Nandini and Nitin, the founders of Project Bibliotherapy, are visionaries driven by a profound passion for literature and a deep-rooted belief in the healing power of words. Their journey began with a shared realization of the transformative impact that books can have on individuals facing various challenges in life. Harnessing this insight, they embarked on a mission to create a platform where literature serves as a guiding light for those in need.
Project Bibliotherapy, born out of this labor of love, emerged onto the scene in March 2020, amidst a world grappling with uncertainty and adversity. However, Nandini and Nitin saw this as an opportune moment to introduce their innovative approach to healing through literature. They envisioned a space where individuals could find solace, inspiration, and guidance within the pages of a book.
At its core, Project Bibliotherapy is a manifestation of creative arts therapy, leveraging the power of literature to address a myriad of personal and emotional struggles. Whether it's dealing with anxiety, navigating grief, overcoming trauma, or simply seeking personal growth, the founders believe that there is a book for every journey and a story for every soul.
The concept of bibliotherapy, also referred to as book therapy, reading therapy, poetry therapy, or therapeutic storytelling, forms the cornerstone of their endeavor. Through curated reading lists, personalized book recommendations, and interactive storytelling sessions, Nandini and Nitin aim to foster a supportive community where individuals can explore the depths of their emotions and experiences through the lens of literature.
Their approach goes beyond mere escapism; it delves into the therapeutic potential of storytelling, allowing readers to confront, process, and ultimately transcend their challenges. By facilitating meaningful connections between readers and books, Project Bibliotherapy seeks to empower individuals on their journey towards healing and self-discovery.
What sets Nandini and Nitin apart is their unwavering commitment to accessibility and inclusivity. Recognizing the universal appeal of literature, they have worked tirelessly to ensure that their resources are available to readers worldwide, regardless of geographical or socio-economic barriers. Through online platforms, virtual workshops, and community outreach initiatives, they have succeeded in creating a global network of bibliotherapy enthusiasts, united by their shared love for books and their belief in the transformative power of storytelling.
As they continue to expand their reach and impact, Nandini and Nitin remain steadfast in their dedication to promoting mental health and well-being through literature. For them, Project Bibliotherapy is not just a project; it is a movement—a testament to the profound ways in which literature can shape and enrich our lives. And as they journey forward, guided by their passion and purpose, they invite readers everywhere to join them in discovering the healing magic of words.
1. Can you share the inspiration behind starting Project Bibliotherapy in 2020? What motivated you to create a reader-funded startup focused on building reading habits?
>Story began from 2017 onwards. Nitin has always been an avid reader since he was just 3 years old. He completed his engineering degree from Delhi College of Engineering, and got his MBA from FMS, Delhi. He has also been writing about his various experiences through life for a while now. After spending 7 years in sales for the Times Group and Britannia, Nitin decided to take a gap year to travel, and explore the world and discover himself in the process. During this time he also started writing a book, tentatively titled ‘Don’t Panic, Don’t Try’ which is still in progress.
The gap year stretched on as he read a ton of books and backpacked through several Indian states and countries.
In 2020, he first stumbled upon the term ‘bibliotherapy’ - coined during the times of World War 1, as a way for people to look to books as a way to provide comfort and improve their mental health. Faced with the pandemic, books helped immensely as a form of comfort and escape during that time. He decided to showcase what he read, and inspire others to read and that is how Project Bibliotherapy was born, on Instagram.
He also wrote blog posts and articles on stck.me that helped him develop an engaged and loyal following. There’s a whole world of nostalgia, trivia and magic associated with reading that was brought to life and can be seen in the archives on bibliotherapy.stck.me
In 2021, as the world opened up gradually, he came up with the idea for what is now our flagship offering as part of our membership plan, the Biblio42 zines.
Nandini has been a reader since she was 3 as well, and their paths converged in 2021, when she started helping with the Project.
She studied English Literature at Lady Shri Ram College and is a postgraduate in mass communication. She has over a decade of experience with social media, digital marketing and brand communication for companies like Yahoo, Chumbak, Livspace, PopSockets India and The Good Glamm Group. She also has been writing poetry and stories since childhood with a few published, and has a successful fashion blog started back in 2015 in Bangalore, Sartorial Secrets.
In 2022, she joined the Project full-time as its Storyteller-in-Chief/CMO which is also when Project Bibliotherapy was officially registered as a business entity.
2. How does Project Bibliotherapy differentiate itself from other initiatives promoting reading habits? What unique approach or features do you believe set your project apart?
>Our focus as a brand is on nudging people to read more and read better. We are not an app or a book club; we are a niche membership programme for Rs. 2000/$25 a year, that promotes reading habits in 3 ways.
As curators of the best reads available out there: whether they are articles, essays, poetry, books, or webcomics. We curate diverse reads, across cultures, perspectives and topics that are universally interesting. Our vast experience as readers and writers plays a large role in this.
As a community: We bring people together, whether they want to get into reading, or whether they already are readers. Reading, to us, isn’t just a solitary activity. Our ‘Reader Experiences’ are created exclusively keeping this in mind.
As writers ourselves: who want to write pieces that inspire or entertain people (or both!). We are working on a suite of publications on the popular platform Substack, on varied topics, which will be available exclusively to Readers of 42.
This focus on reading and curation with the community sets us apart. We focus on the act of reading and the art of following your curiosity to find reads that work for you, while sharing reads and books from our journey so far to inspire others.
More details on our Razorpay link here:
3. Can you elaborate on the term "reader-funded" and how it plays a role in the sustainability and growth of Project Bibliotherapy? How do contributors benefit from supporting your initiative?
>We are Reader-funded in the sense that we do not have investors or any other individuals funding us at the moment. Our Readers of 42 subscription helps support everything that we do.
Contributors can support us in two ways: helping us spread the word, and signing up for a membership or gifting memberships to someone in their life, or to their organisations/institutions here.
4. Building a reading habit can be challenging for many individuals. How does Project Bibliotherapy address the diverse needs of both beginners and those looking to enhance their reading skills?
>Our 42 Good Reads zine is designed keeping these diverse needs in mind. We spend months conducting research on different topics, authors and writing formats to curate and include in each volume. We plan to come up with 4 Volumes of the zine every year.
We recommend articles, essays, think-pieces, poems, short stories, sometimes excerpts too, from authors spanning classic and contemporary time periods, from all over the world and India as well.
Along with each read, we’ve also curated videos, podcasts and other forms of media, to supplement your reading.
At the end of each page, we have a short journaling prompt related to what you have just read.
Right from the topics covered and the quality of pieces shared, to the easily accessible format, the 42 Good Reads zine is essentially a workbook that members can refer to as a way to a) make reading a daily habit and add it to their routine without spending too much time (each read takes between 5 to 15 mins to complete) b) learn a lot more about the author and topics covered with the extras mentioned above c) participate in our online monthly Readathons d) meet other Readers at our offline events and engage at a deeper level with us and these reads there.
5. What types of resources and support does Project Bibliotherapy offer to its users? Are there specific reading programs, tools, or methodologies that you've found particularly effective in encouraging consistent reading?
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Our 42 Good Reads of the Internet zine is the first step we offer to our readers to build or enhance their reading habit.
The second step is our monthly Readathons. Starting from the 1st to the 14th of each month, we send out a mail at 6:42am every morning to our Readers, from our Substack. The mail has one read from our zines handpicked for reading. It serves as a reminder or a nudge to pick up something to read daily.
We also have a free group (open to all) called Frood for Thought, in collaboration with fellow internet explorer Deepak Chuck Gopalakrishnan, where we scour the internet and share one interesting read everyday with our subscribers.
Our Guided Reading Meditations serve as a tool to help people take one hour of their time to sit, let go of all distractions and read silently as we read aloud to them in a calm, quiet environment (usually a bookstore).
Our newsletter, Letters to the Readers of 42 is how we communicate with our Readers. We send interesting recommendations, share what we are building or up to, talk about topics pertaining to reading and also curate events related to books and reading that people can add to their calendars to enrich their lives further.
All of these tools have three purposes: one, to build consistency, to build accountability for your reading habit, and two, to turn reading into an experience you truly enjoy and look forward to in life. Where it’s no longer something you ‘have to’ do, but something you want to do, and therefore take time out to do.
6. In what ways has Project Bibliotherapy evolved since its inception in 2020? Are there any notable milestones, challenges, or lessons learned that you'd like to share?
>Since 2020, we have learnt a lot about the ecosystem reading exists in: publishing, books, events and authors. We have experimented with a lot of different kinds of tools and features, taken feedback from well-wishers, authors and readers and evolved to reflect that. From being a place where we just shared what we read, we have grown to be a niche community that wants to help you read more and read better.
We are very grateful to all the people that have been part of our journey so far, and to our Readers for believing in us :)
Milestones:
We launched the very first zine in July 2021. We did a ‘zine drop’ where we posted on social media about hiding the zine at various locations - across bookstores in Delhi and Bangalore that year, for people to find and discover us. This helped with building a lot of the initial awareness.
We took the zine to the Jaipur Literature Festival in 2022, and introduced it to the Teamwork Arts team and also met authors at the book signings. We presented them with a copy of the zine for them to read and received a lot of encouragement from them.
We also got featured in an article in the New Indian Express in 2022, and received a lot of appreciation and mentions by authors we have been reading for years: this made us feel like we were on the right path.
In 2022, we met the team at Kunzum, headed by Ajay Jain and Subir Dey, who have been a big part of all that we do. The bookstores have served as our favourite venue for our events and they have also been strategic partners for us with our common goal of getting the world to read more. We organize a monthly event with them now, called the Kunzum-Biblio Bash.
We introduced the Project to Roshan Abbas, founder of Kommune in 2022, when he chanced upon us at the Bombay Zine fest and he contributed to us, as well as gave us valuable advice on how to structure and go about things. He also invited us to Spoken 2022, where our zine was part of the gift bags given to artists. He has been kind and encouraging ever since that time.
The Bombay Zine Fest has been a key factor in our journey, and their team has been super nice to us with helping spread the word. We love setting up there. In 2023, the good folks at Nautilus@Candies Bandra, who were the venue partners, also helped us get the word out in Mumbai.
We had the chance to collaborate with the Jaipur Literature Festival in a small capacity starting in 2023, from creating collaborative posts on Instagram to filming a tour of the Festival Bookstore, and covering the festival as Guest Delegates.
We did a radio interview with RJ Sarthak from 94.3 Radio One on his segment ‘Startup Stories’ in June 2022 where he talked to us about our journey.
We had the opportunity to showcase what we do at events organized by leap.club (who have been very encouraging and supportive of what we do from the start), Gaysi Family and the Goethe Institut, and have plans to do a lot more.
One of our favourite authors, Nilanjana Roy, came to one of our early events with Kunzum and posted about us on her Instagram. Manjula Padmanabhan, whose work we grew up with, recommended our newsletter on her Substack.
We were invited to the award ceremony for the prestigious JCB Prize for Literature by the JCB Foundation, which was a wonderful experience.
Challenges:
Our main challenge initially was with streamlining our offering to offer the most value to our readers, which we overcame by constant experimentation, and changing or tweaking what didn’t work, while building on what worked, and also taking feedback from various stakeholders - from Readers, to well-wishers, to authors and publishers.
We also were trying to figure out how to reach more people and spread the word. What worked well for us in this regard was overcoming the initial hesitation to self-promote, and also to fully immerse ourselves in all the activities and events in this space to help our research and meet relevant people who could help us spread the word.
We are a two-member team, and we intend to keep it a lean operation as far as possible to enable greater focus on creating and building for our Readers. This has been challenging to manage as work increases, so we now are open to working with volunteers, vendors and partners for aspects like design, photography, managing events and more.
Lessons:
Things take their own time: In today’s world led by quick wins, instant gratification and goals for unbridled growth at the cost of mental health and happiness, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed or like things aren’t progressing at the pace that they should. While building the Project, we’ve had a lot of stress and disagreements around things apparently not working fast enough. But with experience comes wisdom. So we have gradually begun to realise that things take their own time, and happen when they have to. That’s not a bad thing at all. One must trust in the timing.
Serendipity plays a larger role than we think: The very foundation of the Project is serendipity. The way the idea came to be, how it developed, how we met personally and decided to build this while spending life, the universe and everything together - all of it happened because of serendipity. A lot of the people we’ve met and the opportunities that have come our way have also happened when we just flowed with life and embraced it.
Reading isn’t going anywhere: A lot of popular media has been saying that ‘reading is dead’ in the wake of social media and other distractions. In our experience though, this was said during the advent of TV too and before that. We think that while life will keep changing and tech will keep evolving; the fundamental human drive to read, no matter what the medium, will endure. The evidence is in the crazy crowds we’ve seen at bookshops, literature festivals, book sales and get-togethers like Delhi Reads (comprising mostly Gen Z!) and Cubbon Reads. Reading isn’t going anywhere. Reading habits are evolving though and we’re glad to play a role in aiding that.
Community is key: At the heart of everything, despite social media and Zoom, the fundamental human need to connect with people still endures. We plan to build on this and make reading an experience that people enjoy with other like-minded folks, rather than just a solitary activity.
Curation solves a lot of problems: Oftentimes, with both regular readers and new ones, the sheer volume of books being churned out and content being created is very overwhelming. Add to that the fast-paced lives we live, and you have people who give up because they don’t know where to begin. Curation is a way to filter out the chaff and share gems that people will connect with and love reading, and that’s the core of what we do.
7. How do you envision the future of Project Bibliotherapy? Are there upcoming features, partnerships, or expansion plans that you can give us a glimpse of?
>We want to focus on building up our Readers of 42 base globally and streamlining our Reader Experiences to host them online as well, and in other cities.
We also have plans for other services in the works that we can offer related to reading, which we are currently working on.
8. Building a startup often involves collaboration and teamwork. Can you shed light on the roles each of you play in the project, and how your individual strengths contribute to the overall success of Project Bibliotherapy?
>As the Storyteller-in-Chief, Nandini takes care of branding, marketing, communications, writing, Reader Experiences and social media. As the Reader-in-Chief, Nitin is responsible for Readers of 42 outreach, expanding our Readers of 42 base, managing the newsletter, creating the zines, and curating the events calendar. We both end up supporting each other’s endeavours, though. It’s a joint effort. Our individual strengths (digital marketing, writing, startups & social media/sales, writing, curation & people skills) and extensive prior experience play a significant role here.
9. How do you measure the impact of Project Bibliotherapy on its users? Are there any success stories or feedback from participants that stand out to you?
>We encourage our Readers to share their experiences with us in the form of written notes, or comments, on social media as well as during events. We have also started recording short clips of Readers telling us their experience so far.
A few things we’ve heard from Readers: they love the way we curate the zines, and one of them looks forward to our recommendations during our monthly Readathons everyday as she gets into office. At our events, we’ve heard that they love the atmosphere that’s created, and the way we engage attendees. We also ran into someone who appreciated the Frood for Thought group that Nitin and Deepak (Chuck) Gopalakrishnan run together for helping her build a daily reading habit.
Huge thanks to Roshan sir, Ajay and Subir at Kunzum, Nilanjana Roy, Sanjoy Roy, Ananth Padmanabhan, Hemali Sodhi, and Manjula Padmanabhan as well as a host of other people, for appreciating what we do and helping spread the word in the literary community.
10. As founders, what advice would you give to individuals who are passionate about promoting literacy and building reading habits? Are there any key lessons you've learned along the way that you would like to share with aspiring entrepreneurs in the education and literacy space?
>Immerse yourselves in the world of reading, literary/reading events and follow your curiosity. Let it lead you to better ways of reading and encouraging others to read. Connect at a genuine level with everyone in the reading ecosystem and find ways to match synergies and collaborate as much as possible. Encourage kids to read in your neighbourhood or if you have kids, in your kid's schools. Develop creative ways to encourage learning that merge the digital and the physical worlds. Above all, stay true to your values and be passionate about what you do.
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