Qissa, Daastan’s self-publishing platform which was treasured like a baby by the team and for which most of us worked day and night, took off so swiftly upon its launch as if it was a bird . Each day brought with itself significant happenings that overjoyed those working for its betterment, and made them even more invested in the platform.
Daastan’s Tree Branching Out:
The year of 2017 was a very fruitful one for Daastan, and by the end of it the team itself had grown so strong that quite a few started ventures of their own. The projects included but were not limited to Words and Metaphors, which was founded by Daastan’s Co-founder Sidra Amin, and was KPK’s first spoken word platform. Along with this, many of the Literary Fellows of Batch Two founded magazines, and service companies of their own. Daastan was now the likeness of a strong tree, with branches shooting off in every direction.
Details of Qissa’s Astounding Year:
In between all this, we were also chosen by extremely talented writers from all across Pakistan to publish their books. Qissa became home to the writing portfolio of an award-winning journalist with over 12 years of experience under his belt, Mr. Omar Iftikhar. This was followed by Daastan’s first ever international publication, by the name of “The Ancient Souls”, in which we finally got the chance to showcase Pakistan’s talent on a global level.
We brought all 22 of the finalists of The Stories Untold Season Two to print, launching what was to be the start of professional writing career for most, and turned carefully preserved dreams into reality for all.
Numerous crowd funding campaigns were launched for authors who chose us and trusted us to publish their work, which included Daastan’s first Urdu book in print, by Farheen Naz – a renowed digest writer, and an extremely bold publication titled “Why I Stopped Wearing Abaya” to highlight the social issue of imposed pardah on the women of Pakistan.
Daastan’s first Urdu book in Print by Farheen Naz 
We at Daastan challenge norms and rebuild ideas
We preserved the work of a local Urdu literary gem, Hazrat Zaka, by securing the rights to digitize and republish his legendary work “Guldast-E-Zaka”, to make it available for the public on Qissa. An author whose book was a best seller on Amazon, chose Qissa to publish her second book “Before Time”, and brought her work to print. After getting more than a hundred writers on board, Daastan also published its first ever research work, written by Tayyab Khalil, Shahrukh Rashid and co., both engineers, which was carefully screened by PhD professors to ensure no erroneous content was present. The research, titled “Interview Guidelines for Mechanical Engineers”, aimed to help ease the process of job hunting for fresh graduates and drill them on the technical questions asked during interviews. If you are an freshly graduated engineer and are require tips to up your interview game, order your copy here.