As the winter of 2016 rolled in, with the Qissa self-publishing up and running and Daastan’s founder Syed Ommer Ammer enrolled in Telenor’s Velocity Program looking to scale the company and redefine the industry as per Daastan’s vision, the team decided to kickstart a fellowship program. The program, dubbed the Literary Fellowship, would enlist and take on fresh minds who were seeking to disrupt and change the game in the literary industry, but were lacking the opportunity or the proper guidance to do so. The team, having many such obstacles while trying to reach out to the public themselves, wanted to pave the way and make it easier for those who wanted to follow in their suit, and equip them with cheers and support rather than rejections and sneers.
The Launch and Subsequent Response:
The call for submissions for the debut batch went out in the September of 2016, and to our surprise more than 50 people applied for the program. Each submission was carefully pored over, to make sure the group that would be a part of the team in the upcoming three months were doers and believers who could push past their comfort zones. They were initially shortlisted to a group of almost 25 people, and after an interview session, the number was reduced down to the final 15, and that is when the magic began.
Literary Fellows of the Debut Batch
The Course of the Fellowship:
Over the next three months, the mentors from Daastan laboured day in and day out with their assigned mentees. Each fellow was given tailor made tasks to enhance their specific skill set, along with targeted guidance to help them do their work efficiently. The fellows were encouraged to come up with projects of their own, which Daastan would help them develop, launch, market and scale so at the end of the three-month period they would have a sustainable venture of their own to build on. After a few months it became clear, the fellowship program had become a huge hit.
Success Stories:
The success stories of the debut batch included Ms. Mahnoor Naseer, who co-founded a global digital publishing platform by the name of The Ancient Souls, and also helped us set up operations in India. She went on to become an Editor in Chief at Daastan, and train the next batch of fellows. Another graduate, Ms. Aroosa Mushtaq Malik, was video interviewed live on PTV World. Ms. Armin Bilquis, the youngest fellow of the batch, brought her poetry book to Qissa, and Daastan helped raise funds to bring “Melted Kaleidoscopes” to print. Order a copy here to support the author.
In the beginning of the year, Daastan hosted its first story writing competition that set the precedent for other seasons of the program that would follow. The first season was an unimaginable hit, with almost 100 entries from all over Pakistan. Daastan got to uncover some major talent and later on also published a book as a tribute to the top 5 position holders, titled “A Journey to Stardom”, which documented their struggles as a writer in a community which tends to overlook the artisans present in it. October of 2016 saw Daastan pitching for a micro fund of 2500 USD which it went on to win for season 2 of “The Stories Untold”. The fund was offered by the PeaceTech Lab under the banner of PeaceTech Exchange (PTX). PTX is a workshop-based competition which enables peace sustaining enterprises to contest and win the offered amount by pitching their idea and establishing how it will help underdeveloped regions utilize technology for the advent of peace, social inclusion and conflict resolution.
A War Within:
With funding under its belt from Peacetech Lab, PTX, Technology for Peace Initiative (TPI) and United States Institute of Peace, Daastan launched season 2 of “The Stories Untold” with the theme “A War Within”. This time around, we encouraged writers and participants to look deep into the conflicts and pressures faced by individuals on a daily basis, and chart out whole territories on how to deal with them, both as an observer as well as the victim. It was the perfect opportunity for every person who had felt caged at any time in their life to put that feeling to words and come out stronger and accomplished. The competition was split into two modules, which allowed Urdu writers to send in entries as well, helping us reach a part of the community we hadn’t been able to touch before. We also partnered with “The Ancient Souls” from across the border to expand our entry base, as well as the “Young Women Writer’s Forum Pakistan”.
Results of the competition:
As expected, the participants blew us away. We received more than 150 entries from all over the world of such high quality that it was a great difficulty to shortlist them. The qualifying rounds consisted of top 30, followed by top 15 and then the final winners. Each shortlisted candidate’s work was published digitally on Qissa, and the top ones also lived the dream of seeing their work go into print. The certificates and prizes distributed, along with publications, amounted to a grand total of 100,000 PKR.
Certificate for the winners of The Stories Untold Season Two
Are you a writer who has a story caged in their chests? Sign up on Qissa and publish your work, or keep up with our updates on Daastan to participate in our next story writing competition.
With recent mega achievements in tow, such as the successful launch of the Qissa website, Daastan went on to apply for the second cohort of Telenor’s digital startup accelerator. The accelerator program had received a whopping number of 105 applications from throughout Pakistan, and 88 out of those were knocked out after careful review of each startup, its practicality and scaling potential. The shortlisted 17 were then invited to present their ideas and fight for a chance to be a part of Telenor’s family. 8 out of those 17 were selected for the cohort, and Daastan was one of them.
Telenor Velocity accelerator works by utilizing Telenor’s scale and assets to help amplify the business of promising Pakistani startups. The 6-month program assists startups by admitting them to Telenor’s in-house expertise, and allot them office hours with finest mentors and investors. Along with this, they are provided with a co-working space, access to their distribution channels and 40 million customer base, online payment solutions and a chance to pitch for seed funding. It covers all the requirements of a budding business and helps the startup to go to market and scale.
Daastan Proving its Mettle:
Daastan, a product of small-town boy along with his team, proved its mettle and dominated over teams from Karachi, Lahore and other parts of Pakistan. It was a momentous achievement, which paved the way for Daastan by help the team to improve its abilities, reach over 2000 signups on Qissa, engage tens of thousands of writers who wrote more than a hundred books, and spread the message of literary advancement all over Pakistan.
This is what our Founder, Ommer, had to say about the program
Daastan’s Journey in the Accelerator:
Daastan was enrolled in the Velocity’s second cohort, and graduated with a renewed and improved business model. It was awarded a grant of 2500 USD from PTX during this acceleration, conducted the second season of Daastan’s signature story writing competition ‘The Stories Untold’ and even took that a step further by incorporating Urdu in it and opening the competition up internationally. On graduating, Qissa was equipped with state-of-the-art technology which was incorporated in collaboration with Telenor. PITB’s chairman Dr. Umer Saif, and CEO Telenor Irfan Wahab, awarded the certificate of appreciation to Team Daastan.
Just a few days after Daastan’s self-publishing portal Qissa went live, Tooba Arshad, whose debut novel ‘Unveiling the Unknown’ would be published through us, messaged our team on the page and requested that we help us realize her dream of being an author of a book published both digitally and in print. A little while later, she would become the beneficiary of Daastan’s first ever crowdfunding campaign. Her novel of 600 pages required a minimum of PKR 30,000 to go into print, which neither her nor Daastan had the resources to fund. Daastan’s Founder Ommer being a dreamer and whose book was also rejected due to technicalities, decided to take on this mission and help her gather enough capital so as to bring her dream to life, and that is how Daastan’s first ever crowdfunding campaign was launched. The campaign was a success, and at the end of one month of struggle and efficient marketing strategies, the author finally had the amount she needed which was collected through more than 30 pre-orders of her upcoming book.
The author, Tooba Arshad:
Tooba Arshad, is an undergrad in BioMedical Engineering at NED, a part time teacher having taught at many private educational institutes, and an excellent public speaker. Her artistical talents are not limited to writing only, as she also has experience in directing many theatrical plays in both English and Urdu over the course of her years of schooling. Her debut novel, ‘Unveiling of the Unknown’, is a masterfully written mystery thriller which pulls the reader in with its imagery and keeps them glued until the last page of the book is flipped. Order her book now to support the author and experience the thrilling journey by yourself.
Tooba Arshad’s book, Unveiling the Unknown
Book Launch:
After the printing of her book was complete, Tooba became the first ever author to have her book launched through Daastan. The book launch ceremony took place at Nest I/O and was inaugurated by Jehan Ara, President of P@SHA and Founder of Nest I/O. Tooba has had much to say about Daastan, some of her words are quoted below:
“I would like to sincerely thank team Daastan, because if it weren’t for them, I would still be like those hundreds of rejected, discouraged, and unpublished authors who never got the chance to start their professional career. What they are doing here, is basically shaping a better future for the society, and I urge them to continue doing so!”
If you are an author who is looking to get published, reach out to us at Daastan, or upload your manuscript to Qissa by signing up, to let the magic begin.
A year and a half into the struggle that was Daastan, and very many rejections but also quite a few notable achievements later, Daastan finally launched its self-publishing website by the name of Mera Qissa. The website was to be a writer’s as well as a reader’s one-stop-solution for publishing their work in print ready formats, which would then be refined and edited to perfection, ready to be read online by the thriving amount of readers that visited the website in search for quality literature. It was an all in one solution for writers across the country as it helped them build a profile by putting up a bio, garnering readership, and also enabled the readers to give the authors constructive reviews on their work. It also helped the writers earn revenue from opportunities furnished by Daastan’s client base, which ranged from various genres of content writings to digitizing handwritten works or ghost writing for their clients.
The Plans Offered:
The services offered by the portal were categorized into three plans according to their needs, and could cater to any and all of the writers who wished to get published. The Basic Plan was free, it only required that you sign up on the Qissa website, upload your work, wait for the editorial process to be completed and voila – at the end of all this your work would be published online for all Qissa viewers to read, and you would also get access to other writers’ work published on the website. The Pro and Pro+ plan came at a minimal cost per month and with it your account would be upgraded to receive additional benefits such as the ability to sell services online, as well as getting advertising credit. It also included a pro online reader which offered more features while reading eBooks, and the pro plus members also got to receive a monthly swag box featuring all the raging goodies of Daastan’s literary empire.
Baby Steps Turning into Leaps and Bounds:
The portal upon its launch had more than 30 stories available online, most of them from Daastan’s recent story-writing competition ‘The Stories Untold’. It also had works published by Daastan throughout the previous year. By the end of 2016, we aimed to have published more than 100 books and signed up over 1000 writers. Within Qissa’s first few days of initiation, it received more than a thousand visitors, with 5 minutes being the average time spent per person on the website.
Qissa aimed to be a medium which gave voice to those among us whose voice remained unheard, and words unspoken. If you have ever felt the same way, learn more about what we do by signing up on Qissa.
