Bhubaneswar, March 17: Six months ago, Soumya Prateek Sahu was a CA student aspiring to get into a good MBA college. But today the 22-year-old is an entrepreneur.

A bibliophile with a knack for business studies, Soumya found his passion for books and business in Carry On, which is billed as the first online Odia bookstore. The online store had its first promotional activity by setting up a kiosk at the recently concluded Bhubaneswar Book Fair.

Although he was dedicated towards studies, Soumya realised that his calling was elsewhere. His brainchild got its biggest thrust when his father, L.N. Sahu, a former civil judge, extended his support.

Later, two more book lovers — Amit Mishra, a law student and Nachiketa Swain, a share trader who met Soumya at a bookstore — joined the father-son duo.

The four, who are at present running the bookstore, have interests in different genres of fiction and non-fiction.

Their online bookstore offers works of the most-renowned authors of Odisha such as Fakir Mohan Senapati, Laxmikanta Mohapatra, Upendra Bhanja, Radhanath Ray, Godabarisha Mohapatra, Mayadhar Mansingh and many more of the classic era.

Books by famous modern authors of Odisha such as J.P. Das, Manoj Das, Pratibha Ray, Pratibha Satapathy, Satakadi Hota are also available on the online shelves of Carry On.

Soumya and his team also promote amateur authors writing in Odia such as Punyabrata Das, who has recently come up with Hey Bandhu Hey Priya.

“Unlike the popular notion that there are only a handful readers for Odia books, our bestsellers have been Odia books such as Yagnaseni by Pratibha Ray and Swadhinatra Odia Chitra Galpa by Satakadi Hota,” said Soumya.

Carry On, with the tagline of “enjoying life with books”, is at present taking orders through phone calls, SMSes, e-mails and through social networking sites.

The website is under construction and is likely to become functional within a couple of months.

So, what is their unique selling proposition? “Most booksellers are unaware of the real essence of a book. We, on the contrary, are like a bunch of book lovers who are less interested in sales and more passionate about finding people who share the same love for books and, to be precise, not e-books but tangible books. Moreover, finding bestsellers is easy but the lesser-known niche books are not easily found. National-level bookstores have hardly any collection of Odia books. This is where we score,” said Amit.

Carry On is providing home delivery on the basis of cash-on-delivery. They also promise to deliver the book in any part of Bhubaneswar within 24 hours. They have around 400-odd people on Facebook following their updates and they have delivered 200-odd orders till now.

“We plan to start a book exchange programme where people can bring their old Odia books, especially the ones that are no longer available in the market,” said Nachiketa.