It was almost exactly three years ago that I decided, in memory of my wife, to take the plunge into publishing.
I was 70 years old, and had absolutely no earlier experience in the industry.
It took me six months to get the company registered, a bank account opened, and my head sufficiently around publishing to put my toe in the water. So, it is in fact almost exactly three years since I actually started in publishing.
People are amazed at how much I have learnt – though of course many are alarmed (as am I!) at how much I have still to learn 😊
I do have an enormous amount still to learn. But people are indeed amazed at how much I have accomplished. Indeed, when I look back, I am myself amazed at how much has been accomplished, thanks primarily to God’s blessings, not least through the mentors who were provided for me free of charge, I think in consideration of my age (some positive discrimination there, perhaps!) by my professional association, the Independent Publishers Guild.
I have now got a few books out, including one by a Foreword by the Dalai Lama, one with a Foreword by the Pope, one with a Foreword by Shashi Tharoor, and one with a Foreword by Dame Prue Leith!
Each of the books I have published so far is significant in some way, but some even more important and interesting books are on their way, such as:
– India: The Grand Experiment, which is Vishal Mangalwadi’s exploration of why and how the British Evangelicals created the experiment; of whether and how we Indians are betraying the ideals of that experiment; and of what and how the experiment can be put back on track;
– Andrea Nelson Trice’s Strong Together: Building Partnerships across cultures in an Age of Distrust;
– Satish Kumar and Lorna Howarth’s key collection of essays intended to contribute to the transformation of education, Regenerative Learning: Nurturing People and Caring for the Planet;
– Converse, the authoritative anthology of contemporary English poetry by living Indians who have published important work over the 75 years in which India has existed as an independent political entity; this collection was especially commissioned by me from Sudeep Sen;
– also specially commissioned by me for the 75th year of India’s independence, Catherine Ann Jones’s East & West: Stories of India;
– the novel, An Unfinished Search by Sahitya Akademi prize-winning author, Rashmi Narzary;
– Varghese Mathai’s The Village Maestro and 100 other stories; and
– My Silk Road: The Adventures and Struggles of a British Asian Refugee, a memoir by Ram Gidoomal CBE.
Not only have I been able to get some books out already, I have also now been able to sign deals that enable me to distribute “my” books to every single major bookshop in the entire English-speaking world (yes, I do mean around the globe):
- India and 16 other Asian countries are covered through Penguin Random House India;
- Europe and the UK are covered through Marston;
- Canada and the USA are covered through Trafalgar Square Publishing, which takes the books of something like 90% of all British publishers into those markets;
and
- the Rest of the English-speaking world (the Caribbean, English-speaking Africa, the Middle East, and so on right through to Australia and New Zealand) is covered through Prologue.
This provides the ability to distribute not only books published by me, but also books that are self-published, and books from other selected independent publishers.
So, I am gradually and cautiously accepting, for distribution, books from such sources.
Here are three examples.
First, Ashok Nath’s encyclopaedic book on the ordinary cavalrymen and infantrymen of the “largest volunteer army that the world had ever seen till then” – that is, the British Indian Army during the First World War:
Second, one of Europe’s most accomplished mime artistes, Carlos Martinez, breaks out of the silence he imposes on himself on all physical platforms, to give us a beautifully-produced and inspiring gem of a book
https://pipparannbooks.com/book/from-the-dressing-room-reflections-on-the-silent-art-of-mime/
Third, Dr Michael Schluter’s books on apparently totally divergent subjects, which turn out not to be all that divergent after all: Is Corporate Capitalism the Best we have to Offer? and No Other Way to Peace in Korea – published respectively by Relational Research, UK, and by Relational Peacebuilding Initiatives in Geneva, Switzerland.
Though I don’t hold out any promise of taking on any book, I will be happy to consider, for global distribution, all books whose values are democratic and humane.