Self-Publishing Success Made Easy: Our Experience with Pothi - An Online Platform in India for Authors
Note: This is our own opinion from experience. It contains unsponsored content and we have not received any compensation or incentives for this.
As an author, there's nothing more fulfilling than seeing your work in print and making it available to readers worldwide. However, the road to self-publishing success can be a bumpy one, especially if you don't find the right tools and resources. That's why we were thrilled when I stumbled upon Pothi, an online self-publishing platform based in India, that made our publishing journey a breeze.
As authors writing children's books on Carnatic Music, a major market for us is India. Unfortunately, Amazon does not offer self-publishing for paperbacks in India, so we had to look for alternatives. We tried a self-publishing platform in India, but the experience was not a good one. That's when we found Pothi.
From day one, our experience with Pothi was a very positive one.
From day one, our experience with Pothi was a very positive one. At first, we thought Pothi wouldn't work for us because they didn't offer the custom size we needed for our books. However, we decided to write to their customer support team, and were pleasantly surprised by their response. They were very helpful and accommodating, offering to create custom-sized books for us. This level of customer service was a game-changer for us!
The publishing interface on Pothi was straightforward and easy to use. We designed both the book and cover ourselves and went through the self-upload process without any issues.
When we got stuck, we found that Pothi's customer support team was always there to help. They responded quickly, in great detail, and with a level of professionalism that left us feeling confident that our work was in good hands. We were delighted to find that after uploading our print-ready files, it took only one business day (sometimes even less) for Pothi to revert with issues or a ‘ready for print’ message.
The earnings dashboard on Pothi took a couple of days to update, but that has not been a major issue for us. We are currently selling our books through Pothi in India and haven't used them for extended distribution or ebooks yet, so we cannot speak to those features.
The one disappointment we did have was that Pothi does not print board books at the moment. We really hope that changes in the future as it would be an excellent opportunity to offer format options to our readers. However, overall we are very satisfied and happy with the service Pothi provides.
In conclusion, if you're an author looking to self-publish your work in India, we highly recommend giving Pothi a try. With their excellent customer service, user-friendly interface, and quick turnaround times, they have made my self-publishing journey an enjoyable and stress-free experience.
Do check out our series of Baby Steps to Carnatic Music for babies, kids and beginners here!
