The Publisher’s Post: Vol I Ed. XLVI
Dated: 27th July 2008
The Publisher’s Post is a weekly newsletter that contains information relating to the book publishing and book selling industry in India.
News This Week
On what’s happened in the industry this last week. If there’s news you have heard of and think it would make for interesting reading, please share it with us.
LBF sets focus on India and South Africa for forthcoming shows
Source: printweek,com
The London Book Fair (LBF) has revealed that India and South Africa will be the market focus countries for its 2009 and 2010 shows, respectively.
LBF head of international development Emma House, said: “We are excited at the prospect of being able to focus on two such rich and diverse publishing industries.”
In addition, the British Council will reprise its partnership with LBF for the next two years, following the success of the Arab World market focus at the 2008 show.
Susanna Nicklin, director of literature at the British Council, said: “Although our cultural relations with India and South Africa are well established, we are excited by this opportunity to work with outstanding contemporary writers from both these countries.”
Other partners for the India 2009 programme include Capexil, a non-profit organisation designed to promote Indian exports, and the Federation of Indian Publishers (FIP).
A spokesperson for Capexil said: “The participation of Indian publishers in the Market Focus programme will not only generate better exports, it should also pave the way for productive business relationships between Indian publishers, distributors and exporters with their foreign counterparts.”
Chandamama goes digital with portals in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu; more to follow
Source: exchange4media.com
Chandamama, the 61-year old children’s magazine, is now going ahead in its cyber avatar. The publication has launched its online portals in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. It already has a portal in English and will soon launch websites in Marathi and Oriya languages.
And if one is expecting only age-old, yet popular stories of Vikram and Betaal and other characters from mythology, then there is some pleasant surprise. The site has a contemporary look and feel, featuring stories in different categories like mythology, history, folk tales, humour, adventure, contemporary, etc.
This apart, the portal is a treasure trove for those brought up on Chandamama as it features an archive going back 60 years. At present, early editions the magazine in Hindi, English, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu can be found on the site. Other language editions as well as all the back issues in the past 60 years would go live soon.
Commenting on the archives, L Subramanyam, CEO, Chandamama, said, “There is a huge demand for classical Chandamama stories. By putting our archives up online, we hope we are in some way able to satisfy this demand. We have only put up six languages now, but eventually, our entire 60 years will be available online.”
On the launch of Tamil and Hindi portals, Subramanyam said, “We like to reach out to children in an environment they are most comfortable. The message of Chandamama is relevant across language and cultures. The Tamil and Hindi sites contain original stories written for the Tamil and Hindi publications, and in many cases these are different from the stories you will find on the English and Telugu sites.”
Still Potty about Harry
Source: Times of India
On July 21 last year, Rajiv Chowdhry was startled by the length of the queue outside Kolkata’s Oxford bookstore. An eclectic bunch—kids, adults, Indians, foreigners—all were standing patiently in line along the length of Park Road to grab Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows , the last book in J K Rowling’s path-breaking series. The Oxford CEO recalls selling close to 8,500 copies in a matter of hours. “The phenomenon was unparalleled,” he reminisces with a whiff of nostalgia. “No author has touched such magical numbers before.”
A year later, much of the buzz seems to have died down. Bookstores and publishers, who did roaring business, have evidently moved on, reconciled to the fact that a phenomenon like Potter happens once in a blue moon. The current crop of takers, Chowdhry says, are “latecomers and second-hand readers”. Still, Oxford plans to have a small gathering and decorate its bookstores on the occasion. “We will give discounts, have theme-based contests and events and hold week-long celebrations. Sales may have been subdued but the series still evokes a reaction from kids,” he says.
The Landmark book chain, on the other hand, has no plans for the ‘death’ anniversary. “There is no euphoria left,” says Himanshu Chakarwarty, COO of Landmark. “We’ve moved on to authors like Amitav Ghosh and Jeffrey Archer, who are doing well for us.”
Chowdhry rues the fact that the paperback editions of all the Potter books have yet to arrive in India. “The Deathly Hallows hard cover costs Rs 995. The paperback, for instance, is priced around Rs 400. Its arrival would have helped sales,” he points out.
Farewell with a difference
Source: The Hindu (Metro Plus, Chennai)
In a few months, it will be fifty years since he entered the publishing industry. Celebrating that anniversary early, R. Seshadri has decided to sever his final links with the industry. He has just sold his last business interest in publishing, the German Book Centre, Madras, to a Delhi publishing house.
Seshadri, who had got interested in German as a hobby after visiting the Frankfurt Book Fair regularly, started the German Book Centre in 1982 to represent leading German publishers whose books were in demand in the IITs, Goethe Institutes and various universities.
For many years, it was the only distributor in India and Sri Lanka for learning material in German, be it for language or technical studies. Ours has been a major contribution towards the propagation of the German language in India, says Seshadri.
Seshadri started his career in publishing as a Sales Representative with Orient Longman’s. While at Longman’s, he was the first Indian from the publishing industry to be trained in sales and marketing in the U.K.. He later founded a local representative service that represented nearly a dozen leading British publishers of specialist books for institutions of higher education. He also founded his own publishing house, T.R. Publications, which published over a hundred original titles on Economics, Business, English etc. before he sold the company and began to concentrate on the German Book Centre.
Write up their alley: chick lit brigade grows
Source: Times of India
She’s hip, humorous, candid, sassy…and she’s making readers fall head over stiletto heels in love with chick lit. Meet the new breed of female authors whose light-hearted tales of singletons looking for love, job satisfaction and the perfect pair of shoes are dominating Indian bookstores these days. The Bridget Jones wave may have been a little late in hitting desi shores (it’s more than a decade since Helen Fielding adapted her newspaper creation to book format) but it’s sure setting off ripples in the publishing world.
For these 20 and 30-something writers are tapping into a new market - aspirational young women, or women who aspire to being aspirational young women. And it looks like there are plenty of those around. Hotel exec turned chick lit author Advaita Kala’s Almost Single has done a 20,000 print run in a year. “That’s quite a feat since even a 5,000 print run is considered above average in India,” says V Karthika, editor-in-chief of HarperCollins which published the book. It’s also going international with Bantam Dell bringing out the US edition in March. Another chick lit from their stable, Anuja Chauhan’s The Zoya Factor , has started with a 20,000 print run.
Penguin India is set to roll out two new chick lit novels in the next few months. Marrying Anita by Anita Jain, which follows the journey of a 30-plus New Yorker to Delhi to find a husband, and freelance journalist Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan’s You Are Here . Rupa and Co has had a runaway hit with novelist and filmmaker Rajashree’s Trust Me which sold over 50,000 copies and it will soon release Tishaa Khosla’s Pink or Black .
Read the whole article here
Sony opens up e-book Reader to other online booksellers
Source: The Hindu
With the market for electronic books still relatively sleepy, Sony Corp. is trying a new tack: untethering the latest model of its e-book reading device from its own online bookstore.
On Thursday, Sony will provide a software update to the Reader, a thin slab with a 6-inch (15-centimeter) screen, so the device can display books encoded in a format being adopted by several large publishers. That means Reader owners will be able to buy electronic books from stores other than Sony’s.
“This upgrade opens the door to a whole host of paid and free content from third-party e-book stores, Web sites and even public libraries,” said Steve Haber, senior vice president of consumer product marketing for Sony Electronics.
With the move, Sony is partly letting go of its e-book business model, under which it sold the $300 device and the books that could be read on it. It’s also a challenge to Amazon.com Inc., which last year put out its own e-book reader, the Kindle, and tied it to its own online store. Amazon, however, makes it relatively easy for publishers and individuals to submit books to sell through the store, with Amazon taking 65 percent of the proceeds.
Opening up the Reader could also help Sony catch up to the $359 Kindle in terms of book selection _ Sony’s store, which it will keep running, has about 45,000 books available, while Amazon’s Kindle store sports more than 140,000.
Sony’s move could also help energize the e-book industry, which has yet to take off, despite the investment of big-name companies like Sony and Amazon. Neither has released sales figures for their reading devices.
New Book Releases and Events
This section reports on new book and journal releases, besides other announcements. Authors and publishers are requested to take advantage of this section and ensure that their new releases are reported here. All it takes is an email to newsletters at dogearsetc dot com.
Motorcycle Diaries
One Life to Ride: A Motorcycle Journey to the High Himalayas
by Ajit Harisinghani
Bibliophile South Asia, 224 pp. Paperback
Beginning with a beautiful cover page, the book continues with its tryst with capturing the rugged beauty of the roads leading to Khardung –la. An entrancing travelogue of a journey performed by a practicing speech therapist with a yen for the dugh …dugh…dugh of a Royal Enfield bullet! Beginning with the description a trailer ride from Pune to Goa, the actual action begins with plans of a 4300 kms motorcycle journey, solo. The witty, incisive reflections gives the reader a feeling of actually being there with the author. The tea-stall encounters with entranced village folk, mysterious Sufi saints, the pleasure of riding on very rough mountain roads, maintained by the Border Roads Organization and the brave faces of Indian soldiers guarding our border in hostile conditions ..are just not to be missed.
Selling less to grow more
The story of a magazine with a difference.
In a world driven by cut-throat competition, what does one make of a publication that wants to sell less? That is the claim being made by Sameera, a Bhopal-based niche magazine. Yet, it is not as if the magazine is aiming for a diminishing readership. What it really wants is to develop the habit of sharing among people to help save the environment. This unique approach to magazine circulation is guided by the fact that Sameera is perhaps the only magazine of its size in the country to be printed on handmade paper.
Blogs and Articles
Blogs and articles commenting on trends and events in the book industry
The right to copy
Source: ravi.givemebackmyguitar.com
An article that explains in simple language the copyright law in India
Words Worth
Source: Deccan Herald
Magicians, sharks, jackals, pimps, blood suckers lit agents have been stamped with these and many more labels. But, says Mita Kapur, with everyone writing a book these days, it may not be such a bad thing to hire one afterall.
Literary agents in India were and are a realistic need. With the publishers receiving a barrage of manuscripts every day and not being able to find time to wade through the pile, we may have lost out on some exciting writing talent. If an agent with a good nose steps in, it is a significant help to both - the publisher and the author.
I heard someone remark very pragmatically that representing an author is a business and the reality is that the agent isn’t your mom and publishing isn’t really as much art or science as it is timing and professionally crafted material. The timing is right - for aspiring authors, for lit agents to link the two up. The estimated market for popular books in India is around Rs 1000 crore. The industry is growing at between 10 percent to 15 percent annually.
With these kind of figures, it is only practical that literary agents step in to play a significant role. For Indian writers, they can help sell overseas rights since publishers in the West don’t consider manuscripts that don’t come through agents. For now, even if the role agents play in the whole business of pitching, selling, arranging deals for authors, “it will take a long time before agents start wielding power like in the West,” says Thomas Abraham, managing director of Hatchette Publishing (India). True enough.
Also read Working as Catalysts, an article on the growing number of literary agents in India, that appeared in Business World.
Blogged in India, between covers in Pak
Source: Hindustan Times
He has broken new ground on the blogosphere. Twenty-eight-year-old journalist-blogger Mayank Austen Soofi, 28, could become the youngest Indian to be published in a Pakistani textbook. Soofi’s blog Pakistan Paindabad aims to shatter stereotyped Indian perceptions about its neighbour. “People treat Pakistan as a country of terrorist camps, but there are swanky cafes, pretty girls, galleries, writers…a very Delhi crowd. I wanted people to see that it’s as normal as India,” he says.
Samuel Ray, editor, Oxford University Press, Pakistan, recently wrote to him eliciting interest in using material from his blog for an English textbook for class XI students. “Nothing’s finalised, but if published it will be a slap to all people who think Pak publishing is all about India haters,” says Soofi.
The excerpts being sought are from a series called ‘Five Best Things About Pakistan’ wherein Soofi got writers, activists and common people from Pakistan or of Pakistani origin to pick their top five.
How Indian Is Indian Writing In English?
Source: littleindia.com
What is it that makes the most talented of India’s literary geniuses steer clear of Indian shores to settle down in foreign lands?
What is it that makes the most talented of India’s literary geniuses steer clear of Indian shores to settle down in foreign lands? Is it the promise of fame, recognition and money that comes from catering to the western market with a much wider reader base? Or is it the ennui of having to pander to Indian readers, still far behind in terms of cultural and literary sophistication than their western counterparts? Or is it something much less sinister? Do these writers move away from the land that sparks their stories to achieve a heightened sense of intimacy and observation that distance is known to create?
Engineering the Risk Out of Book Publishing
Source: portfolio.com
Is HarperStudio the future of book publishing?
That’s what HarperCollins is calling its new unit dedicated to changing the high-stakes economics of the book business. The idea behind HarperStudio, is to do away with the “mega-risks” built into the system as it now exists: large advances, high marketing costs and, for books that sell poorly, the added expense of pulping unsold copies. In exchange, they’re offering authors a 50/50 split of profits.
HarperStudio plans to publish 25 books a year at first, and has 17 titles signed up so far. HarperStudio will try to save money by focusing its marketing efforts on web outreach.
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This newsletter is developed by Queenie Fernandes and Leonard Fernandes with inputs from various individuals, publishing houses, websites and blogs.
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