.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's a good point you make, because, while speaking in general, on their Twitter handles or on their Facebook handles, they say the book is available on Amazon, but they want the bookshop to also hold that book because it provides that visibility. It's like people can pick up the book and read it. Those two things don't go well with each other. I mean you need to back up the bookshop as well. You need to tell people it's there at the bookshop. The books won't sell by itself, especially because there's no one else backing it up. So we ask them that, if it's on their websites or it's on their social media handles, to tell people that your book is available in these bookshops, because they are not going to automatically sell themselves otherwise.
Speaker 1:No, they won't, and it's a tough business. There are quite a few self-published authors who have done extremely well and they're making a good living selling their books. I think when I first started, which was in 2016, my book sold about 10,000 copies, which, at the time, I thought was pretty good.
Speaker 2:Very good number yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought it was too. Now let's talk about Doggy's bookshop. What is the primary language of the books you sell?
Speaker 2:It's English. Most of bookshops, I think in the metros and in many states, are English bookshops. So it's so maybe like a 60-40% there will be bookshops that have the language of that state. We have 22 recognized languages in India, so each state has its language, like Europe, you know, each state has its language, but we keep books of the language that is spoken in my state also, but percentage wise that could be 10 or 15%. Primarily we sell books in English.
Speaker 1:And what about books in translation from other countries apart from English-speaking countries?
Speaker 2:Yes, we have a huge translation market. It's quite recent because people are just getting to understand the power of translation and what translation can do, so it's not only European languages or non-Indian languages into English, but it's also other Indian languages into English and we find that a very nice way of understanding other cultures and getting a loop into their history and things like that. That market is slowly growing, but it's growing very well and we are happy to be part of that growth in the sense that we can bring these titles onto our shelves.
Speaker 1:I love what you said about the power of reading translated books. I recently read that gorgeous little book Days in the Morasaki Bookshop and, oh my goodness, it's still lingering with me. The way it was written, the simplicity of the story, the unusual cadence of the writing it's a charming story.
Speaker 2:Yes, and also, like you said, you know the cadence and also the way the imagery happens in that language. Sometimes it's difficult to bring it into English, but there are translators who try that and get it right most of the time. So it's interesting to see how language is used in different cultures to create an image and to communicate things. Yes, I agree.
Speaker 1:Now you offer quite a lot of cultural experiences at the bookshop. Can you tell us about these events?
Speaker 2:We are in a state that's kind of divided by a river and we found that, not by design but just by happenstance, a lot of stuff was getting done in the north. You know, there were a lot of events happening in the north and a lot of these book releases and book discussions, and we thought that even though ours is a small bookshop, we'll make the space to have events in that small space. So we started, we did many things. We did workshops for children, we did pottery workshops. We did before COVID. We used to have a film festival in April because we have a Portuguese history, meaning we were a Portuguese colony. This part of India was a Portuguese colony, so we have many people speak Portuguese in their homes, so it's not a foreign, it's not a totally alien language in that sense. So in April we used to have a Portuguese film festival in the bookshop.
Speaker 2:And of course we have author meetings, we have author signings, the usual stuff, film screenings. So we try to do a lot of stuff to the extent that we can, trying to get children to read, trying to get children to come together, so all those kind of things.
Speaker 1:And I encourage our listeners to do a little research about the Portuguese in India. I found it fascinating, as well as with the original settlements, somewhat sad, and one of the things that stood out to me was the influence of Portuguese architecture in India. Do you have this influence in Goa?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and a very typical architecture for the house, so that there is Portuguese influence, there is local influence, and it came together to create a very unique architecture. Much of it is going because there is demand for high rises and things like that, but it's still there in the rural areas, it's still there. Some of it is still there in the urban areas, but, yeah, but it's there. So there's a lot of architecture. There's a lot of music that has. The fado, for example, is part of our culture also.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love fado. But you know what? I didn't even think of that that it would have been influential in India.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is. Yeah, now it is Indian, meaning there will be people who say it's a foreign thing, but now we have assimilated it, we have made it our own, we have given it our own flavor and the cuisine. There's a lot of not Portuguese influence, but the Portuguese roamed around the world and brought things to India that we have made part of our cuisine. So the churches there's a lot of it, meaning you cannot separate, go off from its Portuguese history, and that makes us unique in many ways also.
Speaker 1:I think the beaches around Goa make that area unique too. They are absolutely stunning. Which leads me to my next question. For anyone with a few days in the area, what sites do you suggest they visit? Beaches, historical buildings and parks?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the historical buildings are mostly in the north. There are a couple of forts here in the south that you could visit. The beaches are much better here in the south. I'm sorry I'm talking about the south and the north, but a person who's coming here will notice the difference between the two. There are many churches here that have a history that can be told.
Speaker 1:The city that.
Speaker 2:I live in grew from a nucleus that was close to the bookshop and it grew outwards. But there is a lot to do. Besides the beaches also, there are the churches, there are the temples, there are the treks that can be done. Because Goa is a small state and between the seashore and the mountain range is just 67 kilometers, there's a lot of trekking that can be done, many waterfalls to see, so you can be quite busy if you came to Goa and have a lot to look at.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for all that information. Now, getting back to the bookshop in 2010, the British Council awarded you the young creative entrepreneur for publishing award. Was this related to cinnamon teal publishing?
Speaker 2:Yes, it was related to cinnamon teal publishing. They gave these young creative entrepreneur awards in five or six different categories and we got it for publishing.
Speaker 2:Well, congratulations, thank you, because, like I said, it was the first of its kind, the first service in India at that time, and as part of it, we got to visit the London Book Fair the following year, in 2011, and we came back and we said that India needs a conference for publishers. I don't know if you know remember there was this tools of change conference that ORAI used to have in New York and we thought that India needs to have its tools of change conference. So we started a conference that year called Publishing. Next, we had about eight or nine annual conferences. Then we couldn't raise the funds, especially as COVID came and things like that, and we instituted awards for publishing, for the publishing industry. So we give awards in about 10 categories every year. So that came out of that award.
Speaker 1:I think perhaps the best part of having a business is being in a position where you're able to give back, and this is what I found with independent bookshops. They give back to their communities.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the idea was that everybody should be on the same page, because we found that many publishers, for instance, were not quite comfortable with ebooks and with social media marketing. This is in 2011, when we started, and we thought that a conference like this will kind of even the field for everybody. So that everybody can come and share their best practices with each other.
Speaker 1:And how were you affected by the lockdowns in India?
Speaker 2:COVID. We did quite badly during COVID because we were shut down for three months, first in 2020 and then for a considerable period of time in 21, and that's the time that a few of us banded together and formed the Indian Booksellers Association. So that came out of that because we realized that we needed to stay together and help each other and move forward, because nothing else was moving. Things were not quite going the way we thought they would. We were listening to reports that the government in Germany declared them an essential industry, yet all these countries really going getting behind their bookshops and nothing of that sort was happening in India. So we thought we should band together and we should do something together. So that association came about during those COVID months.
Speaker 1:And did that help at all?
Speaker 2:It helped in the sense that, for example, even now, if a bookshop doesn't have a book, we immediately call on the others and ask do you have this book? So the idea is not to let the customer go away empty handed, so we get them to book somehow. So we are trying these kind of things to make sure that as an industry, as a book, as a book retailing industry, we can grow together.
Speaker 1:So it's similar to the American Booksellers Association. The same kind of thing in the UK, australia and New Zealand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is much higher level the things that they do together. We are nowhere near that, but we are trying to do what we can.
Speaker 1:It's a start, which is great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a start.
Speaker 1:Getting back to Cinement Hill Publishing, is there a sizeable self-published author industry in India?
Speaker 2:Oh, it's huge because there's everybody is mushrooming. There are many mushrooming right now, but I have issues with that because the authors are not educated about what constitutes a book. So, like we said, of course the editing is really bad, but also the quality of the book, the paper on which it's printed, the kind of covers that are the kind of designing type setting. That happens is not what an author should get after spending that kind of money, and no retailer will keep some of those books that they turn up. So it's been a bit of a problem because some of them have supported for everybody is what I think.
Speaker 1:And I like what you were saying earlier about speaking to the authors and letting them know that if they really want to sell books, they need to build up their platform online and in person. Signings are a great way to build relationships with readers, and that's what it's all about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think so. I think author education is also important because the author quite author quite does not quite know what he or she needs to get you know in terms of the quality of the book, in terms of support after the book is published, or even in terms of what they need to do to market the book. So that author education is missing and needs to be. So our website used to be full of what you need to do you know so that you understand what you're being for. But, yeah, but it's not been quite the case with many others.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm glad you're doing what you're doing to educate authors who want to be self-published. Let's talk about books. What are you currently reading?
Speaker 2:So I've been listening to your show ever since I've got on the podcast because I went to a new podcast to search for a bookshop podcast and you're the first that came and I realized that many of your guests suggest fiction books. But I read more nonfiction than I read fiction and even when I do read fiction it's usually historical fiction that I read. So recently I came across this book called a bookshop in Algiers, which talks about this guy who is setting up a bookshop and publishing books in the years leading to the Algerian independence from France. So very, very nicely said, you get a sense of history. Made me want to go and learn more about the whole independence movement and because of that I'm now started reading books about bookshops.
Speaker 2:So the Morisake bookshop is also on my list, but right now I'm reading a book called a bookshop in Paris by Nina George, which is about this guy who has a boat, who has his boat as a bookshop and he goes down the sign. Yeah so, but I read mostly about Germany and the world war. There's this lecture events trilogy about the whole war before the war, during the war, after the war. So I've been reading about that. So mine is mostly. My interests are mostly in nonfiction and mostly in history.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love reading about history too, both nonfiction and historical fiction. Leonard, thank you so much for being a guest on the bookshop podcast. Thank you for all you do to encourage reading and in educating authors who want to self publish.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to my conversation with Leonard Fernandez, co-owner of the Dog ears bookshop. To find out more about the bookshop podcast, go to the bookshoppodcastcom and make sure to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to the show. You can also follow me at Mandy Jackson Beverly on X, instagram and Facebook and on YouTube at the bookshop podcast. If you have a favorite indie bookshop that you'd like to suggest we have on the podcast, I'd love to hear from you via the contact form at the bookshoppodcastcom. The bookshop podcast is written and produced by me, mandy Jackson Beverly, theme music provided by Brian Beverly, executive assistant to Mandy, adrian Otterhan, and graphic design by Francis Barala. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.