For digital publishing platforms, often the real reason for not supporting a particular script is not enough business to implement that encoding format, but that argument, the author feels, is invalid here.
In this scenario, it is pretty puzzling to me why they would ignore Kannada,” questions the author. A large number of them are also well-off and tech-savvy - the kind of people most likely to buy e-books and Kindle devices. Kannada has a strong and vibrant literary tradition and has a huge readership base not just in Karnataka but elsewhere in India and abroad.
Just look at DailyHunt, which are giving digital access to Indian language content to a huge number of people. “Regional language newspapers and publications have huge reach. They clearly feel Amazon is meting out stepmotherly treatment to Kannada despite being headquartered in India in Bengaluru. The Kannada Sahitya Parishat, a body representing Kannada authors, has been speaking to newspapers and other media outlets about Amazon ignoring Kannada even as it gears up to launch e-books in other Indian languages. Meanwhile, the issue has assumed political overtones. Cover of the book Aidu Paise Varadakshine “I have written to them asking for an explanation, but haven’t received any response yet.”įactorDaily has also reached out to Amazon, asking for its views on the matter, but is yet to hear from them. Also, as I understand, they are planning to introduce Indian languages in a phased manner, starting with languages such as Gujarati, Marathi and Hindi, and they may have felt this wasn’t fitting in with their plans,” says Vasudhendra.
“From what I understand, they have a lot of protocols, such as every book should have dictionary support, the font has to be directly supported by Kindle etc. The book went online around August 1, and was receiving good reviews including readers who were “excited to see Kannada on Kindle”, when Vasudhendra got an email from Amazon saying there was an error in the book and it was being removed from Kindle. I felt we were helping to see Kannada into the digital age,” Vasudhendra told FactorDaily in a telephonic interview.
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Given that most Kannada readers who are tech-savvy enough to read on digital devices would find it pretty simple to follow these instructions, I thought we had found a good solution rather than using the clumsy workaround of uploading pdf files. “In fact, those using the Kindle app on iPhones or iPads could skip this as the text would appear directly on their screens. Users who bought and downloaded the books on to their Kindle devices or Kindle apps on their smartphones received a set of simple instructions that would help them easily access the Kannada text on their devices. Vasudhendra was unhappy with the rendering of books in this format, as this essentially means pages of the book are converted into images, thereby losing essential features like word wrapping and the ability to change font size, which make reading on an e-book reader an enjoyable experience.
Since Kindle doesn’t support the Kannada font, most authors upload PDF versions of the printed books. Which is why when Vasudhendra, who’s written the novel Harichitta Satya (The Infallibility of Divine Will) and collections of short stories and essays, wanted to publish his latest book, Aidu Paise Varadakshine (5 Paise Dowry), a collection of personal essays, on the Kindle digital platform, he didn’t go the usual route that Kannada authors take when they want their books to be part of the Amazon Kindle library.
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Before turning to writing full time, he was a software professional for 20 years, and held a top position at Genisys Software. The author of 13 books graduated from what today is National Institute of Technology, Surathkal, and has a postgraduate degree in engineering from Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru. Kannada author Vasudhendra (he uses only one name professionally) is not a technology n00b.