A young girl begins her journey from Kolkata to Oxford University and settles in Delhi to establish her dream project. This achiever, Chiki Sarkar, is a believer. She believes publishing have always had a woman at the helm; if there isn't, probably they don't want it. Her belief and work in digital and phone publishing have reached out to more young and reluctant readers. As a voracious reader herself, she re-imagines the reachability and democratization of reading.
The Life besides Publishing:The 39-year old Chiki Sarkar is the daughter of Aveek Sarkar, the ex-three decade-old chief-editor of Ananda Bazar Patrika Group of publications. Born in the then Calcutta, a prominent reading hub of the country, Chiki was not only influenced by the reading culture, but profoundly by her father's (who in 1985 launched Penguin India as a joint venture with British Pearson group) interest in publishing.
At 16, she left India to study Modern History and English at the University of Oxford. Few days post her finals, she joined Bloomsbury Publishing as an editor.
Thus Begins the Journey of Words:After about a five year stint in London at Bloomsbury, Chiki joined as the editor-in-chief with Random House post some serious discussions with Sonny Mehta, a popular New York based editor and Gail Roebuck, Random House's chief executive. This decision in 2006 glided into the role of a publisher after the merger of Random House and Penguin India.
Being one of the few women at the helm of publishing industry, she had the unique blend of a literature, networking and marketing. Under her leadership, the house became the largest English language publisher releasing close to two hundred titles every year and four times of those as backlist titles.
She has always been bold in her approach. While she held the position of editor-in-chief, Penguin published 'The Accidental Prime Minister' that relished tons of critical acclaim, huge bashing from the Congress and a tool of campaign by the contesting Modi government.
Amongst all the juggling with words, she tied knots with Alex Travelli in November 2014. A year then after, she decided to move on as an entrepreneur.
The Juggernaut of Words:As often narrated by Chiki, an average book sells 3,000 copies at about a price of Rs. 299. Although a heap load of hard work goes behind traditional publishing, the readers for these books are few with a far fewer youngsters. During its inception in 2015 by Chiki and her 'partner-in-crime' and ex-CEO of Firstpost, Durga Raghunath, pledged to take care of the authors and do justice to them.
Sarkar believes in freedom of expression. In Juggernaut, apart from publishing more than 50 titles last year, it has created authors of some bold and beautiful personalities such as Sunny Leone to Shyam Bhatt.
Juggernaut has created a disruption in publishing moving from traditional books to e-books and now to phone books. Her platform also allows writers to publish books that has been bypassed by the editorial community.
The Golden Rules:From the days of her editorial stunt till she started her venture, the soon-to-be-mother and leading editor of her times, believes in four rules that every publisher must follow: it is important to choose what to say no to against the 'yes'es, edit the book sincerely, take care of the look of the book and care about your authors.
