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Every year, Swati Daftuar (Senior Commissioning Editor at HarperCollins India) organises a Book & Bake sale with the help of a few friends. After yet another successful sale this June, Swati was kind enough to answer a few of our questions and explain this initiative to us in her own words.
What exactly is the thinking behind a Bake & Book sale? Could you perhaps give a brief overview for those new to this concept?
SD: Back in 2013, I’d been discussing the idea of doing something about the number of books I had at home, with a few of my friends. Honestly, I think I had a problem back then (there were over 2,000 books at home, most of which I’d read once and would never read again. I’m slightly better now).
Anyway, we considered everything – starting a library, donating to existing libraries, selling everything off in the Daryaganj book market, and so on. Finally, we settled upon a book sale, and after a bit of brainstorming, it turned into a Book & Bake sale. This made sense, because one of the friends helping me was an excellent home baker, and wanted to try out a few new recipes.
Overall, the whole thing sounded feasible, and more than anything else, a lot of fun. I have, like every reader and book lover does at some point, wanted to own or work at a bookstore. This felt like a good compromise. We picked a friend’s empty flat in Greater Kailash as the venue, and did some basic social media publicity.
We also decided that none of us would keep the money we collected from the sale. We were going to put in all this work, and somehow, doing it to earn money for ourselves didn’t feel half as motivating as the idea of collecting funds to donate towards a cause we all collectively believed in.
The first sale must have seen not more than 70-80 people, most of them friends and acquaintances, and we managed to sell out all the books and baked goods. We put it down as a success and decided to make it an annual thing.
Of course, six years down the line, a lot has changed. There were six of us back then, and now only two of us still live in Delhi. That empty flat has been sold, and I don’t hoard books like they’re going out of fashion.
Last year, I couldn’t manage an on-ground sale at all – it was my first year at HarperCollins and I was still figuring out how to prioritise my time. As a result, I couldn’t find a suitable venue. So I settled for an online sale, and while it went sufficiently well, it was a lot less fun and a lot more admin work. And there were no bakes, of course.
This year, things changed entirely. I am honestly a bit stunned at the results of this year’s sale.
Could you elaborate on the sale this year and how it’s been different (apart from the fact that it wasn’t online)? And were you able to bring back the baking?
SD: We were able to bring back the baking, yes, and so much more! This year, there were three of us organising the sale – Smit Zaveri, Shashank Bhargava and I. We began by deciding on a cause we were going to donate to, and while we had three options in mind, after a lot of thought, we picked Karwan-e-Mohabbat, founded by activist and author, Harsh Mander. The organisation works to help victims of hate crime, communal violence and mob lynchings, in several ways.
The first thing to work out this year was the venue; the lovely people at Chittaranjan Bhavan in CR Park agreed to let us use their members’ lounge free of cost, and after that, everything just sort of fell into place. Now that we had a big and easily accessible venue, we were able to gauge the kind of footfall we could accommodate, the number of books and bakery items, and so on.
Honestly, it took a lot of planning. Basically, the previous three months, almost all our weekends were spent working on this. We first announced a donation drive, and the word spread quickly via reading groups, book clubs etc. Our donation drive went on for nearly two months, where people either dropped off books to our homes, or we collected them ourselves.
Here’s a brief summary of what this year’s sale had – over 2,000 books were donated from across Delhi, we had six home-bakers for the event (Smit was in-charge of the bakery; she’s herself one of the best bakers I know). We also threw in a bookish quiz, a raffle and a couple of hours of bibliomancy, where Parag Chitale would tell your fortune through books. It was uncanny how many times he got things right, and people loved it.
I think what worked most for us this time was the word-of-mouth publicity we got, and just the sheer goodwill of people. For example, Simon & Schuster India got in touch with us to donate books directly, as did S Anand from Navayana. Duckbill let us borrow these lovely wooden crates used to display books in their stall at the book fair, and So Delhi and LBB contacted us to cover the event.
2,000 donations is a lot! Considering this was for a charitable cause, I’m assuming the prices were affordable. Based on your experiences, do you think people donate books more than they acquire them?
SD: Oh yes, very affordable – as low as Rs. 15 and not higher than Rs. 200. We did have a lot of donations, but I don’t know if I can say if they donate more than they buy. We saw some massive bulk buys at the sale though. Several people bought over 50 books, and there was one person who even bought a total of 81 books.
Could you tell me a little bit about the charities you’ve donated to over the past few years?
SD: We’ve donated to Friendicoes and Red Paws, and in 2015, we donated to the relief operations after the Nepal earthquake. Last year, the proceeds from the sale went towards the CM’s fund for relief work in Kerala after the floods and to Humane Society International’s work with the rescue of animals during the Kerala floods.
This year, we had originally set a goal of Rs. 25,000 after picking Karwan-e-Mohabbat as the charity. We ended up collecting Rs. 1,18,000 and it gave us the chance to include two more charities. So we split the collection and added HelpAge India and SPCA India to the mix.
And lastly, just to give us an understanding of what to expect next year – What were your hours of operation? How long did the whole sale last?
SD: The timing for the sale was 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sunday, but by 6 p.m., most of the books were sold out. The baked goods sold out by around 2 p.m. I think we began wrapping up by 6:30 p.m.
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