By P.T. Bopanna
After promoting five Coorg-centric websites, I had no plans to go in for one more website. However, the lockdown triggered by the coronavirus, pushed me into go in for one more website.
My last book ‘My Coorg Chronicles’ came out early this March. By mid-March, I completed distribution of the copies in Kodagu (Coorg) district in Karnataka, the place where I have most of my readers.
When I was about to distribute the books outside Coorg, the lockdown happened. Hence, the books could not be distributed. I immediately decided to go in for an e-book.
All my previous six books are on Kindle, the digital platform of Amazon. In the past, I used to bring out the Kindle edition only after the paperback copies were sold. But due to the lockdown, I did not want to wait longer for the paperbacks to be sold.
The lockdown was a blessing in disguise for me. I had more time on my hand. Moreover, I realized that readers were slowly shifting to e-books following the outbreak of the pandemic. Coronavirus has overnight changed the reading habits of people. Though e-books are not popular in India, there seems to be a better future for digital books.
This gave me the idea for putting together a website, exclusively for my books. Instead of taking the services of a regular web designer, I engaged Munnoli Sammed Jayakumar, an engineering student from UVCE, who wanted to get experience in web development, to develop the website. Bhakti Saraswat-Devaiah, offered her expertise as user experience designer, in the overall design of the website.
Through the website, I plan to provide link to my e-books. I have also featured my Discover Coorg video on the site. Check out my new website www.coorgbooks.in