All About Books

and Publishing

Omah Limasan, Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Books are easily found around us. Since our childhood we always meet books, from a form of textbooks or lectures, novels, magazines, dictionaries, encyclopedias, holy bible, comics and other forms. The existence of books and their benefits should be balanced with the interest in reading and writing. Moreover for students, the intellectual life of student is shown by his/her habit of reading and writing.

Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta as an institution to serve students studying in Yogyakarta encouraged the growth of reading and writing habit among students through a forum, namely All about Books and Publishing, presenting Triasmana Wirasta, an editor and practitioners of publication. He was also an alumnus of Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta. Rasta, commonly called, who has been long working in publishing, provided an overview of the ins and outs of writing and publishing, so that students are motivated and learn to improve their quality of writing even able to publish a book.

The forum was held at Omah Limasan on Wednesday, March 2, 2016 hosted by Trustha Rembaka, S.Th., the coordinator of Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta and attended by more than twenty participants. It began with introduction and an ice breaker game of jumbled cards that contain step by step on how to publish a book.  Each participant was also invited to 'dream' about what will he/she write.

Triasmana Wirasta working at Skripta Media Creative publisher told the ins and outs process of publishing in Indonesia. In Indonesia, the number of publisher reached 1,328 publishers, but in fact the number of publications in Indonesia was very low, according to the data from the National Library, the number of ISBN in 2014 reached 44.327. It meant that the number of publications in Indonesia was still lower than other countries, such as Japan which publish 82.589 and India 90.000 titles in 2013.

Rasta mentioned criticism of Taufik Ismail, that the current generation was 'myopic in reading and paralyzed in writing.’ He explained that reading interest is still low because the culture of reading has not been realized yet among the community. In addition, it was also influenced by a lack of qualified reading text. While the low of interest in writing was influenced by the writing culture, low knowledge on procedure of writing and publishing and wrong assumption about the world of writing and publishing. Actually, the author reputation is worth only 10% (comparison in the table), it means that, the beginners get opportunity to publish a book! Note: (grading standard in publishing: editorial 10%, prospect of market 50%, content 30%, reputation of the author 10%).

Rasta’s simple and clear explanation was able to attract participants’ attention. Since the beginning they followed the session enthusiastically and full of curiosity, even it encouraged participants to start writing their experiences. ‘Let’s write a book! Because a book will encourage us to dare dreaming, to arouse energy and spirit and enable us and the readers to do something. So, from now, not be afraid to write!’ he concluded and ended the session. (TRU).