The Publisher’s Post Vol. I Ed. II

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Dated: 15th Sept. 2007

The Publisher’s Post is an weekly newsletter that contains information relating to the book publishing and book selling industry.

News This Week

IndiaPost set to distribute books
This particular initiative was actually announced in August but it has significant implications for authors and publishers alike. The Indian Postal Service is planning to utilise its network to sell books. According to a news report in the Hindustan Times, the postal authorities have high expectations from such an arrangement that they believe will afford publishers access to markets in the hinterland.

French students shunning literature
Yes, this is about students in France shunning the French language but it could easily be about Indian students and regional languages. According to a report in The Times, UK, the education minister of France laments that France’s cultural heritage is in peril because students are shunning literature in favour of more practical courses that they believe will help them to secure well-paid jobs. Xavier Darcos said that France was in danger of becoming a nation of unemployed sociologists unable to master speech or thought. Latest figures show that fewer than 20 per cent of students chose literature, compared with 50 per cent a generation ago.

Book fairs now in colleges
If you thought that having a book fair on Kolkata’s famed College Street was a bad idea, think otherwise. Fourteen publishers participated in Book Fair ‘07, a first-of-its-kind event organized by the students of Presidency College on September 12 and 13. They included Penguin Books India, Macmillan, Anthem Press and “not-so-big names” like Dipayan Publishers and Paschim Banga Itihas Sansad. The students of the college also performed street plays and screened documentaries as part of the two-day fair. Read the whole report here.

Book Launches

With Respect To Sex: Negotiating Hijra Identity in South India
Authors: Gayatri Reddy
Publisher: Yoda Press
ISBN: 978-81-903634-6-4
In an important, intimate, rich and eminently readable ethnography,Gayatri Reddy creates a portrait of a community of hijras in Hyderabad that suggests that one cannot see hijras simply through the lens of gender and sexual difference because that is not how hijras understand themselves.

Breaking the Moulds
Publisher: Books For Change
Men Against Violence & Abuse (MAVA), Mumbai & Purush Uvach(Men Speak), Pune have recently brought out a book entitled ‘Breaking the Moulds’ - the first anthology of Indian men’s writings on gender and sexuality in English. Edited by Dr.Ravindra Rukmini Pandharinath, Harish Sadani, Dr.Geetali V.M. & Mukund S.N., the book includes fresh write-ups exclusively by men on a wide range of gender and sexuality matters.
Email Harish Sadani at harsh267@rediffmail.com (Ph. 098703 07748) for further details on this book.

Blogs

The Book Publishing Opportunity in India - A Macro View
Might there be a positive correlation between the GDP of a country and the growth in the rate of the number of titles published from that country? K. Satyanarayan believes there is. In a well-researched article on his blog, the author argues that India needs about 700,000 new titles to be published per year (the current output estimates are between 70,000 and 90,000 titles) across all Indian languages and English so as to reach levels comparable to developed and developing countries such as China, U.S., France and Germany. [..more here]

It’s the books, stupid
Recent attempts by publishers to develop their identities online through their own websites seem hopelessly misguided. A publisher’s website is like an office building. Unless you have some direct stake in the industry, there’s little reason to bother know where it is. Readers are interested in books not publishers. They go to a bookseller, on foot or online, and they certainly don’t browse by publisher. Who really pays attention to who publishes the books they read anyway, especially in this “corporatized” era where the difference between imprints is increasingly cosmetic? [adapted from an article on the web]

A Compendium of Beautiful Libraries

A bibliophile’s eye candy. [look no further]

And Finally…

We started off with the intention of developing The Publisher’s Post as a bi-weekly newsletter. However, the tremendous response to the first newsletter has made us bold enough to venture a weekly launch. We hope that you will contribute with news and suggestions and help us sustain the initiative.

We have received many emails for which we are grateful. Among the many suggestions was one to have a blog where all issues of The Publisher’s Post can be viewed and indexed. We have created one here and wish to have your comments on it. Some have even suggested a place on the newsletter (or blog) where jobs exclusively related to the publishing industry can be posted. Let us know your views on that too. And finally, do contribute towards information we could use for this newsletter.
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