Angel Srivastava, a content writer who turned into a successful entrepreneur.

“Entrepreneurship is about turning what excites you in life into capital, so that you can do more of it and move forward with it.”

                              ~Richard Branson

 Entrepreneurship is all about taking risks, being bold, working extremely hard and creating something useful that can solve someone’s problem. It can be a product, service or a source of new ideas. According to Reid Hoffman’s perspective, an entrepreneur is one who jumps off a cliff and builds a plane on the way down. Commonly, an entrepreneur is a driving force who finds new opportunities, takes financial risks and challenges themselves to start a business that adds value to the customers’ lives. Fortunately, the world has given us many successful entrepreneurs to learn from and get inspiration from their work and life journeys. Today, I am very excited to write about Angel Srivastava, who is an entrepreneur, writer and a poet. Angel is the founder and CEO of Blue Trunk Press and finds solace in prose. She has grown up reading and breathing literature. Blue Trunk Press is a self-publishing company that aspires to provide an equitable platform for fervid writers and help them sell and market their books on numerous platforms across the globe. Angel says, “I belong to Lucknow and did my schooling from there. Afterwards I did my bachelors and masters in Journalism and Mass Communication. Ensuing over a decade of writing for myself as well as professionally for countless renowned magazines and media houses, in 2020, I finally decided to congregate my resources and devote them to creating an unbiased publishing platform for various other aspiring writers like me. Because I wanted to use my experiences and learnings for the sake of others so that I can live myself in the smiles of upcoming successful writers. That’s how Blue Trunk Press was born, as a humble effort to turn the dreams of millions of budding writers in India into reality.”

Writers are people who write their heart out, pen down their feelings, experiences and imaginations to add fun, emotions and value to others’ lives. Angel Srivastava self-published her first book ‘Severely Brief Peace’ (a collection of poems) in August 2020 after spending 4 years as a professional content writer. To make writers dreams come true, Angel started her venture Blue Trunk Press where they believe #NoMoreAnAspiringWriter. They furnished a platform for those who have a story to tell. They publish paperbacks, hard covers and e-books to sew up maximum reach by selling them across many online and offline portals in India.

Without any further delay, let’s have a conversation with a poet, writer and an entrepreneur, Angel Srivastava:

When and how did you come up with the idea of Blue Trunk Press? What was the motivation behind it?

I came up with the idea to start Blue Trunk Press in 2020. I had self-published my own book and closely saw the workings of a self-publishing company and as a consumer realised where the industry was lacking. Keeping in mind my experience as a writer I decided to build an unbiased platform for new writers that not just publishes and sells their work but also provides the marketing experience of traditional publishing.

Any advice you would like to give to budding entrepreneurs?

Well, I would say, don’t be afraid of failure. Experiencing lots of little failures is simply a part of life and business. In the end, failing fast and often will make you stronger. Approach every failure as a valuable lesson. Embrace it, learn from it, look at the bigger picture, make changes and move on from it. As contradicting as it sounds, allow yourself to fail more and therefore win more.

Things one should follow when starting a start-up?

I think the most important thing is to be confident and courageous enough to take risks, closely followed by believing in yourself. Having faith, and loving and believing in your work is really important. Because if you don’t love what you’re doing, you ultimately end up discouraging your customers too.

What is your ultimate goal or mission as a company?

Blue Trunk Press’s only aim is to make sure that novice writers all across the country get a neutral platform and a guide to navigate their way through the publishing industry. Our mission is to ensure that people fall in love with reading and books again.

When did you realize you wanted to be a writer or What inspired you to start writing?

I always knew that I wanted to be a writer. There is more to writing than simply publishing and making money. It’s all about telling stories, which in itself is intrinsically good. Humans are biologically wired for story. In many ways, we live for stories and we live through stories. I can’t think of any job better than telling stories all the time.

What is your book- ‘Severely Brief Peace’ all about?

‘Severely Brief Peace’ is a collection of 54 poems of love, loss, and longing. Each poem in this book has been derived from the personal experiences of my life or those I know. This book is a collection of poems written over a period of five years, and the compilation is potent with the array of shades of love it is going to leave you with.

What would be your suggestions or tips to the novice authors?

Don’t stop writing. Stop thinking about good writing or bad writing. Just write. And secondly, believe in what you’re writing. Feel what you’re writing. To make the readers believe in the story and feel it, it is vital that you as the creator do it first.