6th December ‘Bookworm Sharing Happiness’
In the desperate times of need, when Pakistan’s still facing serious illiteracy issues and the literacy rate is just 56%, there are people who are working to better this situation for they know education is the key for solution of every problem of Pakistan. Mohammad Asad Khan is such enthusiast with an aim of restoring reading culture in Pakistan, with a broader intention of strengthening its literacy rate. Recently graduated, he runs a successful business and is a proud owner of ‘Bookworm Pakistan’, a new company that is online based and is a service provider for all the readers and authors of Pakistan and globally.
I had an invigorating and candid tête-à-tête with Asad Khan recently. Here is what he had to say.
Q: What Bookworm basically does?
Asad: Bookworm basically is online portal deliverance system where we allow people to get the books that they want on their doorsteps. It is run by students of Bahria University. You can ask for anything. Curriculum books, Medical books, Fiction, Old Classics (English and Urdu and other languages as well), Biographies and Autobiographies, anything except the books that are banned. With that we have book clubs and also provide the facility of swapping- where users can swap their books with each other. But this is just our work. To satisfy our hunger of creating a reading culture, we are in the mainstream field too and are setting up reading booths and lounges in the private commercial areas of Pakistan. Basically the original idea was to implement this onto public areas like setting up reading booths on train stations and bus stands but since our country does not have proper infrastructure, we had to limit ourselves. We have a proper reading setup in Avari, Delfrio and in some universities that aims to provide the readers peaceful and wonderful reading environment.
Q: How did you come up with business relating books?
Asad: Books have always been the love of my life and since I was doing BBA, entrepreneurial studies made me believe that I could really do something with books. In this age of technology when there is phenomena of e-book and other modern ways, I want people not to forget the crispness of the pages, the smell and charm of books for it is valuable to me and I believe it must be for other readers as well. I want them to keep on reading and discovering the magic between the pages.
Q: So how this small idea took off and what were the problems?
Asad: Being an entrepreneur student, we are taught so many things which I believe are irrelevant. Instead of learning things practically we just learn the things factually or just simply ratafy everything. All those stats and graphs that we study never makes an impact and running a business in real is a lot harder and different than the picture painted by our teachers and education system. So this was the biggest problem in my way for I at the initial level had no idea where to begin from. Then there were some problems during the secondary stages of our business which we, Bookworm, tried not to concentrate much on and resolved them quickly. These small problems come in everything I believe and are part of every business for it helps to build up a system which works accurately and faultlessly. Problems were like, people used to order books and then they used to refuse orders. By that the whole sum of money we had spent on the delivery, used to get wasted. This was at first a huge problem but we tried to take it as nothing and remained cool about it, for we wanted to get the trust of our readers, that no matter how and what they will want, we will make sure to deliver it to them. Without some degree of trust, success was nearly impossible.
Q: Do you have support system within the business community?
Asad: Yes totally, big players like ‘Liberty’, ‘Oxford’ and ‘Kitabein’ are supporters of our company. Plus we are involved with the Karachi book organization club that supports us during different literature festivals and at other times. So I must acknowledge the support which indeed is a great deal for us.
Q: What is the best thing ever happened?
Asad: Best things happen almost every day; when our followers appreciate us and our deliveries in the form of sweet thank you notes. This really makes my and my team’s day and gets our moral high. Recently we made a successful delivery to Shikarpur and had delivered Holy Quran in Gujarat and it’s good to know that people living in far flung areas are now doing what we want them to do and that is they are reading!