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Indonesians are often perceived to have “poor reading habit” –What can an e-book service startup do to win such challenging market?

For a subscription-based e-book service startup, entering the Indonesian market is basically an uphill battle. Several reports had highlighted Indonesians’ poor reading habit –from a UNDP research to a recent study by Central Connecticut State University President John Miller– giving the impression that it was not an ideal target market for such service.

Apart from that, another source of concern is that only 27 per cent of Indonesians are willing to pay subscription for digital content services, such as music or video streaming –and perhaps even e-book service.

“I’d like to challenge you on both points,” says Bookmate Founder Simon Dunlop when he sat for breakfast with e27.

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“I keep hearing these things about Indonesians not being big readers, but first of all, there are a lot of Indonesians. And I think people today actually read more than ever, even if it’s just Facebook of Twitter, including Indonesians,” he explains.

Dunlop then cited the number of dead-tree books being published in the country each year, which falls at only 25,000 new titles per year.

“But if you expand the definition to include fan-fiction, self-published, long-form writings, blogs … I suspect it’s a very healthy situation. Reading is alive and well and growing just great in Indonesia,” he concluded.

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He also had the same optimism about Indonesian digital consumers’ willingness to pay for subscription, despite understanding the weakness in the country’s law enforcement that becomes a loophole for piracy.

“Perhaps the main issue with people not paying is that the services are not of sufficient quality. So, if you have a great experience on a service, which gives you wonderful books to read, and you’re presented with a way to pay for the services which is not difficult, not too expensive … Chances are you’ll pay for the services,” he says.

 

Social reading

Despite having only been in Indonesia for a year, Bookmate seems to have reasons to be optimistic about. Through its partnership with Indosat Ooredoo, which provides carrier billing payment method for the platform, it claims to have secured up to five million users in June 2016.

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When asked about the role of social media in attracting potential customers to Bookmate, Dunlop believes that it is “essential.”

“The mobile phone is a very good medium to use this social features because you’re very used to copy, paste, and liking and sharing all these things on your mobile phones, so we can take some of that behaviour and build this service around it, so it feels quite native,” he explains.

Bookmate’s features enabled users to arrange and showcase their personal collection based on different categories (“Bookshelves”); they are also able to give reviews and recommendation for fellow users.

“People started to become more than just readers, but also creators. And the creator is somebody that actually put something back into the service. It could be a review, an impression, an opinion, a shelf that they’ve made,” he adds.

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But social features are not the only secret to tackle the Indonesian market. There are different stakeholders using the Bookmate platform, such as readers (who are using the platform to look for books and connect with fellow readers and authors), writers (who are using the platform to build their fanbase), and publishers (who are monetising through the platform).

The wide variety of parties involved gives the startup plenty of room to foster partnership.

For example, when e27 arrived at the meeting place to talk to Dunlop, he was just done talking to Aulia “Ollie” Halimatussadiah, founder of KutuKutuBuku and Storial who is also a well-known author in Indonesia.

Dunlop hinted that there will be an upcoming new partnership with her and her companies.

“Next year we plan to work with brands that also have an interest around reading communities. What you read says a lot about you; like if you’re reading a lot of books around parenting, there is a likelihood that either you or someone close to you is about to have a baby. This can also be interesting for brands,” Dunlop says.

He then cited an example of a partnership with Airbnb in Bookmate’s other market. When Airbnb users receive the confirmation letter for their booking, they will also receive a list of books available in Bookmate that are relevant to the destination that they are going to.

In the future, Bookmate plans to expand its service by adding comics, Japanese manga, more self-publications, and even fanfiction.

“We are basically building an end-to-end platform for stories,” Dunlop closes.

The post Our users are becoming more than just readers, they are also creators: Bookmate founder Simon Dunlop appeared first on e27.

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