Kompas Group’s Gramediana Hints at Emulating Amazon’s Kindle Business Model?

Image source credit: wired.co.uk

Indonesian publishing giant Kompas Group launched its digital publishing service Gramediana in beta last month. With the amount of capital and connections that Kompas Group has, Gramediana can well be the one to beat in terms of Indonesian publishing services. Plus, it’s planning to launch its own tablet. To find out more, we talked with Gramediana manager Rio Eka Putra about its ambitions and upcoming plans.

There are three main parts to Gramediana’s services, explains Rio. First is to sell e-books and printed books (via print on demand). Second is a place for writing and publishing independent books. Third is a community for authors, publishers, and readers. At the moment, Gramediana offers the first feature, while the second and third aspects will be released in April.

(Related: NulisBuku Responds to new Rivalry from Gramediana)

The team aims to collect 15,000 titles, 5,000 Twitter followers, and 1,000 Facebook fans, and hit the top 5,000 local rankings on Alexa. Though there is no mention about profits yet, the targets look feasible when you consider who’s backing the company. Gramediana’s name alone can attract a lot of people and authors to jump onboard.

Interestingly, Gramediana plans to launch a cheap tablet where people can access its books. There are no further details given about this, but it sounds like the company wants to emulate Amazon’s Kindle business model: offering free books on those tablets, and then encourage people to purchase more books within the gadget. This is in-line with Gramediana’s vision, which is, as Rio puts it, “Gramediana is built to transform the book industry in Indonesia from printed to digital editions.”