Storial Committed to Encourage Reading Literacy, Releases Book Printing Service

The reading literacy rate in Indonesia is still low. According to a 2016 UNESCO study, Indonesia is ranked 60th out of 61 countries in exhibiting reading habits. One of the problems is limited reading access.

In response to this issue, a local platform for digital writing and reading Storial. co initiate the presence of Storial Publishing. This is a book printing service that is eligible for publication after publication and gets high engagement on the Storial digital platform.

Chief Content Officer (CCO) Storial. co Brilliant Yotenega, who is fondly called Ega, explained that even though it started on a digital platform, Storial saw that there were still many readers in Indonesia who wanted to have printed books by their favorite authors. As a result, an initiative arose to release Storial Publishing.

"As a local platform, we see that there are still many readers in Indonesia who want to have their favorite printed books. Even though they have read the digital version, they want to collect the printed books as well," explained Ega to DailySocial.

He continued that not just any writer's work could be published by Storial. There are a number of curations, for example the number of comments on each chapter, the number of premium chapter buyers, the potential of the story as content that deserves to be enjoyed by the way the author is able to build engagement stably.

After that, it is submitted to the editorial team in charge of selecting further works by looking at the quality of the writing. For monetization, excluding administrative costs, the commission sharing from each project is 50:50 for Storials and authors.

"We are moving from digital to offline to present digitally published works so that they can be enjoyed physically. As literacy activists on digital platforms, we find many quality works in various written forms that are very readable."

The first project from Storial Publishing is Just You and Me by Titi Sanaria who is domiciled in South Sulawesi. This novel was chosen because it has the highest engagement in Storial throughout 2019. Ega targets at least one book in a month, Storial to publish.

"We will continue to publish books that high quality and high engagementon the Storial digital platform. Our target is to print at least one book per month."

All works published by Storial Publishing will be available in various bookstores throughout Indonesia and offered at affordable prices.

Since its introduction in 2016, Storial has had more than 100 thousand authors and readers with a total of 31 thousand stories consisting of 128 thousand chapters. 100 thousand of them Premium books.

"Storial Publishing is expected to provide alternative readings whose popularity has been validated, for the Indonesian people," concluded Ega.