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span class="inline inline-left">Success story: On nulisbuku.com's first anniversary, the books they published were on displayDesperate aspiring writers may finally be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel in terms of publishing their work, with the help of new online self-publishing services.

A number of self-publishing websites now offer solutions at little or no cost for people dreaming of becoming writers. These sites can turn people into writers in only a few clicks.

Wannabe writers only need to submit their manuscripts online and the websites will turn their writing into books.

One of the young writers taking such a path is Navika Anggun.

Having dreamed of becoming a writer since elementary school, she is now the author of two books.

Vika, as she fondly known, will publish her first book, Moment for Love, through nulisbuku.com, which claims to be the first online self-publishing website in Indonesia.

The 23-year-old told The Jakarta Post that she chose the self-publishing route because she was afraid of being rejected by conventional publishers.

“I consider this a stepping stone before going to big publishers. I want to learn,” said Vika, who will soon have her book published by a major publishing company.

But writers whose works are rejected can also opt for the self-publishing path to secure another chance at publication.

Twenty-five-year-old Rohani Sya-waliah received her second chance from nulisbuku.com.

Hailing from a remote city in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, Rohani (known as Hani by family and friends) knew that there was little chance of her book being published, a conclusion reached after efforts to contact big publishers came to naught.

“I didn’t want to be traumatized by my first work being turned down and end up not writing. Writing is too precious for me. So I had to find a way to publish it myself,” Hani explained.

Transformed from an aspiring writer to an actual one, Hani is now the author of two books, her first, Memamah Jantungmu (Munching Your Heart), winning the 2011 Borneo Book Award in the fiction category.

More established writers who have already published their books with major publishers also admit advantages to self-publishing online.

“Self-publishing is easier and provides bigger royalties for new writers who are still sidelined by conventional publishers,” said 32-year-old Surabaya-based writer Lala Purwono,

Do-it-yourself (DIY) publishing websites, added Lala, also put young writers in a good bargaining position when facing big publishers.

“They will look up to you knowing you have published books before,” said Lala, who has penned eight books, seven of them through online self-publishing.

Self-publishing is not new in Indonesia. Prominent writer Dee Lestari introduced the concept to the public with her successful trilogy of novels in early 2000.

However, Dee’s route has not been popular among young writers because of the costs associated with it, which can reach to the tens of millions of rupiah.

But with advances in technology, specifically the Internet, new hope has arrived for unfortunate writers.

Rapid progress with the Internet and printing technology has spurred the existence of online DIY publishing in Indonesia in the past two years.

Self-publishing websites such as evolitera.com, nulisbuku.com and leutikaprio.com have become favorites among budding writers operating with minimal budgets.

Nulisbuku.com and evolitera.com almost don’t charge anything for new writers seeking publication.

People registering on nulisbuku.com are only required to upload their manuscripts onto the site. Then the site’s administrators prepare a prototype and ask for the writer’s final edits before displaying the publication on the website. The manuscripts are published as books upon request.

“Writers almost don’t need to spend at all. We only charge for the prototype we send,” said one of nulisbuku.com’s initiators, Aulia “Ollie” Halimatussadiah.

The reason nulisbuku.com charges so little is because its main concern is to assist writers, the 28-year-old explained.

“Writers nowadays want to write as much as possible, so we handle the rest,” Ollie said.

Established in October of 2010, nulisbuku.com is the biggest online self-publishing site in Indonesia, with more than 1,000 published books.

Apart from nulisbuku.com is Evolitera, which includes a free minor editing consultation with their services.

Having published more than 300 books, Evolitera may be suited to green writers because it does not print books but rather publishes them online.

More commercial is Yogyakarta-based leutikaprio.com, which offers its services in packages ranging between Rp 500,000 (US$54.50) and Rp 2 million.  

The online publisher, which has already published 350 books, even provides an additional promotional service at an extra fee of Rp 750,000 for writers hoping for coverage.

Even though the number of books being published hints at a promising business in the future, none of the self-publishers mentioned here have made profits their priority.

“We want to promote Indonesian literature by assisting new writers publishing their works,” leutikaprio.com business development manager Aulia Azzahra said.

Nulisbuku.com also shares the same idea. It doesn’t want to see the brilliant minds of young creative writers go to waste.

Eduardus Christmas, the founder of Evolitera, sees bright prospects in the business, even if his initial reason for getting involved in self-publishing was to accommodate his writer friends that were unable to get published.

Eduardus believes the popularity of e-books and the increasing number of cheap tablets will propel the online self-publishing business forward.

Spotting good business ahead, a number of major publishers have even started to jump on the bandwagon, Mizan being at the forefront.

Representing the big names, Kompas Gramedia believes that the trend is indeed heading in a DIY-publishing direction.

“It is inevitable due to freedom of expression that has been facilitated by the Internet,” Gramedia Pustaka Utama executive director Wandy S. Brata told the Post.

That’s why Kompas is preparing a special portal for self-publishing, he added.

But as the country’s biggest publishing company, Kompas doesn’t seem to be in a rush. It still doesn’t have a clear schedule of services.

Wandy said that this unclear timetable was due to Kompas still strongly believing in the power of conventional publishing and the values attached to that, which were not yet available in the online world.

“Apart from networking, writers go to conventional publishers because they seek credibility. The feeling of recognition will be different between those writers whose works are published by conventional publishers and those who publish their own works,” Wandy said.

Yet, looking at the hard work of young aspiring writers like Vika, Hani and Lala in publishing their books, the public may conclude that credibility is something that people create for themselves, not earn.