How this Tamil language author found a wider audience

Words written in Tamil, heard by the readers of the world - the magic of self-publishing on Kindle!

If you have a Kindle, you have access to millions of books in a dozen languages thanks to Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. One of the rising stars on this wonderful platform is Vignesh C Selvaraj. The brilliant mind behind the book ‘குத்தாட்டம் போடச்செய்யும்'இசை: Article about Isai's Poetry’ took a few moments to tell us more about his journey to becoming a KDP author. Read on to learn more about this winner of the KDP Pen to Publish contest – Vignesh Selvaraj.

Every reader is always in awe of his favourite author and few of them even aspire to become one. One such story is that of Vignesh. When asked about his journey into the world of writing, Vignesh was quick to answer that continuous reading is what drove him to writing. Being an avid reader, Vignesh believes that one should pick up a book before they pick up a pen. Having read many books, he self learnt the flair of writing and he also zeroed down on his inspirations. He mentioned that S. Ramakrishnan's books and the works of other contemporary writers of Tamil literature inspired him to write.

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While Vignesh battled the thought that publishing a book was a task, he soon concluded that going to a publisher would also mean a lot of effort and time. He feared that while he would write well, not many people would have access to his books and he felt that publishing would also be an expensive affair. When he read about Kindle Direct Publishing he did seem startled initially and then thought of giving it a try. This talented young author learnt that publishing through the KDP was quick, as it did not have the hassle of going through a publisher and financially too - the safety net of not incurring a loss seemed like a lucrative benefit.

Vignesh is the first-generation graduate in his family and he did find it tough to convince his family that he dreamed of becoming a writer. With a mindset that becoming an author would not fetch him any money, his family was not very supportive of this decision until he told them that publishing through the KDP channel would not cost him even a single rupee. They remained apprehensive for a long time and once they saw him gain popularity online, they did feel proud.

For Vignesh, connecting with readers and receiving their feedback is very important. He believes that it is the readers who truly can understand him and he takes their feedback very seriously. While some of his readers comment on the Kindle directly, many of them communicate with him through social media, especially Facebook. He strongly believes that social media has helped him connect with writers and readers and he advises upcoming writers to publish their works through the KDP channel.

Being very excited about his upcoming works, he is more certain than ever that he will publish again using the KDP and nothing else. He firmly believes that KDP should be the channel for every writer to publish their work. While writers receive their feedback immediately, the channel also reaches out to a larger demographic within a short span of time.