Queer-Ink, the first online bookstore of India which provide books on Gays, Lesbians, Hijra, transexuals and the lady who has opened this bookstore is herself is a lesbian. Shobhana kumar who is the founder of Queer-ink online bookstore says that she has opened this online bookstore website, as she herself could not get access to queer books and realised that others who are interested to queer kind of books cant get these books easily on the mainstream stores.
While speaking to the UNI TV, Founder- Director of Queer-ink Bookstore, Shobhana Kumar said,"Queer-Ink is India's first online bookstore that has non-mainstream, Queer which meaning anything that is non mainstream, that is not part of the society, that is alternative. We have Books, Arts and Dvd'sl anything to do with creativity, we just put it on our online bookstore and our large part of the collection is also reflects queerness in terms of sexuality which relates to Gay, Lesbian, Hijra, Transexual, intersex people as well. This online website is only about promoting creativity in terms of books, Arts and Dvd's"
When asked about, how many books available on the Queer-Ink website, she replied, At the moment, there are over 400 Titles in English and other Indian regional languages as well and each day we get a new title to put in there, so bookstore is growing by the day.
1. The need for opening this kind of bookstore website she said,"Generally a few years ago I broke my ankle, so doctor said me to have bed rest.So I was looking for the type of material that I want to read and I couldn't find it in normal mainstream Bookstore like Crossword or Landmark. I look for the books , trying to findout where I can get these books and I was not able to find it. Later, I started speaking to other friends about it and they also said that it is very difficult to get books like these and it's not available in one place. So the idea come about to actually why Don't I just start something online, where I can actually hold the entire collection and the other people will hopefully find it a lot easier to access these books."
2. What kind of problems you have faced and which makes you to start a online Book store, she said,"Basically the books were not available , the books are printed and published in India but they are not available in mainstream bookstore. They are not on the bookselves, so we won't able to access it and it's no someplace where we just go and have a look and say we want this book, it's not there and that was the only problem, it wasn't easily available and so I made this accessible to the people."
3. Are these books written by Indian authors or Foreign authors she explained,"All my books are from Indian authors, about 80 percent are published in India and about 20 percent of books are from overseas but that were also include Indians who live overseas as well.
4. What are the prices of these books, are these books affordable to the people, she said,"We give discount on the books, If MRP of the price of the book is Rs. 100 then we give discount up to 10 percent on the book . So there is a discount usually on the MRP of the books, if you buy it from our website."
5. Are these online books particularly about Gay Literature, She said,"There is a large collection of the books which concentrate on Gay, Lesbian, Hijra, Intersex issues and Lot of them have been published in India."
6. Do you have any future plan for opening a book store in Mumbai, She said,"No, not at the moment, I am not keen on opening a bookstore. It's not what Queer-Ink is all about because Queer-Ink is all about making books accessible in people's comfort zone and If I do open a book store in Mumbai than the people in Delhi don't get it and the people in the other cities don't get it. What I am doing it, that the book will available online and our offline event is basically bookfares, we have a successful book fares in Mumbai and now we taking the books to Bangalore to the end of this month and then also for pune."
7. In how many languages these books are available, she said,"the languages are English and Indian regional languages Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Kanadda and Bangla."
8. How many categories of books are available On Queer-ink, she replied, the Categories of books are Fictional, Non-fictional, academic books, autobiographies and coffee table books.
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