Anubhav Jain and Dhruv Bhushan, Co Founders OurOwnBook.com

“OurOwnBook.com is an innovative collaborative book writing online venture which gives its members an opportunity to see their name in print as co-authors of a book. It provides its users with a plot which they collaboratively take forward in the form of a story duly edited and directed by the founders of OurOwnBook.com.” said the creators of OurOwnBook.com.

“The idea of OurOwnBook.com comes from the childhood dream of the founders to become authors. And it does exactly that, based on the belief that – “Anyone Can Write”.”

“OurOwnBook.com is designed in such a way that any 5th grader can come and fulfill his dream of writing a story or at least, being a part of it. As regards the current family of OurOwnBook.com, its members range from ages 16 to 60. OurOwnBook.com has more than 2000 members in over 80 countries. The website has had more than a million unique visitors in the last 15 months and has become an everyday affair for people looking for such an opportunity all their lives.”

When it comes to being different, the concept seems similar to a game we would play where each would add his own spin to a story, but here it is so much more than a game. The duo clarified saying “OurOwnBook.com is the first of its kind online venture. It brings people together, just to write! The business model behind the venture is simple – we give a plot, you write the story. At the end, we get it edited by our editing team and take it to publishers.”

“OurOwnBook.com is still in process of getting its first project published. It is too early to talk about scaling-up operations but once in print, the website would open a whole lot of avenues to extend the concept of collaborative writing.”

The duo answered the question of why and when they chose to be entrepreneurs saying “Being an entrepreneur gave both of us an opportunity to work for ourselves and not for someone else. We wanted to be more flexible with the kind of work we did and the way we did it. Moreover, we always wanted to create employment rather than be employed. OurOwnBook.com is expected to do so once the first project hits the stands.”

“The biggest challenge faced by us and which we also have currently is to get a coherent lot out of the first project which has been written by more than 1500 people from around the world. Moreover, finding the right kind of people to work for you is not an easy job, especially for amateur entrepreneurs. It took us nearly 8 months to find the right person to work for us as the Chief Editor to put the first project in the form of a script Our Chief Editor is working all day to edit the manuscript and come up with a consistent lot. Once done, we have some publishers lined up to take it forward and put it in print.”

The twosome revealed their financial elements and stunningly enough have done a lot with so little.

“We arranged the seed capital required for OurOwnBook.com, which is nothing but the cost of the domain name and the hosting space, through our own funds. It comes out to be less than 5000 rupees an year. In addition to it, we have agreed to pay a sum of money to our Chief Editor once the editing and scripting of our first project is completed. This would depend on the quality and time of the work and can not be disclosed currently.”

“OurOwnBook.com has grown at a steady pace with new members coming up all throughout the last 13 months. But the recent period has seen lesser activity owing to the first project being under processing. Also, both the founders have decided to start the second project, once the first project is out in print.”

Their love for entrepreneurship is fueled by “The will to see not only ours but all those 1500+ members’ names in print one day is the driving force behind OurOwnBook.com. We wish to turn people’s dream into reality some day and we believe it is possible.”

On its journey to make publishing history OurOwnBook.com has won the coveted “Limca Book of Records” and has found a place for itself in the 2009 edition under the Literary Section for the “Novel with the most number of co-authors ever written”. It is also in process of being registered for the same achievement in the “India Book of Records”.

The record making duo had a few thoughts to share for those aspiring to follow their unconventional path and said “We would just share our motivating principle with others – “The idea itself is not important. It’s the way you execute it and the kind of belief you have in it that would do wonders for you.”

We wish them success with their multi author book, and will be sure to buy and read it once it hits the stands although getting the authors signatures might just set another record.