First look at first paperback copy of part autobio produced by Pothi.com

Last updated on 17th May 2019

I had ordered the first test copy of the paperback version of my book: Autobiography of an Indian Software Techie and Spiritual Aspirant – Part 1, on May 6th. More about it can be seen on this blog post: https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2019/05/ordered-1st-copy-of-paperback-version.html.

Today, 10th May 2019, I received the first test paperback copy. My initial reaction is very positive overall. It is a reasonable sized book (nearly 300 pages) and the print is neat and good. The cover page print is good. It is not flashy but that has been my choice. I have chosen to tell a part of my story in the cover page via my 3 pics at various stages of my journey. And I have not spruced up the pics in a significant way. The light grey shades of the background pic of the cover page are also suitable for my story. It is not a bed of roses, fun and frolic filled story. It is more of a story of various challenges, how I faced them with love and support from family and friends, and some fun and frolic too.

Thus the cover conveys the right tone, IMHO. Those who after seeing the greyish cover page, are still interested in knowing about my story should consider reading the book. Those who get put off by the shades of grey in the cover page and so do not show further interest in the book, may not find the book interesting anyway.

If the book had a more attractive and flashy front cover page, it may have led some people to believe that the contents of the book would be a full of fun-and-frolic story. And then if they had bought the book and/or invested the time in reading at least initial contents of the book, they would have been disappointed and perhaps upset too. So I am glad that the book does NOT have a flashy and attractive fun cover page. That would be inappropriate for my story. The spiritual path that I have been attracted to, aims at experiencing contentment, compassionate love, peace and joy and not so much of fun and frolic.

As I wrote earlier, overall I am very happy in my first look at the first (test) paperback copy. But some of the grayscale pics have not come out well. That is something that I need to discuss with Pothi.com and see if some improvement is possible. But some grayscale pics have come out pretty well. I am very happy with those grayscale pic prints.

Note that colour printing of inner content of book is very expensive and so that is out of the question for this paperback edition. This black-and-white (grayscale) inner content paperback book, at Pothi.com store, costs Rs.265 (minimum price with zero or unavoidable Rs.0.5 (50 paise) royalty to me) with shipping to Puttaparthi coming to Rs.85, making the total price Rs.350. The book is A5 size and has 297 pages of inner content.

Here then are some of the book pics. I have also shown some problem grayscale pic printed pages.

[To open pic in larger resolution, right-click on pic followed by open link (NOT image) in new tab/window. In new tab/window you may have to click on pic to zoom in.]

Overall Book

Front Cover

Spine

Back Cover

Page 11 - Parents pic and text

Page 37 - B.Sc. Degree

Page 84 - 1st Passport pic

Pages 104-105: Wang Labs. appreciation letter pics along with comparison with PDF file (which was the one I sent to Pothi.com for the paperback book, I am quite sure) viewing of same grayscale pics in Foxit PDF reader. side-by-side with paperback book pics. Note that the PDF grayscale pics render cleanly on PC but have got printed in the paperback book with lot of dark shades making it not so pleasant to look at. However, even if there are dark shades, the text is still readable. So from a documentation point of view (in this age of fake news and fakes in various walks of life), the paperback pics still achieve the critical documentation part to enable readers to verify some of my statements in the book by looking at pics printed in the book itself. But that they are not so pleasant to look at, cannot be escaped from or denied. I will be exploring with Pothi.com, ways to improve printing of these and some other pics which also have lot of dark shades and look somewhat unpleasant.

Page 144 - Krishna pic

Pages 172-173: Mother and prayer/chanting beads pic

Page 180 - Sathya Sai pic

The above 3 pics (Krishna, Mother & prayer beads and Sathya Sai) have come out well. I am very pleased with the quality.  I had had some concerns about grayscale image printing on paper with normal thickness & quality (70-80 GSM). I chose normal paper option in Pothi.com and not more expensive bond paper. The above grayscale image prints show that normal paper is fine for decent quality grayscale image printing.

Overall, I am astonished and very pleased that Pothi.com, a Bengaluru (Bangalore) based company, is providing such great quality paperback printing facility on Print-On-Demand basis as well as self-publishing platform with associated Pothi.com web store selling the paperback book. So far I have paid Pothi.com only Rs.265+ Rs,85 (shipping) i.e. Rs.350 which was for this first paperback copy.

Prior to Print-On-Demand, self-publishing niche market books which may sell very few copies, was a big financial expenditure. Printers asked for 1000 copies or at least 500 copies order, which would cost lesser per copy - in this case perhaps it would cost maybe Rs. 100 per copy. But even 500 copies printing would have required me to cough up Rs.50,000! And then I would have the burden of storing all those copies and selling it. The printer would not provide any facility for selling the book.

Unlike my previous book on Vedanta and God & Science, I do not plan to promote this book much. So I may provide a few free copies only to close relatives, out of my gratitude for their love & support over decades. I think I would be providing less than 10 such copies. Therefore I expect my maximum expenditure on self-publishing this book to be in the range of Rs.5000.

If anybody wants to buy the book, I have to simply point them to the Pothi.com web store page. That's it!

I now have to decide whether I should make the Pothi.com web store page for this book public now itself, or whether I should wait till I explore ways of improving those grayscale pics that have been printed with dark shades in the book.
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Update:

I decided to make the Pothi.com store page for the paperback book public, even though I will explore ways of improving those grayscale images that have dark shades of grey when printed in the paperback book.

Here's the link: https://pothi.com/pothi/book/ravi-s-iyer-autobiography-indian-software-techie-and-spiritual-aspirant-%E2%80%93-part-1.

It ships only to India (due to me wanting to limit my indemnity legal exposure to India).
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17th May 2019 Update:

I decided to make the Pothi.com store page for the paperback book, private again. I need to first resolve this problem of dark shadows in prints of pics of letters in book.