How Books SG Started

We were helping a friend, who was moving house, pack his storeroom when we came across the book, The Teenage Textbook, stuffed in one of the boxes. This was a book that we read when we were young and we were amazed that he still kept this book. Flipping through the book, it evoked a sense of nostalgia for us as it was a book we all read during our teenage years.

Our conversation then moved on to talking about other local authors we grew up with such as Paik Choo and Catherine Lim. This led us to wonder, in this age of modern technology, it must be tough to be an author in Singapore. With so many medium, such as Tik Tok, Instagram, Youtube and Facebook, vying for attention of Singaporeans, more often than not, reading a books takes a back seat. With a dwindling reader base, this may result as a disincentive for our local authors to publish new books. In addition, this may also prevent young and talented writers to pursue a career as an author.

This sparked into an idea to create a community for Singapore authors to engage with their readers and potential readers. More that just a book review site, the readers can connect with the authors to discuss more about the books, discover the author’s other works. For the author, this will also be an additional marketing channel. Members of the community can also join interest groups/genres or forum discussions to connect with other members with similar interest.

This was how Books SG was born. We hope that through this community, it will keep the local literary scene more vibrant and also support our authors to continue publishing quality works.

Needless to say, not much packing was done that day.