November 2021 | Page 6

PUBLISHING BOOKS
Pratilipi ' s acquires The Write Order

Interview – Pratilipi ’ s Ranjeet Pratap Singh

Priyanka Tanwar from Indian Printer and Publisher asked Ranjeet Pratap Singh , cofounder and chief executive officer at Pratilipi , and Niket Raj Dwivedi , Business head , The Write Order a few questions about Pratilipi ' s recent acquisition of the publishing house , books published by The Write Order , Pratilipi ' s journey as a digital literature platform and the rising demand for content in vernacular languages .
Indian Printer and Publisher – Please tell us about the story behind Pritilipi ' s conceptualization ?
Ranjeet Pratap Singh - I ' ve always been an avid reader , having grown up reading comic books , classical and contemporary Hindi literature . I grew up in a small town near Rae Bareli , and English was not my first language , so I read in Hindi as a child . Only after I left my hometown to attend university did I realize that Hindi literature was not widely available throughout the country .
I began reading in English at first , but I ' ve always wondered why it should be so difficult to read in a language of your choice . India has many different languages and dialects , and I wanted to create a
Ranjeet Pratap Singh , co­founder and chief executive officer at Pratilipi . Photo Pratilipi
platform that allows people to access content and read in the language of their choice . These ideas were initially just musings among close friends , but they were the seeds that led to the creation of Pratilipi .
Indian Printer and Publisher – What kind of content does Pratilipi provide to readers across different regions of India ?
Ranjeet Pratap Singh - We wanted to create a platform that would allow people to access content and read in the language of their choice . Currently , Pratilipi supports 12 languages ; Hindi , Gujarati , Tamil , Telugu , Malayalam , Marathi , Bengali , Kannada , English , Urdu , Punjabi and Odia . We fundamentally seek to democratize access to engaging and high-quality contemporary storytelling in Indian languages , as well as to remove barriers to access for both writers and readers . You can
Photos The Write Order

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Indian Printer & Publisher | 1 November 2021