For the love of books

Many of you might have been surprised by it while we tried the service out; and now it is public – we will plastic wrap your books for you, every one of them that you order with us. No more hassles of going to the market to buy that sheet of plastic, measuring it against the book, cutting it and then wrapping it around the book.

We felt the need for it because I, myself, used to do so years earlier when I had ample time . But as routine got hectic and days shorter I stopped and would then often wish for someone to take over the job, especially when I saw many in my collection sitting half-naked on the shelves with their jackets wrinkled and torn from all the lending and handling.

So for all ye book lovers, we will plastic wrap the books for you. Here is how it works:-

The book is wrapped cleanly in a transparent plastic sheet such that no cello tape is used or adhesive applied. If you wish, you can simply remove the plastic off without affecting the book. The book is then bubble-wrapped and put in a cardboad box with the package finally plastic sealed as shown in our post on how we gift wrap them.

And all this for a small cost of Rs. 10 per book.

There has recently been a lot of controversy surrounding Raj Kumar Hirani’s “3 Idiots” starring Aamir Khan with Chetan Bhagat alleging that the screenplay has been adapted from one of his more popular novels “Five Point Someone“.

Chetan’s stance and his subsequent followup with the film’s director and producer can be read at his blog.

I totally agree with Chetan on the front that he doesn’t need the publicity. Even before I realized there was a controversy surrounding the movie, I had seen the mention of Five Point Someone in the newspapers either by the actors or journos covering the movie. More so I believe, there will be hardly anyone in India who reads popular fiction and has not heard about Chetan Bhagat.

The point to be considered, however is if the movie is not an adaptation of any novel and is an original script in itself then why was a contract signed with Chetan in the first place before release?

A 5-10% rip-off hardly requires a contract. If you recall, most Bollywood movies at one time were a rehash of just one plot – a boy and a girl falling in love with a villain adding twist to the story. Who owns the script to that – the screenwriter who wrote the first movie? No producer is ever going to sign a contract with any author for that and since the makers of 3 Idiots did so and that too without showing the movie to Chetan Bhagat, I am sure something is amiss when they rubbish all his claims.

This in fact makes me curious on what was actually mentioned in the contract that they needed to cover up their behinds?

Further, if the movie is so original then why was Aamir Khan specifically asked not to read the book lest he be influenced? I really like him as an actor and think him to be a man of integrity, however his comments on Five Point Someone being just an inspiration for the movie (can be found here) are a bit out of this world.

When I saw the movie I thought it was just like Taare Zameen Par albeit with a different social issue – bringing out the flaws plaguing our educational system, which I also had tried to highlight in a previous blog post (I hope that this was posted before the controversy erupted, can someone confirm?? ) On the other hand, Five Point Someone brought to the fore though in a bit of an exaggerated way of how we students used to live our lives in IITD.

Thus, in my opinion 3 Idiots puts more focus on the teachers and their teaching methods while Five Point Someone concerns itself with the students’ campus life. However, the storyline did turn out to be similar, to what degree is suspect.

Instead of Chetan Bhagat it is the makers of 3 Idiots, who by embroiling themselves in a controversy, are trying to gain from his fame in the hope that all those millions who have read his book also see the movie. As Aamir Khan has apty put: “Nobody knows him but Chetan is a big star”

Edit: And oh, that “him” in the above quote actually refers to Abhijat (or symbolically 3 Idiots maybe??) and not Aamir himself.

I just came across this article “In India, Anxiety Over the Slow Pace of Innovation” in New York Times and could not help but agree with most of the points mentioned there. Many articles have been written before on this subject, where they compare our investor environment with that of the Silicon Valley. However, most of them miss out on one crucial aspect. It is not just the change of the environment with more incubators for startups that is required or the need for the Government to make bureaucracy less tiresome but it is our mindset that has to change.

We, Indians, are highly risk-averse people. Right from our childhood our upbringing is such that parents encourage us to dream of becoming doctors and engineers so that our life is set. You may eventually branch out to some other field but it is so. Further, our educational system is oriented more towards rote-learning, and testing us on facts rather than on concepts, and forget the whole  personality development part of it.

Even in IITs and IIMs exams are such that if you do not study the whole semester but on the last day, you can get through. Very few professors actually test you on your clarity of concepts, who encourage you to apply yourself. Further, so much importance is paid to hard-core numerical subjects that softer skill-based courses are so often ignored. Just go to any IIM and you can see for yourself – students toiling under the burden of 8-9 finance electives in their second year just to get that “one” course, which will be instrumental in making or breaking their future in an I-bank.

And what do they miss out on? Courses like Strategic Business Negotiation, Advanced Oral Communication, and Entrepreneurship, etc. I would say these were probably the best courses I had taken during my MBA. It is these HR courses that eventually help you in your professional and personal life.

As a community, we Indians generally get married latest by 28-29 years of age. And with marriage comes responsibility and pressure to be earning well enough to support our family. This trend is something totally missing in the West.

In Israel, which is a great hub for entrepreneurship – the second-largest after the US in LifeSciences, people are drafted into the army and when they are released they have a whole world of opportunity lying out there in open. In the US, it is not uncommon for people to do MBBS after their engineering just because they had a change of heart.

In India, is it even imaginable? We are urged to finish off our education in one go. School –> College —> MBA —> Job. Why not an year or two of job before MBA? If I enroll myself in an MBA school in the US now, I  probably would belong to the youngest bracket of my class. Why is it that if someone fails CAT, his life is ruined because his friend has made through and will be earning his 24 lacs for one extra year?

Take our own example, when we, Rajat and I, had wanted to chuck our calls, we were under pressure to reconsider and do our MBA first. The reasoning was that a diploma from IIMs is a safety net in case we failed. Only one or two thought about mentioning the fact that it might help us better understand business nuances. It just reflects the mindset of people around us.

So all I am saying is that it is not just the investor and regulatory environment, which is to be blamed here. We ourselves are a part of the problem. India once had a flourishing trade and was one of the richest countries in the world. Over 150 years of foreign rule has culled our spirit of entrepreneurship, which was followed by the so-called “Hindu” rate of growth. It is the 21st century now, and we have come a long way. We are roaring to go forward.

Let us not replace the Civil Services and Government jobs of erstwhile India with private high-paying safety nets. Let us instead shape our destiny with our own hands and bring a change from within before we lament the lack of innovation in India.

So the next time if someone compares you to Amazon and says – “You are the Amazon of India”, then your answer should better be “Patience my friend, you have seen nothing yet!”

Chandler: Hey, I just came across this really cool site LeBooks.in, which offers great discounts on books and also free shipping!

Ross: I also know of this other site, some Indie… Wait did you say FREE shipping??

~~

Consumers love free shipping, we all do. In fact who doesn’t?

Consider this:- Site A offers free shipping on all orders worth more than Rs. 150 while site B charges Rs. 10 per book and yet another site C charges a flat Rs. 30 per order. Which of the three sites do you think would be more popular?

My bet is site A. Simply because despite different discount structures, there is one thing constant, which Ross will always remember and that is site A ships for free. Site A has created a great marketing tool. Besides, by offering free shipping, site A is telling Ross upfront how much a book will cost even before he adds it to the cart and this enriches his customer experience. He need not undergo the hassle of adding a book to the cart and checking out till the end to know the final amount!! So even if Site A is at times not matching the discount by Site B or site C, the former is still expected to fare better, ceteris paribus.

In the Indian context, there is another factor. For some reason, as much as we Indians love free shipping we also hate paying for it. Better give us lower discounts but don’t ask us to pay for shipping. Why is it so?

Maybe it’s because we have been conditioned to think so from the early heydeys of e-commerce in India when ebay.in was still Baazee.

I remember sellers luring buyers by offering outrageous discounts and then in turn outraging them by levying ludicrous shipping charges to cover their costs.

In the West it is a well-established practice to pay for shipping. Even Amazon, which any Indian swears e-commerce by, charges for shipping unless the order amount is more than $25. In our case it would have translated to orders worth more than Rs. 750. Free shipping over there is used to incentivize the customers to buy in bulk; in fact there is a free shipping day. So why do we not also follow their practice rather than make a habit out of it here?

I would someday really like to explore this psychology of ours because when we were contemplating our own shipping policy for LeBooks.in, I myself was vociferous that we not charge anything!

We are pleased to introduce Neeraj Chhibba on our blog, who recently launched his debut novel – Zero Percentile: Missed IIT Kissed Russia. The book has been published by Rupa Publications and has already gone into reprint within 3 weeks of its publication.

To give a brief background about Neeraj – he was born and brought up in New Delhi. After doing his schooling in Delhi, he went on to study engineering at Volgograd, Russia, and is now currently employed with a software company in Gurgaon, India.

Now on to Neeraj & Vikas:-

Vikas: Hi Neeraj, it’s great to have you on our blog. I have read Zero Percentile and found it pretty interesting. I could feel the difference in the style of writing as the story progressed. The beginning was a bit slow but the book picked up a lot of pace after the initial few chapters.

Neeraj: I deliberately kept the start slow and funny as I tried to build the story. I wanted people to savor the initial laziness before they were hit by Phase II of the story. I have kept the language very simple so that reading my book doesn’t become a taxing exercise. Even where I have conveyed a message I have done it through very simple sentences such as “Ordinary people have that additional burden of doing something extraordinary to get noticed”, simple but powerful.

Vikas: This is your first piece of work to get published. How do you feel regarding this lucky break? Can you tell us how you approached Rupa Publications and if any other publisher, and the process that followed? A lot of aspiring authors struggle to get noticed and your answers will definitely help them.

Neeraj: Well, this is a long story. Nobody wanted to touch Zero Percentile as it was the work of a first-time author. I had finished the manuscript about three years ago and approached many publishers but none responded. Finally, I went to Rupa where I sought and got an appointment with the Publisher and rest is my small piece of history.

Vikas: So how do you suggest Indian authors to go about it?

Neeraj: My message to all aspiring writers is to keep on trying new things. What worked for me may not work for you but you may stumble upon something which could be even more fruitful.

However, if you are a debut novelist your best bet is Rupa. They have a very strong distribution network and can take your book to the interiors of the country. Rest depends on how good your book actually is. So, first and foremost make sure you have put your best foot forward by giving the publisher your work in the neatest possible form.

Vikas: Coming to the story, you have narrated it as a first-person account of Pankaj, the protagonist. Third-person narrative is generally more preferred as it gives much more flexibility but on the other hand first-person narrative helps bring out deep internal thoughts and feelings of the narrator. Is that why you have chosen the latter so as to better describe your experiences in Russia, which had a great impression on you?

Neeraj: Yes, you are right. While using the first person narrative you begin to believe as if you are talking about yourself and I personally feel that you connect to the story much better as a writer then.

Initially, I wanted to create that illusion so that people could find the story believable. But later it was too much of work trying to redraft the whole story (as everyone took it to be completely autobiographical) so I left it at that.

Vikas: So the story is not really an autobiography but rather a work of fiction inspired by various real-life incidents.

Neeraj: I would say any writer’s first book is inspired from real-life incidents. But, reality if told without amplification will never be as good to read as when told with some fictional elements added to it. This is what I have done too. Took a few real-life incidents, twisted them, mixed them with some fictional elements and we have the story called Zero Percentile.

Vikas: Such as Inside Education, which I believe refer to Vidyamandir Classes?

Neeraj: VMC and the Bhaiyas at VMC are unique in a lot of ways. They teach because teaching is a passion for them. You can very easily take them to be your role model as each one of them has something inspirational in his personality. So, I wanted to introduce the world to them through my writing and let people know that there still are places, which are pure and people who are simple, not easily swayed by the power that money usually exercises over many of us.

Vikas: Yes, I totally agree with you on that front. Any of us who has attended VMC classes will vouch so!

How did you come to choose the title “Zero Percentile: Missed IIT Kissed Russia” for the book? Any other names that were considered?

Neeraj: Zero Percentile signifies that the protagonist loses out at the most important moments of his life. We played around with many names (at least twenty five) and the Editor (appointed by the Publisher) rejected all of them till I chanced upon Zero Percentile. This was accepted immediately for I guess, people relate to numbers better than words and such a title tends to stick longer in your memory than normal.

Vikas: With the book aimed at the younger audience, you have subtly raised the issue of AIDS and how young people need to be careful with their sex lives without being preachy. Not many authors care to leave a message in their book.

Neeraj: I very strongly believe that apart from giving people a bang for their buck a writer should also try to leave a message subtly so that it sticks in the reader’s mind and he recalls it at the right time. Through my book if I am able to stop even one person from committing an indiscretion and help save a life, it’s worth all the effort.

Vikas: Completely off the topic, what do you think about the repeal of Section 377 by the Delhi High Court?

Neeraj: I think, a suppressed society can never be a mature society. Individual decisions are always for an individual to make. I would not want to comment on the biological aspect of it, but in simple words, we should respect each person’s right to privacy and leave him alone as long as he does not create problems for others.

Vikas: When did you first get inspired to write a book, and why this topic?

Neeraj: Never before has IIT been written about from the perspective of someone who did not study there. Zero Percentile delves into this aspect and tells readers that there is life beyond IIT, beyond failure and you just need the courage to get on with it.

Also, Russia has always been portrayed as the enemy by the west. Zero Percentile takes a look at the humane side of the Russian society, a far cry from the evil people they are always shown as. The time explored in the book is the tumultuous 90s when Russia was converting from a communist to a capitalist state, one of the more turbulent times for their huge population trying to cope with the extreme changes brought about by the rapid transformation.

I, like millions of science students in India had that ambition of getting into IIT but due to various factors could not (and not having the capability to get there not one of them). The ensuing period was tough for me as I am sure it is for millions of other aspirants. So, the novel idea of writing something unique – which was a mix of trying to look beyond the IITs and the life of an Indian student in Russia, gave me the impetus to write.

Vikas: How long did you take to write Zero Percentile?

Neeraj: Well, finishing the first draft took about six months. But the painful part of reading, re-reading and re-writing took almost an equal amount of time.

Vikas: How do you juggle writing with job? Do you plan to pursue this as a full time career?

Neeraj: I dedicate my weekends to writing. I set a target for myself for a month and then try to stick to it. I don’t know yet for sure about pursuing writing as a career. I would love to but how well am I accepted by the people is a key parameter for helping me decide. By the initial reactions it seems that things definitely are on the right track.

Vikas: What kind of works do you plan to publish in the near future?

Neeraj: I want to write things which are simple, accepted by a large audience and still retain a certain freshness and convey a message that gets across to the people easily. In short, I want to write stories which are uncomplicated and are universally embraced such as a Lagaan, a Chak De, a Jo Jeeta Wahee Sikander. They are all very simple stories but make people connect to them wholeheartedly.

Vikas: This concludes our interview. Thanks Neeraj for agreeing to come on our blog. We hope that you do reach your goal of being the first Indian author to sell over a million copies of his debut novel. We wish you luck.

Neeraj: Thanks Vikas. It was a pleasure to be here and answer your questions. And also to conclude, for anyone who wants to follow his dream, “Just go ahead and do it. Knocking doors opens them and you don’t know which door leads you to the success of your dream. So keep trying and don’t give up.”

Zero Percentile is the story of a survivor who continuously finds solutions to his problems, braving destiny along the way. Life in Russia is harsh, the climate is not conducive, you have to study as well as fend for yourself. Add to that the unstable political climate in the 90s and you are ready for a roller-coaster experience. This is a story of hope, a story never told and never read before!!

Get your author-signed copy now at LeBooks.in for just Rs. 71 at 25% discount. Enter the coupon: NEERAJ-LEBOOKS when you checkout in the shopping cart. Thanks for stopping by!

It’s been almost a month and a half since we launched LeBooks.in. Over the period we have implemented numerous features, removed various bugs and finally had a major upgrade over this past weekend. It has been a topsy-turvy ride with its ups and downs but one thing has been constant, we have learnt a lot and have come a long way since.

Both Rajat and I are essentially non-IT guys. While it did put a big constraint on us (and it still does), we did not let this hamper our plans. We went ahead and outsourced the website in August thinking that it would sustain us for the few initial months while we concentrate on other stuff and build our IT team. Though we knew that the website can make or break our business, we still thought it was an ok-acceptable decision (considering the circumstances, which I won’t dwell into here) for isn’t India an hub for outsourcing and aren’t there numerous multinational companies happy with the work done. Well we were wrong, terribly wrong.

I cannot generalize for the whole web-development and -design industry in India or even NCR based on just one experience but we believe that the state of affairs would have been the still the same if we had instead chosen any other company. This company was “supposedly” the best in the NCR region with a number of big-name clients like Sony, Hyundai, Penguin, etc. in their kitty. As a hindsight it seems to us that for them we were just a small fish to prey upon.

We had made it pretty clear before signing the contract that we need the website by the stipulated date and if it cannot be done then let us know. Also, that we are very particular of what all things we want and how we want them implemented. However, over the course of time, our inputs were totally disregarded. The code for the site was lifted from the code of their other websites. We could easily see commented out stuff such as email addresses with jobs@xxx.co.uk and page categories as Departments, Other Stores, etc. They did not even make an effort to remove this.

Things came to a head when the site crashed, when it could not even manage some 10k books because the database was not normalized, and that too when the site was already delayed by a week and was still half-completed. Attempts to communicate through to the CEO, whom we thought was a decent fellow having started-up and having being featured on “Young Turks”, were of no avail. He mysteriously disappeared after responding to our first mail. We believe that most of these web-companies make websites for clients who are either ignorant and are happy with whatever is given to them or have lots of money to shell out, which we did not.

It hit us bad – a wasted couple of months, wasted money, missed opportunity at the Delhi Book Fair, missed revenues, and more than that dented credibility with our suppliers and publishers whom we had given a launch date. Well the lesson’s been learnt:-

a) When outsourcing services, opt for a smaller company, which needs you as much as you need them. It helps in negotiating contracts. We could not get a clause put into the contract where the web company would be liable for monetary compensation in case of any delays and missed deadlines. Most of the times anyways the contracts cannot be fought out in the court.

b) If you as a start-up need to get a critical service done, then try and do it in-house only, especially when it involves a lot of feedback at every step. Don’t assume that you can outsource and be done with it. Even the best of the companies cannot stick to the exact stipulations laid down by you.

So after the crash, we were pretty much in the doldrums. I started learning coding while Rajat handled the database. My sister also really helped us out. For fully a month, we worked day and night to somehow get the website back up.

Whatever might be your degrees, whatever you might be good at, in a start-up you will eventually end up doing something, about which you may have no clue leave alone any expertise. But the learning is stupendous.

During the process we eventually realized that the basic HTML code was also horrible. The site was not at all W3C compliant with 750+ errors and warning on every page. The styling was done in-line instead of making complete use of external CSS. And then the site took up to 3 mins to load and even more so on slower net connections. Frankly, the site could hardly be used except maybe referred to just family and friends, and that’s what we had to do.

But it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. It gave us a period of trial-run where we became aware of a lot of operational issues. Even after months of planning, one cannot really anticipate all the problems that might occur when you launch a product in the market.

Since then, we have been building our IT team. As a start-up, you need people who are self-motivated, who are quick to learn and essentially don’t need you to supervise them the whole time. We found a great guy in Mayank who has been instrumental in implementing a lot of our current features over the past month. And we are still looking for more.

Finally I am glad to say that we have a website, which though might still be very basic is ready for the world!!

The Bourne Trilogy by Robert Ludlum:-

1. The Bourne Identity (1980)
2. The Bourne Supremacy (1986)
3. The Bourne Ultimatum (1990)

I read the first novel of the series – The Bourne Identity way back in 2003 or so, and I must say that it deserves to be voted as the second best spy novel of all-time by Publishers Weekly, though I still have to read the winner – The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré.

I have not yet come across any other book – fiction, non-fiction where I was hooked right from the first page. After all these years, I still vividly remember sitting down with the book on a lazy summer afternoon, opening the first page and reading the first few paragraphs and man was I buoyed by it. Another book that comes so close in comparison is Area 7 by Matthew Reilly in the intensity of action and thrill.

The book (Bourne Identity) is a fast-paced read with a lot of action and suspense, to which the movie adaptation does no justice, except for making Matt Damon uber-fast in his action sequences, which actually Ludlum has written fantastically in the book and needs vivid imagination and visualization to really appreciate.

A man is picked up by a trawler barely alive in the Mediterranean Sea with several bullet wounds and a head injury causing amnesia. As he recuperates with the help of a doctor, who has taken him in, he comes to know that he is not just like any other ordinary man. He has been put under the scalpel, has a fantastic knowledge of languages, and knows martial arts. The only clue to his identity is a secret account number in a Swiss bank.

Ludlum then takes us on a whirlwind trip all-over Europe with “the man” – let’s just call him Bourne, out-pacing and out-thinking the CIA, Interpol  and Carlos, the Jackal (thus called when found with a copy of Frederick Forsyth’s novel The Day of the Jackal amongst his belongings). At the end, the true identity of Bourne is finally revealed and along with the exposure of all rogue elements. This reminds me of the trailer I saw of “Wolverine of the X-Men Series” fighting hard to find his identity and history, have to yet see the movie.

The sequel Bourne Supremacy is also as good if not better than the first one. Again for all those who have seen the film, well just forget that you have seen it. It does no justice to the book and is actually very different and contradictory to the plot.

The story continues from where Bourne Identity left off. Bourne now knows his identity, and well has a life and a wife. And all of it goes for a toss, when another Bourne comes into the picture and starts shooting real people in his name. And then to top it off Bourne’s wife, the real Bourne’s wife whom he loves very much gets abducted – well then what’s a man supposed to do now, Bourne again takes up the mantle of being Bourne and goes after the killer.

Again the book is an absolute thriller. Ludlum very successfully fleshes out the character of Bourne even further and brings the various emotions – his anguish, turmoil and anger towards his handlers and his wife’s kidnappers, towards himself and his past out in the fore. This time the story is set in the Asian theatre when the British are supposed to handover Hong Kong to China.

In the final book of the series “Bourne Ultimatum”, before he ripens off of old age Carlos has now decided to kill his old nemesis Bourne. And thus, Bourne is pulled back into the world of violence and deceit when Carlos sets upon him his network of jackals. The plot of the movie is again way different.

All in all, the trilogy is an absolute page-turner. I couldn’t wait for Bourne Supremacy after finishing Identity and then the Ultimatum. Hence, the suggestion, get the next sequel along with the book you are about to begin reading or else well wait out through the agonizing delay!!

Further continued on by Eric Van Lustbader:-

1. The Bourne Legacy (2004)
2. The Bourne Betrayal (2007)
3. The Bourne Sanction (2008)
4. The Bourne Deception (2009)

The review can also be accessed here

The Foundation series started off with a trilogy of three books – “Foundation” (1951), “Foundation and Empire” (1952), and “Second Foundation” (1953). Due to popular demand, Asimov continued the series with “Foundation’s Edge” (1982), “Foundation and Earth” (1986), and wrote two prequels “Prelude to Foundation” (1988) and “Forward the Foundation” (1992).

The series were continued by another trilogy popularly known as the “Second Foundation Trilogy” – Foundation’s Fear by Gregory Benford, Foundation’s Chaos by Greg Bear and Foundation’s Triumph by David Brin.

Suggested order of reading is the same as above.

The basic theme of the Foundation Series is a vast interstellar galactic empire, which many believe is still in its heydays. But few, especially an old mathematician Hari Seldon through his knowledge of psychohistory, know that the empire is slowly and steadily declining and a thousand galactic years later will be followed by a dark period of suffering for the mankind, which will span over 30,000 galactic years.

The first of the three books – Foundation captures the story of its namesake, which Hari has helped set up as an anchor for humanity in those dark times. This is the story of Salvor Hardin and Hober Mallow, and how they successfully navigate through various Seldon Crises and ward off aggressive attempts of their belligerent neighbors to subjugate the Foundation and its capital Terminus.

The second book of the series – Foundation and Empire, continues on with the story with a focus on the Galactic Empire, which having had forgotten about Foundation is now beginning to see it as a threat. Though the Galactic Empire is in its death throes and has lost almost all control over its peripheries where Terminus is located, it is still a major force to reckon with. And along with this threat, there is the Mule, who is threatening the ultimate collapse of the Foundation along with Hari Seldon’s plans.

An interesting aspect of this series is that unlike books such as “A Song of Ice and Fire” by George R.R. Martin or “Wheel of Time” by Robert Jordan there is not a single battle scene described and yet it leaves the readers on the edge of their seat craving for more and that not in a bad way. The suspense leading to the climax and its aftermath, with a major emphasis on character building and dialogs between the lead protagonists is a hallmark of Asimov’s writing in the “Foundation” series.

The third book of the series – Second Foundation reveals the presence of another Foundation secretly set up by Hari Seldon to help guide the “First” Foundation. This is the story of Mule’s and eventually the First Foundation’s search for the Second Foundation and the conflict that ensues between them.

The Second Foundation has been destroyed and the First Foundation has emerged victorious. Was it predicted by Hari Seldon or has his plans been irrevocably damaged? Or is the Second Foundation still lurking out there, or is there some other mysterious third force subtly guiding events in the galaxy? Foundation’s Edge is the story of Golan Trevize who may have the fate of the whole galaxy resting on his shoulders.

In Foundation and Earth, Trevize along with Pelorat and Bliss attempt to seek answers by seeking the location of Earth, the knowledge of which has been systematically removed from everywhere, so much so that its name is considered an obscenity in many worlds outside the Foundation’s sphere of influence.

The first prequel, Prelude to Foundation, is a story about Seldon and his initial days on Trantor; about the resourceful Hummin and his accomplice Dors; the relationship between Seldon and Dors; and also about the enigmatic Demerzel and his secrets. Seldon arrives as a young mathematician on Trantor, head full of ideas on psychohistory but with no practical approach on making it a reality, and gets jostled between various political forces who wants to use him.

After writing the last book for the series – Forward the Foundation, Asimov himself died within weeks of writing Seldon’s death. The story is about Seldon, whom Asimov regarded as an alter ego, his life’s devotion, the all-consuming fire to develop psychohistory, and his joys and despairs shared with Dors Venabili, and ultimately his poignant death after the establishment of the Foundations.

Foundation’s Fear is set in the period covered in the early chapters of Forward the Foundation, while Foundation’s Chaos covers the early chapters of Foundation. Foundation’s Triumph covers various loose ends and describes the setting up of holographic messages to the Foundation.

All in all, foundation series is one of the epic science fiction series spanning over 500 standard galactic years, winning the one-time Hugo award for “Best All-Time Series” in 1966 beating even “Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Resources:
1. Asimov Home Page
2. Wikipedia – Isaac Asimov
3. Wikipedia – Foundation Series
4. Isaac Asimov’s Book Reviews
5. Hugo Awards
6. Nebula Awards

The summary can also be accessed here

While I write the first post for the blog, many topics come to my mind on what the blog should really focus on.

Personal Experiences
When the seed of the idea germinated some three years ago; our reasons for launching LeBooks.in; our efforts and struggles over the past six months.

Or Professional Insights
The current state of the Indian publishing industry; the highs and lows of entrepreneurship; our learning in the process of starting up – hoping that this will eventually encourage some people to leave the rat race and live up their dreams.

Or Simply Books & Customer Experience
New releases, authors, reviews and discussions; features that you may want on LeBooks.in; ways to help improve the overall customer experience.

Well, I guess its going to be a mix of all because in the end everything is actually inter-related.

The customer service and experience is not just front-end but rather hinges on a number of variables with one crucial factor being the back-end information and supply chain system. Just to give an idea:-

The benefit of an online store is that there is no restriction on the number of titles it can hold. The books are not kept in inventory (under certain exceptions, which I will address in some other post) but rather procured from various distributors. Like any other regular supply chain, in the book industry also it is pretty simple:

Publishers -> Distributors -> Online & Offline Retail shops.
That’s the basic business model you need to start any bookstore!!

However, as you may see, the biggest advantage of an online store can also work against it when compared to a retail store, which sells only what it stocks. Since an online bookstore does not hold any inventory and works against confirmed orders, it really really and I must stress really needs to have good tie-ups with all upstream entities in the supply chain and get accurate information on a timely basis. If we say the book is in stock and ships in 2-3 days, then this is based on the information provided to us. If it is inaccurate and the book is instead out of stock or no longer in print, then we can lose a customer!!

And that is where you set yourself apart from any other online store – how do you value your customers? Just like another statistic on the excel sheet resulting in profits for the business or rather as a friend?

Our intention is the latter and it was really great to feel the thrill and joy upon executing our first orders this week. Thank you all for the great reviews. We need your constant support to make this a huge success. All feedback, criticisms and compliments are welcome.

We hope that in the process, through a journey together, we all revel in the marvelous world of books.

–
Vikas
LeBooks.in – We too love books!!