An app by Brazil-based developers could have a solution. 12min creates summaries of nonfiction books for people to gain the most important ideas from each book, which you can read in less than 30 minutes. The app launched in Portuguese in Brazil first, before expanding to US, Canada, and Argentina and adding English and Spanish ‘micro books’ to its library.
It also has most of these books in audio form for you to listen to, in case you don’t want to read. Now, 12min is gearing for a big push in India first via English summaries of books written by Indian (or Indian-origin) authors, and later via micro books in Hindi.
Guilherme Petrin, 12min’s India head, says the company adds just 20-25 summaries every month as its focus is on quality. This is why the Hindi language launch hasn’t taken place yet. “I have already 50 titles in Hindi ready, but the content isn’t ready yet,” Petrin tells Gadgets 360. Initially, Petrin had hired freelancers from the website UpWork to get translations ready, but the quality of their work wasn’t very good. Petrin adds, “I was thinking that it was good, but one Indian guy was in our office in Brazil. Diego (the founder) was speaking to this guy in Brazil. He showed summaries to this guy and he said, no it’s wrong. And then I really opened my eyes to it.”
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There were apparently too many errors in the translations for them to be readable and that’s why Petrin has now contracted three people – including a voiceover artist because 12min offers most of these summaries in audio form as well – who are better at the job and polishing micro books till they’re free of errors. This is expected to take 30-45 days. While 12min plans to launch with 50 book summaries in Hindi, it has 1,000 of those in Portuguese and around 500 each in English and Spanish.
These micro books are pretty good for those who don’t have much time to read or aren’t inclined towards reading. However, they may not be the best fit for bibliophiles or those who appreciate good writing. For instance, we’d never come across the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill at a bookstore, but we read the summary on 12min to understand what the book is about. While it gave us the information we needed, we can’t help wonder whether we missed some great writing along the way.
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