Over the last couple of years, our team at Pratham Books has been focussing on creating simple and engaging picture books that explore STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) concepts. There is a dearth of interesting information books for early readers in India - especially across Indian languages – and we have actively been trying to bridge that gap. Within two years, we have created around 300 multilingual STEM books (available for free on www.storyweaver.org.in), and also set up STEM libraries around the country.

Having had such a strong focus on STEM, we were delighted to be invited by The Asia Foundation to participate in their e-book hackathon in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, which was aimed at creating openly-licensed STEM books in their local language. Like in India, there are very few children’s books in Cambodia that explore STEM topics imaginatively, and the hackathon was a step towards reducing that gap. Over two days (Aug 19-20, 2017), several local writers, illustrators and designers collaborated to make picture books that were centred around STEM topics. The ‘Let’s Read E-book Hackathon’ was also an attempt at identifying young professionals in the publishing sector, and nurturing their skills.

 

My role, as an editor from Pratham Books, was to offer editorial guidance over the 2-day event. I got the opportunity to discuss some of the key observations that we had made at Pratham Books while creating STEM-based picture books. In essence: what are the crucial things to bear in mind while creating STEM books for early readers, and what works. Here's what Melody Zavala (Director, Books for Asia) said about the hackathon, "The Asia Foundation uses 'e-book hackathons' to drastically reduce the time and resources needed to produce beautiful, illustrated children’s books on topics missing from the commercial market. We were thrilled to draw on Pratham Books’ experience with STEM titles. In Cambodia, only 3 percent of university students choose to study STEM subjects, according to the Ministry of Education, Youth & Sport. We hope this can be changed by stimulating interest at a young age through fun storybooks."

It was fascinating to watch writers and illustrators work so closely, constanly exchanging ideas and refining the narrative as they progressed. We watched as illustrators brought characters to life, developed storyboards along with their writers, and sketched eye-catching book covers. While the foundations of the book were being laid out, many fundamental questions were tossed around, which eventually helped each story evolve: Is the the title too revealing? Did the perspective of each illustration make sense? Is the illustration merely reflecting the text, or is there scope for additional detail?

 

Interacting with an enthusiastic group of writers, editors, illustrators and designers gave me plenty of time to reflect on the entire book-creation process, and I returned home feeling rather inspired and rejuvenated. Helping create simple and fun STEM books at Pratham Books has been both challenging and full of discovery, so it was gratifying to be able to share those experiences with others who are also trying to make reading more inclusive. It was also heartening to see some of the Pratham Books titles being distributed at the event and that too, in their local language! The Asia Foundation team had translated several of our titles into Khmer. As a multilingual publisher, nothing gives us more joy!

 

The 8 local-language books that were created during the 2-day Hackathon will soon be available for free on Let’s Read! - a digital platform that empowers underserved communities in Asia to build digital libraries in their own languages.
You can read more about the STEM hackathon here.

This post was written by Yamini, a Consultant Editor at Pratham Books who represented Pratham Books at the 'Let's Read! E-book Hackathon' in Cambodia.

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Pratham Books is a not-for-profit children's book publisher that was set up in 2004 to publish good quality, affordable books in many Indian languages. Our mission is to see ‘a book in every child’s hand’ and we have spread the joy of reading to millions of children in India.

In the last 13 years we have published over 3000 books and printed over 14 million copies and 16 million storycards. Last year Pratham Books' increased its footprint by going digital. As an industry leader we were one of the first publishers in the country to open license our content. All this content in now available on StoryWeaver, our digital platform that hosts stories in 59 languages. The stories can be read, translated, versioned or downloaded for free. With both the print and digital initiatives being scaled, Pratham Books is looking for a Studio Manager to take the lead of its print, production and digitization processes.

Job Description

As a Studio Manager you will be driving the management of a busy studio that can change from a quiet environment to one full of freelancers and multiple projects all running at the same time. Your job will be to manage the studio and production schedules as well as the day to day administrative responsibilities of running the studio of a reputed publishing house. 

This is a job that requires attention to detail, organisation and time management. Clear communication and multitasking skills are a must. We require an individual who is motivated, knows how to manage the requirements of book production that can require multiple cycles of reviews and adaptations for different platforms. Ability to prioritize workload to manage the studio schedule within the budgetary requirements. 

You will work closely with the Editorial team to ensure timely delivery of all aspects of production for print and digital books -  from layouts to pagination, optimizing image quality and proofreading to readying artworks, uploading digital books and QC (quality checking). 

Key Responsibilities

• Coordinate with editorial groups to create the final files for production of both print and digital formats of our books

• Upload the digital books on StoryWeaver

• Prioritize and manage timely output

• Supervise the design and production team

• Develop work procedures, establish quality standards and be responsible for releasing the final files

• Schedule daily studio workload, coordinate approvals from different teams, manage version control etc

• Train and monitor studio staff in all relevant skill areas.

• Liaison with cross functional teams

• Maintain an efficient  archiving system

• Maintain accurate records of work in progress for billing  

Must have

• Experience of working within a creative agency / publishing house

• A working knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite 

• Experience in leading a mid-size team consisting of layout artists, DTP, Photoshop and artwork people

• References to previous work 

Pay: Subject to level of previous experience

Location : Bangalore

Interested candidates are requested to send in their resume to [email protected]

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At StoryWeaver we're always thinking of new ideas and features that will be of use to our community. Sometimes, these are in response to requests from our users (like when we added the 'Created by Children' tag, that allows young authors to create their own stories and then see their names on the cover page of their book) and sometimes, we envisage an idea that our users don't even know they need yet!

Our new 'embed' function falls into the second category. All the content on StoryWeaver is openly licensed under the most liberal Creative Commons license, CC-BY4.0 allowing users to read, translate, share and print the stories and images for free. However, till now, users could only share stories via a url. We decided to explore adding an embed function so that users could embed StoryWeaver titles onto their  websites or personal blogs, so that the reading experience is contained to their site. 

 

The new embed icon

How to embed stories from StoryWeaver

1. Decide on which story (or stories) you want to embed on your website or blog. Let's choose 'नागमोडी नागोबा'. Click on the story card.

2. Look for the embed icon on the story details page. See the screen shot attached. 

3. Click on the icon. A small window will pop up with html code. Copy the code to your clipboard. 

4. On your blog or website, look for the Source button or HTML button on the 'new post' page. Paste the html code here. 

5. Go back to your text editor and finish writing your amazing post. 

6. Click on Publish.

7. Voila! Your blog post with an embedded story is now ready to share and dazzle the world with!

Here's how the story will appear on your blog or website once embedded:

 

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