In 2017, I went on a trip to 11 Asian Cities: Mumbai, Ahmedabad, New Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Thailand Open, Manila, Singapore, Jakarta, KL again, and finally, Tehran. The story is fun; I had issues finishing THINKING INSIDE THE BOX and thus booked a book tour with Sagar, Amruta, and Peter, forcing me to finish the book. Of course, this psychological trick does not work on a grandmaster, and I went on a book tour without a book. Many photos from the trip ended up in the book, published a few months after the tour.
At the first stop in Mumbai, an illegal print copy of CALCULATION was put in front of me to sign. I explained why I could not sign it. Then, in Ahmedabad, another illegal copy was put in front of me; I explained why it was illegal and signed it. By New Delhi, I just signed them. Conversations with Sagar during the trip about how impossible it was for Indians to get hold of legal copies of our books and to afford them led to a joint effort. Quality Chess India. In Europe, Quality Chess buys books from other publishers at a discount and sends them together with our books to India. This way, Quality Chess has sponsored the company Quality Chess India for nearly 7 years. We eventually get paid for the books, discounted, of course. Still, the vision from the beginning was to build up the market in India to give Indian chess fans access to high-quality chess books at a reasonable price. Quality Chess took on all the risk and paid New in Chess and others up front.
Last week, a new truck full of chess books arrived in India, this time with books from Quality Chess and New in Chess. Sagar Shah made a video showcasing the books.
