Dissatisfied by the shortage of bookstores in Split, two students decided to create a website that would help promote local writers
Two high school students from Split, Barbara Jurić and Ivan Benutić, came up with an ingenious idea: they created a website called FindRead that promotes young Croatian writers and their work.
The site gives young authors the opportunity to draw attention to their work by publishing it on FindRead, which then launches a promotion campaign on social media and in closed groups of writers and publishers operating all over the country, reports Slobodna Dalmacija on December 2, 2017.
FindRead is the first Croatian portal that allows for young writers to promote their work on the local market free of charge, and on their own. The innovative duo was inspired by a shortage of bookstores in Split, as well as by lesser-known talented authors who have no chance of promotion.
The idea came to life last winter, said Barbara and Ivan, seniors at Marko Marulić Gymnasium in Split. After they realised most unknown writers are trying to promote their work on Facebook, they came to a conclusion they should build a website that would take off some of the burden by making it easier for readers to find out about new talents on the literary scene.
“We bought the domain, acquired the funds we needed and launched the website in October. We noticed there were many great writers who put a lot of effort into their books, but end up failing because lately it’s become increasingly harder to reach a wider audience of readers. This portal aims to make that easier for them”, said Ivan, who’s maintaining the site and managing social networks. Barbara is managing the FindRead blog, while writer Andrea Tomić helps them to get in touch with other blogs and authors.
Here is how the site works:
“After the registration process is completed, every user gets their own profile where anyone can see all the work they published, but also the comments and reviews they have left on other users’ posts. Books are published by their authors who use a specially designed template. All the books are grouped according to genre and are first checked by the FindRead crew. After a book is published on the site, we get in touch with the author and decide on the way to promote the work in question. For example, it can be done by posting pictures featuring quotes from the book or by offering discounts”, explained the young innovators.
They didn’t stop there, instead deciding to reach out to Amazon. They managed to score a collaboration with Amazon’s IT department that is currently working on a solution that would enable the writers to include a link to purchase the books directly from the site.
In an age when bookstores are getting increasingly harder to keep afloat, the local literary scene needs all the help it can get in order to thrive. Bravo!
Browse the latest published works on FindRead here.
