When an email from independent publisher Blaft on an Indiegogo project hit our inbox, we were intrigued. Blaft has a quirky booklist — of Indian and Pakistani crime novels, Nigerian soyayya fiction, pulp art, folktales and more. Why would they choose to use crowdfunding? Rashmi Devadasan of Blaft explains, “Our first two books in the Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction series did well; many readers have been asking when Volume 3 was coming out. So, we are reaching out directly to the readers, with an open breakdown of production costs, and a direct platform for them to advance order a copy of the book.”