May 29, 2025 · 1h 9m · innovators-investors
EP9: From Bookstores to Bedtime Stories: Storytelling with Purpose ft. Preeti Vyas
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of Innovators and Disruptors, host Abhay Tandon interviews Amar Chitra Katha CEO Preeti Vyas about her journey from retail management to publishing leadership. Vyas explains how ACK modernizes India's rich storytelling heritage through inclusive representation, sensitive childhood education, and transmedia digital transformation.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →
Kristian as informed peer 2.3 Guest teaching 2.4 Guest disagreement 0.4 Kristian pushing back 0.1
speaking balance: gold is Kristian, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 40:48 Dismissing traditionalist comic purists
Preeti forcefully dismisses adult critics complaining about modernized art styles, declaring with frank conviction that she does not produce comics for nostalgic forty-year-olds.
Hardest push from Kristian ▶ 34:28 Host challenges fantastical interpretations of epic loreThe host challenges standard mythic interpretations by arguing that ancient weapons like the Brahmastra were miscomprehended scientific energy discharges rather than purely supernatural occurrences.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 50:19 Reframing ACK's core strategic demographicPreeti explicitly corrects the host's premise regarding international brand scaling, stating plainly that ACK's strategic responsibility is to anchor Indian youth before chasing global markets.
Kristian holds their own ▶ 18:17 Host demonstrates retail planogram and merchandising acumenThe host articulates the exact commercial mechanics behind shelf placement, planograms, and inter-departmental P&L complexities that retail chains navigate when selling impulse items.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Kristian as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Kristian pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commercial Break: Innovation and Enterprise Sponsors | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | The segment comprises sponsor messages, show introduction, and opening pleasantries. The host sets a welcoming tone and poses a broad opening question about the impact of storytelling. | |
| Formative Influences: Growing Up Among Bookworms | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Preeti describes her childhood in a family of voracious readers and how books solve life problems. The host readily validates her perspectives with personal recollections of the Panchatantra. | |
| Career Path: From Physics to Modern Retail | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Preeti outlines her unconventional trajectory from physics to retail management in Australia and early entrepreneurial ventures. The host contributes by drawing a parallel to his own background in biotechnology research. | |
| Democratizing Books: The Growth of Depot Stores | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Preeti recounts democratizing book retail at Future Group by stacking dictionaries next to ketchup and designing FMCG voucher cross-promotions. The host displays solid business understanding of planograms, impulse buys, and complex cross-departmental P&L incentives. | |
| Contemporary Narratives: Launching Fun OK Please | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Preeti explains founding Fun OK Please to offer contemporary Indian urban stories like Toto the Auto. The exchange is entirely supportive with minimal host intrusion. | |
| Breaking Taboos: Bodily Awareness in Children's Literature | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | The host brings up societal taboos around bodily awareness and child safety, commending literature tackling 'bad touch'. Preeti reinforces this by sharing an incident of publishing a story on menstruation in Tinkle despite pushback from an upset parent. | |
| Nurturing Readers and Navigating Single Motherhood | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | The host asks about raising a child as a single working mother. Preeti gives an emotionally candid breakdown of both the acute vulnerabilities and the deep reciprocal bond formed with her son. | |
| Adapting Epics: Modern Sensibilities and Agency in ACK | 3 | 4 | 2 | 1 | The host speculates whether ancient Indian mythic weaponry represents misunderstood advanced technology. Preeti steers the premise into a broader explanation of mythology as an open-source framework, firmly rejecting the complaints of adult purists by stating ACK writes for modern ten-year-olds rather than nostalgic adults. | |
| Transmedia Expansion: Digital Transformation and Cross-Industry Collaborations | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | The host touches upon ACK's Comic-Con presence and pandemic-era initiatives. Preeti explains their transmedia philosophy, including turning half a million free app downloads during lockdown into paying subscribers and putting comics onto regional flights. | |
| Inclusive Narratives: Marginalized Voices and Diverse Representation | 2 | 4 | 2 | 0 | When the host asks about positioning ACK's heritage globally like Korean or Chinese cultural exports, Preeti candidly rejects this framing, emphasizing that their core mission remains serving Indian children. She then educates the host on ACK's active editorial updates depicting dark-skinned deities, tribal folklore, and mental health. | |
| Honoring Founder Anant Pai and Embracing Artificial Intelligence | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Preeti discusses honoring founder Anant Pai by innovating rather than merely coasting on vintage legacy, and explains why ACK embraces generative AI for operational tasks to free up artists' creative time. | |
| Rapid Fire: Personal Inspirations and Leadership Lessons | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | In the rapid-fire round, Preeti shares personal favorites, equates executive leadership to Ganesha removing obstacles, and humorously refuses to disclose an off-camera secret fact. |
Statements from this episode (14)
Preeti Vyas: Pure Retail Lacks Defensibility Without Proprietary Intellectual Property
“In the world of retail is essentially a trading business. You're buying from someone, selling to someone else. There is no IP you're creating. There's no IP that you own. And if you don't have your own IP that, as a business model, it's always going to be weak…”
Preeti Vyas: Depot Set Retail Record With 75,000-Copy Chetan Bhagat Order
“I think for a long time, we held that record of being the single largest PO placed by a you know, retailer to a publisher or 75,000 copies in one PO.”
Preeti Vyas: Books Accounted for Just 1% of Big Bazaar Sales
“Books as a category was one percent of big bazaar sales, right?”
Preeti Vyas: Starting a Book Publishing Business Requires Only ₹2-3 Lakhs
“Publishing of books has, doesn't have a very high entry cost as well. So you can put in a couple of two, three lakhs, and you can start off literally.”
Preeti Vyas: Tinkle Magazine Recently Published a Feature on Menstruation
“In fact, recently, two issues back in Tinkle, we did a whole piece on menstruation, right, for children.”
Amar Chitra Katha Explicitly Added Female Consent to Recent Comic Marriages
“Now, in the newer comics, we released Celestial Beings in July, where a similar thing happens, and then the next frame says, with Hema's consent, the marriage took place. Right. So we brought in the angle of her agency. In her own marriage.”
Preeti Vyas: Amar Chitra Katha Competes With Marvel for Ten-Year-Olds
“I am not creating new comics for forty-year-olds. Right. We are creating new comics for today's ten-year-old. Ten-year-old who's consuming Marvel, and who's consuming the best of the world. If I have to compete with that, we have to make it relevant.”
Preeti Vyas: Print Generated 95% of Amar Chitra Katha's Pre-Pandemic Revenue
“We had some 65,000 odd users across both the apps and they were nobody really cared much about the apps because we were a very print heavy company, right? All our revenues came from, 95% of our revenues came from print channels.”
Amar Chitra Katha Acquired 500,000 Digital Users in 15 Days During COVID
“So, before we knew it, in a span of some 15 days, we acquired half a million new customers.”
Preeti Vyas: Applause Entertainment Licensed the Entire Amar Chitra Katha Catalog
“And Applause Entertainment in Mumbai has licensed the entire Aman Chitakata catalog. So they're doing all the Panchatantras, and they're doing ACK Juniors, and the Mahabharath, and they're doing that whole piece.”
Preeti Vyas: Amar Chitra Katha Stopped Exclusively Drawing Fair-Skinned Female Characters
“Machita Katha has been accused in the past of having all the apsaras and all the beautiful women looking very fair always, having fair skin. So, we've changed that. We're Indian, they will have Indian skin tones.”
Preeti Vyas: Amar Chitra Katha Uses AI for Promotions and Translations
“We're using AI to do a lot of promotional work, which was taking up the artist's time unnecessarily. Now a lot of that can be done by AI. We're using AI for translations, and that's really sped things up.”
Preeti Vyas: AI Could Help Tinkle Scale to Three Issues Per Month
“Today I'm doing one tinkle a month because that's all we can create in terms of our bandwidth, in terms of the market dynamics, in terms of everything. This is one seems to be, 12 issues a year seems to be a good number. Right. But if AI can help us and can he…”