Readers, this brand will get you heart-eyed!
In conversation with Booksom, a book merch brand.
If you've always wanted your room to smell like fresh paperbacks, the chances are that you'll love this brand. 😍
Booksom is a Pune-based brand that crafts literary merchandise like coasters, bags, book lamps, etc. Founded by Ambarish Ganesh, Ankita Katdare, and Bhuvan Kothari, Booksom is a hobby turned small business.
I caught up with Ambarish to find out what's up at Booksom — and all that readers can expect in the future. 👇
Can you tell me a bit about yourselves and what made you start Booksom?
We [Ankita (wife), Bhuvan (close friend), and I] started this as we believed India lacked meaningful book-themed gifting items, and a few items that were available had no connection to the theme. We once bought a Hogwarts candle that smelled like lemongrass! So, we decided to create a line of scented candles that closely resemble their fictional themes or settings — and that was one of the first product categories we started with in 2016.
Why the name Booksom?
"Books and then some more" was the plan. We finally narrowed it down to "Booksom" because it rhymed with wholesome and awesome (adjectives we were aiming for), and we believed it might be our marketing fuel. Later, a few friends commented the name sounded suggestive, but we already had the website domain and packaging set, so we went ahead.
Do you source or craft your products in-house?
We mostly manufacture our products in-house, except for socks and soaps, which we source from a certified soap manufacturer. As for curation, we experiment a lot — every time we have a new idea, we create a prototype and share initial pictures with our select customers with the pricing. If more than 50 per cent of these customers show interest, we create a small batch for sale. Depending on how that batch sells, we decide whether to create a new product category or remove it from our portfolio altogether. Everything you see on the website, from concept to design, good or bad, has been created by yours truly.
Shobhita Narayan, a marketing and PR manager, wore Booksom's Library Card socks on sangeet during her wedding.
What are your three bestselling pieces?
- Scented candles are our biggest sellers: New Paperback, Pile of Old Books & 221B Baker Street.
- Socks: Library card socks & PRIDE and Prejudice socks
- Tote bags
What's a typical day at Booksom, and how big is your team? Also, how do you manage your time between a day job and this?
Early mornings are dedicated to packing orders. Because delivery agents pick up orders in the afternoon, we wrap up packing procedures in the morning. Following that, we review our social handles to see if there is an order inquiry or a support request to respond. Ankita and I handle day-to-day admin/support and marketing responsibilities, and our domestic help assists us with order packaging majority of the time!
As for managing and restocking inventory, we do that weekend-to-weekend as needed. Bhuvan used to shortlist possible vendors or manufacturers for us earlier, but he moved out of the country a year ago for work. We don't spend more than half an hour per day on Booksom, so it's quite easy to balance with our day jobs.
What are your thoughts on #Bookstagram or #BookTok? Do you plan to collaborate with Bookstagram-mers?
The early traction we received was all thanks to #Bookstagram and #Booktok. We collaborated with some amazing Insta-influencers in the past like khubailbibliophile, ruqish, hellyblog, and others - and they've been instrumental in spreading the word.
I notice several names on your blog — do you have a team of writers, or do you accept posts from your users?
We have a team of excellent interns who share our interests, and some blogs have been explicitly written for Booksom by guests. We accept guest blogs if the topic is original and relevant to our readership!
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What are your plans for the future?
For one, we want to create a community or marketplace of bookish creators who create amazing merch and are willing to sell those through Booksom.
We're still figuring out the logistics. Also, there's an affiliate program that just went live to reward anyone who refers to Booksom products in their circle. The sole plan is for every bookworm to have purchased Booksom merch and for Booksom to survive long enough to see it happen.
What's one review that made your time building Booksom worth it?
Many! The response we received at Comic Con Mumbai was beyond amazing — it's a pity we could not capture the reactions on camera! There's a highlight section on our Instagram User Feedback where we've saved a few reviews. Also, there are tweets like these that make our day.
Have you ever launched a product that hasn't been tested with your select customers? Like trusting your gut feeling over user feedback?
Yes, the book-shaped coasters (because we wanted some for our house) and pendants (because we saw others offering similar things).
Bad part: Both these categories did not pick-up initially. Our first pendant sold after two weeks of launch, and the first coaster sold 40 days after the launch. We cursed ourselves for not gauging customers before launch as we had lots of inventory.
Good part: Some major publications started featuring these coasters and pendants, which spiked website visitors, and indirectly sales of our other products increased.
Best part: Coasters and pendants got a good reception at Comic Con Mumbai and Sunday Soul Sante Hyd. Custom pendants are one of our bestselling products right now (online + retail).
So that was my conversation with Booksom. You can shop from their website here and follow them on Instagram. They ship worldwide, so place that order and do up your desk.
I’ll be back with another story soon. 👋
Stuff I loved reading this week 👇