Return After Reading

The Readers Club, Pakistan’s first and only online book rental service, was launched in June 2009 by two friends, Jawad Yousuf and Usman Siddiqui. On their return from the US after completing their education eight years ago, they realised that the reading culture that once thrived in the country was no more.

They spent their time brainstorming how one could revive it, but their own businesses demanded a lot of their time and it was not until much later that they were able to come up with a plan of action and implement it. Initially they had thought of establishing a book-sharing platform but since that wasn’t logistically possible, they decided to create a book rental service. They realised people were not reluctant to read, but access to books was a problem. The most common complaint was that books were too expensive to purchase, especially the newest ones. So they decided to structure their product in a way that would address both the issues of affordability and interest.

There are three membership packages The Readers Club offers, which determine the amount that is to be paid as a monthly membership fee and how many books can be borrowed at a time. The Bronze level costs Rs 500 and allows the member to borrow one book at a time; Silver is for Rs 750 and two books can be borrowed whereas with a Gold membership Rs 1,000 have to be paid and three books can be rented. Once the account has been created, members can select and add to the rental queue books of their choice from a wide collection, old and new, from 27 categories, which also includes the latest best-sellers and prize-winners. An availability column shows up next to each book, so that the member knows whether the book is available, has been reserved by someone or whether there are multiple requests for it. In case a book is not available, the second option on the rental queue is then delivered.

The response they have received so far has been overwhelming for them.“We didn’t even know if we would get 10 members; if people would give us their money,” says Usman. “Now the costs are covered through the membership fee,” Jawad informs me. “We don’t have to worry about how many books we can buy in a month,” Usman adds. As word spreads, those who do not have access to computers or the elderly who do not know how to use them, have also expressed an interest in the service. “Why should they be excluded?” asks Usman. For them, lists of the books are sent with the riders and an account is created for them by Usman and Jawad themselves.

The Readers Club recently won the acclaim of the country’s ICT industry: they were runners up in the service innovation category and tied for second place in the best pitch category at the P@SHA Tech Crunch Gong Awards held on October 14. Jawad and Usman are happy to report that The Readers Club is now the self-sustaining business they had envisaged it to be. Expansion to remote areas in Karachi and other cities is under consideration, but for now they want to go slow and steady.