India’s Book Publishing Industry Booming
Advances in marketing and technology have propelled India’s book publishing industry forward into a rapid and glorious expansion. By the estimation of Shakti Malli, president of the Federation of Indian Publishers, the Indian publishing sector is currently “worth Rs.80 billion and it is growing by over 15 percent every year.” The country is seeing fresh promotional strategies in all aspects of the bookselling field: publishers are using blog discussions, email lists, and small booklets for a ’sneak preview’ of a new title to market books, and bookstores are responding to the flourishing industry by making changes to the store environment.
When Shobhit Arya, chief of Wisdom Tree Publishing house, said, “In the last two years the industry has grown manifold,” he was hardly guilty of overstatement. What was once a Rs.330 export industry in 1991 has blossomed into Rs.4.6 billion global force. 45 per cent of titles published in India are in English, placing the country behind only the U.S. and the U.K. as the third largest publisher of English books in the world.
And Arya attributes this change to new marketing strategies more than anything else. “From an unorganised cottage industry, it is slowly turning into a strategy-driven organised sector,” he summarized. Arya’s company has had success promoting online through associated blogs, and more recently via preview booklets. The pamphlets, which contain an overview of some chapters, the author’s life, and a few photographs, increased orders for the book “three-fold,” according to Wisdom Tree’s publishing chief.
Meanwhile, Tejeswar Singh of Sage Publications swears by sending emails, and even making individualized phone calls, to readers of the company’s publications in the past. “Readers feel for your publication and you get a loyal customer,” Singh explained.
Either way, the burgeoning field has had implications both at home and abroad. Bookstores like the chain BookCafe have answered publishers’ “lifestyle business” approach by making the bookstore a leisure environtment. “All our stores are inside Café Coffee Day parlours,” said Sandip Dutta, owner of BookCafe. “Knowledge through refreshment is our mantra.”
At the same time, the industry is making forays into neighboring countries. Chinese publishers expressed interest at the Beijing Book Fair, and books in vernacular languages are entering Bangladesh and the Gulf countries in great numbers, according to Sage Publication’s Singh.
Most recently, Google’s announcement that it has developed a partnership with India’s publishers for Google Book Search serves as an indication of the clout that the industry in India is beginning to claim around the world. Sage Publications are among the companies already involved, along with Orient Longman, Roli Books, Orient Paperbacks, Diamond Publications and New Age International, and Google is still looking to expand its affiliate base.
Google Book Search allows people to browse portions of a book online and search it for specific terms. The service also connects with publishers, websites, and local bookstores that carry the title. To protect those titles which lie under copyright, no more than 20% of the book can be viewed, no more than 5 pages can be scrolled through consecutively, and no text can be downloaded or printed.
The service is highly advantageous for the publishers, who recieve a share of the advertising revenue, and the entire portion of any book sales. It’s free for the publisher to provide their books, and it will give Indian publications an even larger presence worldwide. Singh declared: “Indian publishers have certainly come of age and are inventing new ways to woo readers.”