Let's Read, Indonesia! - Zsolt Zsemba

Let’s Read, Indonesia!

Post author:Zsolt Zsemba
Post published:December 21, 2023
Post category:blog,

Indonesia needs more readers.

Get Indonesians to read more! This should not be as hard as it sounds. Indonesia’s literacy rate, according to Google is in 54th place out of 171 countries. But there needs to be more and more effort. However, as I have recently discovered, getting an ISBN number from Perpustakaan Nasional Indonesia is a hell of a task. Feel free to tweet at them as I did on the following account @perpusnas1 to complain.

It is a very slow process and it does not need to be. The instructions are unclear and for some reason, the office of the individuals are unreachable and change their mind quite often. The process changed and we needed more information in various formats.

It’s complicated!

For example, uploading the book and the cover to an online sales platform when the book is not on sale yet. Coming up with the price before the book should even be on sale and had yet to be launched, since there is no ISBN number now can one make a plan or date for the book launch.

Putting a brand new book on one’s website, if the author even has one is another issue. What happened to the tease of the book cover, the tease of the launch, and let social media do its job before we are forced to reveal the book.

Either way, the final process was one link in a Google Drive that had all the links they needed to approve the book. However, getting to that point was tedious and there was no shopping list of items to approve.

So Let’s Make This Simple.

Indonesia’s literacy rate has been steadily increasing over the past few decades. In 1990, the literacy rate was just 73.7%. This increase is due to several factors, including:

Increased government investment in education
Increased access to primary and secondary education
Improved quality of education
Increased awareness of the importance of education

Despite the progress that has been made, there are still some challenges to improving Indonesia’s literacy rate. These challenges include:

Poverty
Remote locations
Lack of qualified teachers
Cultural barriers

Taking the next steps to Perpustakaan Nasional Indonesia would simplify this ISBN process so many writers and readers could enjoy more and more books!

Tags: Bandung, book, Buku, edikasi, education, indonesia, Jakarta, literacy, membaca, penulis, Reading, Surabaya

Zsolt Zsemba

Zsolt Zsemba has worn many different hats. He has been an entrepreneur, and businessman for over 30 years. Living abroad has given him many amazing experiences in life and also sparked his imagination for writing. After moving to Canada from Hungary at the age of 10 and working in a family business for a large part of his life. The switch from manufacturing to writing came surprisingly easily for him. His passion for writing began at age 12, mostly writing poetry and short stories. In 1999, the chance came to write scripts. Zsolt took some time off from his family business to write in Jakarta Indonesia for MD Entertainment. Having written dozens of soap operas and made for TV movies, in 2003 Zsolt returned to the family business once more. In 2018, he had the chance to head back to Asia once again. He took on the challenge to be the COO for MD Pictures and get back into the entertainment business. The entertainment business opened up the desire to write once more and the words began to flow onto the pages again. He decided to rewrite a book he began years ago. Organ House was reborn and is a fiction suspense novel while Scars is a young adult drama focused on life’s challenges. After the first two books, his desire to write not only became more challenging but enjoyable as well. After having several books completed he was convinced to publish them for your enjoyment. Zsolt does not tend to stay in one specific genre but tends to lean towards strong female leads and horror. Though he also has a few human interest books, he tends to write about whatever brews in his brain for a while.