BENGALURU: Even as the city is witnessing a number of literature festivals over the last few years, the business literature fest has managed to create an audience of its own. “Business literature in India in the last 10 years has come into its own. Good business and management books have been written, especially by business leader-turned authors like Gurcharan Das, R Gopalakrishnan, Subroto Bagchi. Yet, literature festivals in India have been neglecting this genre or not giving enough importance,” says Benedict Paramanand, the man behind this fest.
The result has been the Bangalore Business Literature Festival hosting over 60 authors, which Paramanand says is a significant achievement. “We focus on the business literature genre, which no one else does. That’s the key differentiator. We also run it like a for-profit social business. We don’t depend on donations of a few patrons but charge a very nominal fee. We are able to rope in all players from the ecosystem and make them feel that they co-own it,” he says.
With Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy being one of the speakers on his vision for a better India, this year’s sessions,to be held on Sept.7 at WeWork Galaxy on Residency Road, include ‘Demystifying Entrepreneurship through literature’ which will hear out the stresses entrepreneurs go through, which Paramanand says is “especially relevant in the backdrop of Cafe Coffee Day’s V G Siddhartha’s episode.”
Other segments include ‘What entrepreneurship really means’ which hopes to bust assumptions around it, and one on self-publishing disrupting the book publishing industry, which will see CEO of Notion Press Naveen Valsakumar discuss the matter.
In a world of multiple channels, Paramanand finds reaching out to target audience the biggest challenge. “Social media channels are becoming less effective compared to even two years ago,” he says, adding that the “good problem is that have too many authors wanting time to speak at the fest.”
In the next couple of years, they hope to be able to afford well-known international speakers, and have many mini biz lit fests in areas that are at the intersections such as technology-business, business-sustainability, entrepreneurship-intrapreneurship.