PVPF 2024

Interview with Lipika Bhushan - Founder of Market My Book

on Mar 05, 2022

An award-winning senior publishing professional, Lipika Bhushan heads MarketMyBook, a leading publicity and digital marketing agency for writers and publishers. She founded MarketMyBook in 2013 after heading Marketing at HarperCollins India for about 7 years. MarketMyBook has serviced some of the leading publishers and writers in the world since its inception.

Lipika contributes as an industry expert to various publications. Her poems have been published in the NavBharat Times and Amar Ujala. Lipika's essay was published in Global Pandemic Crisis: A Series of Literary Essays on Quarantine (Transcendent Zero Press, US) in 2020. Her first short story features in the anthology When Mommy Was a Little Girl (Ponytale Books) in January 2022.

Frontlist: You’ve worked with various publishers. To any average reader, they would appear to be the same. What differences did you see in terms of the functioning of these organizations?
Lipika: That’s an interesting question. The commitment to quality and clarity about the kind of content they would like to publish is led by the same kind of passion across all publishers. There isn’t much of a difference in their functioning but what is different is the publishing vision that drives each one of them to stay in the same business and yet set them apart from the other.

Frontlist: You come from a generation where people didn’t encourage women’s entrepreneurship. Today you’re a source of inspiration to upcoming female entrepreneurs. What advice would you like to give them?
Lipika: I am the first generation of entrepreneurs in our family of bureaucrats and army personnel, but what allowed me to take that leap of faith was my father instilling great confidence in the decisions I took about life and profession. In addition, the biggest assurance was financial security and education, and these are the two things every man or woman must take care of before they take that entrepreneurial leap. Optimism to succeed is a must but knowing that you have something to fall back on in case of failure is also equally important to be aware of.

It is important to complete your education and continue to upgrade your skills. Also, work on securing your finances to cover your expenses when you start, you need to save and invest money. Women, especially, need to be more aware of financial management and train themselves to understand savings, allocation of funds, accounting, taxation, and investing right, better.

What’s worked with me is to identify and package my strengths. Identify what you are brilliant at and what you enjoy doing, and then take the plunge. And what you take great joy in is what people will sit up and take notice of and be willing to pay for.

Frontlist: Recently, you contributed one of your childhood memories to the anthology - “When Mommy Was A Little Girl”. How was your experience working with other authors?
Lipika: When you have worked with some of the biggest and best writers globally (and not just the continent), it is tough to feel confident about your writing. Though I always penned my thoughts by way of poems and short stories, it was when Pranav Singh, the Publisher and the Editor of “When Mommy Was a Little Girl (Ponytale books)” nudged me to write, I pulled out one page of my life as a young girl and turned it into a story for young readers. My poems have been published in Amar Ujala and Navbharat Times, and I also have an essay in an anthology published in the US, but this was the first time I was contributing a story for a young audience. Its been a beautiful experience of revisiting my summer vacations as a child spent in Garhwal. I was born and brought up in Delhi, but my parents ensured we experienced the real India in the village where their parents hailed from every summer. My children would be the third generation of city-bred children who have been cut off from their roots because of various compulsions.

It was important for me to use Garhwal as the backdrop, as I see very little writing in English coming out from that region. Generations have grown up to Ruskin Bond’s Dehradun and Mussoorie, and many more stories from that region must be told to children today. It has a rich history and a vibrant culture that children need to know. The book has stories from many such parts of India that the city-bred children of today are only aware of on the map of India. I have personally enjoyed stories from the book of writers who have helped us peep into the lives in these small towns and villages.

Frontlist: Do you believe that today’s publishing industry is at par with the rapid digitalization of the reader community?
Lipika: Publishing is the biggest creator of content, and it’s about time they match to the digital requirements and consumption of readers. I think the publishing industry has a long way to match their pace with digitalization.

Frontlist: How did you emerge with the idea of establishing MarketMyBook?
Lipika: I was expecting my first child and wanted to give her time, and thus was contemplating quitting my job. But, I also didn’t want to take a complete break and do something that allowed me the convenience of time. Since I was heading marketing at HarperCollins India, it was natural to pick something within the publishing domain. I had observed that every publisher had some titles, if given some extra time and effort, do much better. Some titles had the potential to do better, both in terms of visibility and sales. While publishers did their bit, a more focused and sustained effort could do wonders in making a book and its author a success.

Another observation was that while there were many PR agencies, none understood books as a product well enough to pitch them right. Book marketing needs you to not just understand books but love them. You also have to have a good sense of what is sellable about the book. Many times the marketing efforts go wrong and fall flat because one doesn’t get the selling point right. Since its one of the most diverse product categories, it needs the most agile and tactical brains to get the marketing right.

Frontlist: You have seen the marketing industry inside and out. How do you feel this industry can grow as a good workplace for women?
Lipika: It’s one of those industries with a sizeable women workforce in which editorial, publicity, and digital arms of publishing are largely led by women. Any good workplace promotes diversity, builds tolerance towards diverging views, and creates a healthy atmosphere for striking a good work-life balance. Any good workplace for women has a convenient setup for pregnant women and excellent child care facilities for working parents.

Frontlist: What biases would you like to break to encourage women’s empowerment in the patriarchal society?

Lipika: Bias 1: Everything comes easy to women due to their gender.

Reality: We have to work extra hard to get everything and to break the bias.

Bias 2: Women empower other women.

Reality: More often, it’s our ilk that pulls the other down and stays quiet on issues of harassment at home. Feminism is to be practiced by setting examples of speaking up against all biases and standing up against harassment towards women.

Bias 3: Women need to be better than men.

Reality: Equality is gender-neutral and that’s what one needs to aim for in every way. In privileged societies, there is no competition and one realizes it more when men too contribute to helping at home and taking care of children along with women today!

I believe in contributing to this cause of women empowerment, we must focus on empowering women from weaker sections of the society to get educated and get financially independent. How many of us job creators bring such women on board, especially in our industry, is the real question to ask.