Verticka Kohli & Book-a-Star

 

     


Verticka hails from a publishing background and books are something she has grown up surrounded by. Reading was her foremost hobby and an integral part of her childhood. Verticka always wanted to instill a similar love for books and reading in her children.

As her elder son was growing up, she was very particular about giving him age-appropriate books which were engaging. Because it was tough to judge which ones were the best just by their covers, Verticka leveraged her father’s contacts to get books on approval and sent back what she didn’t want. This turned out to be extremely time consuming. Soon, Verticka was recommending books to other mothers in her circle. And this where the idea of curating and customizing age appropriate and engaging books for kids was born.

Verticka at this point was working as an HR consultant; work which kept her tremendously busy and it wasn’t till the lockdown that she managed to put her idea of curated books into action. Her mom, Sangeeta Varma had been working in this industry for over 35 years and Verticka joined hands with her to find the best publishers and curate exciting packs of books across a myriad of topics for children.

Together, they launched Book-a-Star in June 2020 and waded through all the challenges posed by the lockdown and closures to reach out to the publishers to create an amazing selection. This also turned out to be a perfect time since majority of moms were figuring out how to keep their children busy. Book-a-Star was a readymade answer to their prayers!!

From the beginning, Verticka has found the market to be welcoming, with parents expressing excitement and appreciation at the luxury of getting a curated and sanitized pack of books delivered to their doorstep. The 60+ years of experience of their parent company in the market added credibility to the new venture. One of the challenges Verticka faced was making parents aware of good Indian publications and writers and not just focusing on international selections and recommendations. In addition, the sanitization of the books (literally as well as in language and story) was another challenge.

The parent company is called Star Publications and Star Multilingual; Verticka was keen to carry forward the tradition and incorporate “Star” in their venture. This, combined with the connotation “Book a pack for your little star and fuel the star to shine and twinkle in life”, resulted in the curated book packs having names like “Tiny Stars”, “Little Stars”, “Growing Stars”, “Budding Stars” and “Rising Stars”. Book-a-Star truly believes that books are a passport into magical lands. They currently curate monthly packs for kids 2 to 10 years of age.

Verticka also enjoys running her company “Ukaavi Consulting” - a Leadership and Talent Consulting firm. She believes that if one enjoys what they do, works becomes as much fun as a hobby. She also enjoys reading, painting and spending quality time with her kids; who are 7 and 2.4 years old.

Follow her on

https://www.instagram.com/book_a_star/

https://www.facebook.com/BookAStarr/

www.bookastar.org

 


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