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Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →When COVID-19 disrupted printing and closed the places where readers might encounter its books, PenThrill Publishing House, a small press in Nagaland, faced a sharp drop in sales. By November 2020, founder Rita Krocha saw reasons to keep going: renewed interest in local writing, new spaces for children and books, and readers discovering stories rooted in Naga life.
From a writer’s experience to a publishing house
PenThrill grew out of Krocha’s own path into writing and publishing. As a university student in Delhi, she wrote a weekly column for a newspaper in Nagaland. Later, she and her sister Agnes published a poetry collection, Echoes of Spring, with support from the North East Zone Cultural Centre. Krocha says that experience opened a way into publishing.
PenThrill’s first imprint title was Four Shades, published in November 2013. It brought together 60 poems by four friends. In an account published by Scroll.in on December 3, 2020, Krocha said the press had published 35 books in seven years, including at least a dozen poetry collections. Those are her figures at the time, not an independently audited catalogue count.
Why these books matter beyond the sales
Krocha described Naga literature as not widely known, despite the work of writers including Easterine Kire, Temsula Ao, Nini Lungalang and Monalisa Changkija. She also emphasized poetry’s place in Naga life and the need to record oral literature while elders who hold those stories are still alive.
That aim shaped a catalogue spanning poetry, children’s writing and oral narratives. In 2016, PenThrill worked with the Naga Heritage Centre on People Stories: Volume One, a collection of oral narratives and traditional teachings gathered from Naga elders. For Krocha, publishing local writing was not simply a niche commercial choice; it was a way to preserve and share cultural knowledge.
Stories passed between generations
Shoposho draws on Naga folktales Krocha heard from her grandparents in Zhavame. One story follows an orphan boy and his remarkable friendship with a tiger named Paokhadu. The book gives children access to stories carried within families and communities, in a form they can read and share.
PenThrill also published books by child author Sochumlo Suki Ezung: Suki’s Magic Box and later Suki’s Spacecraft. Ezung’s classmate Yimyanglula Longkumer illustrated the first book, and six-year-old Liree Jane Krocha colored the illustrations. Krocha reported that Suki’s Magic Box sold 100 copies at its launch and close to 1,000 over about two years; Suki’s Spacecraft sold 500 copies within a year. These are sales figures she gave in 2020.
What the pandemic took away
PenThrill had sent two titles for printing in early March 2020, before India’s nationwide lockdown. The books did not arrive until August. Meanwhile, the press lost the in-person routes through which a small, home-based publisher could put books in front of readers: launches and gatherings, festivals, college talks, exhibitions, bookshops and cafés that stocked its titles.
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Krocha described sales falling sharply. The disruption was not only a delay in getting books printed; it also removed the events and retail settings that had helped people discover them. For a small press, those opportunities mattered both as places to sell and as a way to introduce readers to authors and stories they might not otherwise find.
Where Krocha found reasons to continue
By PenThrill’s seventh anniversary on November 27, 2020, Krocha described the situation as more stable. She saw greater demand for local books and more awareness of supporting local writers, which she associated with social media. That was a hopeful observation at the time, not a guarantee that the press or the wider book market had recovered.
She also pointed to places and channels that could bring books closer to readers. The children’s Book Home Library had a collection of more than 2,500 books, according to Krocha. She named The Common Room bookshop and café and A Ra Kezivi, a store for locally made goods, as spaces offering new possibilities. Online, she mentioned ilandlo.com and the Made in Nagaland Centre. These were outlets or initiatives identified in her 2020 account; their present-day operation and stock are not established here.
At Kohima’s Bookaroo event in October 2018, 21 speakers took part, according to the same account. The event is one example of how literary gatherings could connect writers and readers before the pandemic halted such opportunities.
Bringing books to readers
For a small publisher, a book’s path to a reader can depend on more than printing and listing it for sale. Local shops, events, libraries and conversations can give a title context and help readers see why it matters. Kevizonuo Kuolie, owner of A Ra Kezivi, put the point this way in Krocha’s 2020 article: “There are so many good things that young people can read, but until and unless people bring it to them, they won’t. When you take it to them and also tell them the story behind it, they are even more interested.”
That idea is especially pertinent to books grounded in oral tradition and local experience. Visibility can help readers encounter writing they may not have been taught to expect or know how to find. It cannot, on its own, resolve the financial uncertainty of independent publishing, but it can create the relationships on which a small press depends.
What is known—and what remains uncertain
Krocha’s account documents PenThrill’s work and its pandemic-era challenges through December 2020. It does not establish the publisher’s current status, whether the named shops or online channels remain active, or whether any particular title is currently available. Readers seeking a book such as Shoposho, People Stories: Volume One or the Suki Ezung titles should confirm availability directly with the publisher or a bookseller rather than assume that a 2020 outlet still carries it.
Krocha’s closing reflection was modest but resolute: “But hope is beautiful and necessary. There will be better days, even for book publishing.” For PenThrill, hope rested in the continuing work of recording stories, supporting local writers and helping readers find books that reflect their own cultural worlds.
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