The Publisher’s Post Vol.I Ed.IV
Dated: 29th Sept. 2007
The Publisher’s Post is an weekly newsletter that contains information relating to the book publishing and book selling industry in India.
News This Week
Seminar on “Independent Publishing in Today’s India”
The National Book Trust is holding a Golden Jubilee Seminar on Independent Publishing in Today’s India on the 4th of October at the India International Centre, New Delhi. Speakers and panelists include Ritu Menon, Alok Srivastava, R Sriram and Urvashi Butalia. For details call NBT at 011-2656 4020.
Indian Magazine Congress 2007
The 2007 Indian Magazine Conference, organised by the Association of Indian Magazines (AIM), is scheduled for 8-9 October 2007 at the Taj Lands End in Mumbai. The theme of the congress is “Magazines 2020″.
FIPP President Donald D. Kummerfeld will moderate the opening session, “Magazines 2020 – Strategies for keeping consumers engaged”.
Detailed information is available on the AIM website at www.aim.org.in. In the meantime, foreign delegates are more than welcome to attend. For further information, contact AIM president Ashish Bagga at abagga@intoday.com.
Integrated Support Solutions for STM Publishers
Database and research services provider Scope eKnowledge Center, India, has announced the launch of its Integrated Publishing Support Solutions. The company projects itself as a leading provider of world-class content and database development services to leading Scientific, Technical and Medical (STM) publishers, including Elsevier, Wiley-Blackwell, T&F Informa and Thomson Scientific. Source: KnowledgeSpeak
Room To Read Targets Local Corporate Donors to Scale Up
John Wood, the founder of the non-profit Room To Read libraries, likes to benchmark his efforts against the coffee retailer Starbucks. “In the 8th year after its IPO, Starbucks opened 1,000 outlets. We are opening 1,600 libraries this year,” says Wood, a former Microsoft Corp. executive who is in India looking for corporate donors.
The new Room to Read libraries will add to those already operational in schools in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and five other countries. Besides libraries, the organization funds scholarships for girls, sets up computer labs for students, publishes books in local languages and in some countries, albeit not in India, runs schools as well.
The organization got a $1 million (about Rs4 crore) grant from investment bank Goldman Sachs Goup, earlier this year to fund libraries in India. It also got a $249,000 (about Rs 1 crore) grant from Credit Suisse to build libraries and computer labs here. Now, Wood is hoping Indian donors will step forward as well. “Corporate social responsibility has to go beyond what can I do to look good,” he says. “And India’s growth has to go beyond how many Pizza Huts can be opened per capita.”
Wood plans to enlist the Young Presidents’ Organisation, a non-governmental organization comprising company presidents and CEOs, for his fund-raising efforts in Mumbai. Source: livemint.com
Blog Literature
It is amazing to see what Internet, Web 2.0 and Blogs have done to the common man. The new media technologies let you explore yourselves and share your talents with rest of the world. And the best part is that the main stream media and the public acknowledge them properly.
A couple of such success stories come from the Malayalam blogging world. Two of the Malayalam bloggers got their first books published through some major publishing houses in Malayalam. The first blogger to publish the blog literature is Sajeev Edathaadan, known as viSAla manaskan in the blogging world, who writes about his life, experiences and his hometown with a touch of humor. His book Kodakara Puranam , the same as his blog’s name, was published by Current Books, one of the earliest and leading publishing houses in Kerala.
The second example is also from Malayalam blogging world. Ragesh Kuruman published his book ente yUROpp~ swapnangaL~ (My European Dreams) on last Sunday, August 5th, at Ernakulam. His book was published by Rainbow Books. Source: Joseph Thomas (jocalling.blogspot.com)
Pressmart Makes Inroads In US Digital Publishing Market
Hyderabad-based Pressmart stepped up its business growth plans in the US digital publishing market by signing an agreement with Suburban Newspapers of America (SNA) to provide a digital, same-as-print electronic edition of their monthly association newspaper, Suburban Publisher.
This partnership places Pressmart in a position to tap increasing demand for digital publishing solutions in the US, said a company statement here. SNA members include some of the largest public and privately held newspaper companies in North America. Source: NewspostIndia.com
Fortune Magazine Plans Indian Edition
Time Inc. plans to start an Indian edition of its Fortune magazine under a license deal with a local media company, according to an editor at the US-based business publication.
Under Indian laws, a foreign company has to form a joint venture with a local company or give a license to one to publish news in India.
Fortune plans to bring out an Indian edition through a licensed deal with a local publishing group, Robert Friedman, the magazine’s international editor, told The Associated Press. Source: livemint.com
Now, A Book Mall!
(IANS) So you thought the book-reading habit was on the decline? A bookstore that has opened here with over 200,000 titles in English and 80,000 in the local Kannada language is set to prove you wrong.
Sapna Book House, a multi-level 18,000 sq ft fully air-conditioned mall in Devraja Mohalla of Mysore city of Karnataka, in southern India, claims to be the largest book showroom in the country.
Krishna Soni, the branch manager, told IANS: ‘There is no visible impact of the Internet as far as the sale of books is concerned. The response from Mysoreans has been encouraging.’
Sapna Book House already has four branches in Bangalore. The Mysore store is the fifth. Source: Yahoo News
Harry Potter’s Sixth Edition Now In Hindi
The sixth edition of the Harry Potter series – ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ - will now be available in Hindi.
Manjul Publishing House Managing Director Vikas Rakheja said the translation had been released prior to the schedule in view of heavy demand by Hindi-speaking children. The translation of the seventh book was expected to be released by December.
The translation of the fifth book was released in May this year, Mr Rakheja stated in the press release.
The Manjul Publishing House, Bhopal, is the only publication in the country that has rights to publish translations of Harry Potter series in Hindi and in few other Indian languages.
Mr Rakheja claimed that the quality and feel of Harry Potter book in Hindi was of international standards. Source: DNA
Kenyan Publishers Mull the Indian Impact
As the Nairobi International Book Fair marks its 10th anniversary, players in the publishing industry are taking stock of their achievements with the theme: ‘A decade of publishing excellence.’. The publishers are also debating the high cost of paper and other inputs that make books from India and Malaysia cheaper, even after the costs of shipping are factored in. Read the whole article here.
Book Launches and Other Events
New Releases From Tulika Publishers
On 2nd October, International Day for Non-violence, Tulika releases two out of the ordinary books on the ‘ordinary’ Gandhi, bringing to children the man behind the Mahatma – Picture Gandhi, a photo-biography, and My Gandhi Scrapbook, a unique, interactive, collector’s take on Bapu. Both are by award-winning writer Sandhya Rao.
Picture Gandhi heads off the beaten track and follows Gandhi himself, in spirit as much as chronology. Words used with childlike directness and old black and white photographs shake off the aura for an intimate look at a man who matters – for all times. The book has been published simultaneously in English, Hindi (translated by scientist-writer Arvind Gupta), Tamil (translated by Asokamitran, well known Tamil writer), Malayalam (co-published with Kerala State Institute of Children’s Literature) and Kannada.
My Gandhi Scrapbook book is just that – a scrapbook, with pictures cut and pasted, comments thrown in, something copied in from somewhere, quibbles and scribbles… a very visual, personal diary. In the spirit of scrapbooks, this too is incomplete, with empty pages and spaces, waiting to be filled in…
One of the finest writers for children in India today, Sandhya Rao has won international awards and accolades for her books. She has written around 20 books, including the bestselling Ekki Dokki, My Mother’s Sari (an Outstanding Book of the Year by USBBY and Children’s Book Council, USA, 2007) and My Friend, the Sea (winner of the Ambitious Children’s Book Award at the Children and Youth Literature Festival, Berlin, 2005, and broadcast on BBC, UK).
Tulika Publishers are a Chennai-based publishing house that specialise in books for children. For further details contact Priya Krishnan at tulikabooks@vsnl.com
LexisNexis provides content for Halsbury’s Law Magazine
LexisNexis Butterworths, a global leader in information and services solutions, launched their first legal magazine in collaboration with CyberMedia, Asia’s leading media house, on the 27th of September. Priced at Rs 100, the magazine targets people from the corporate and legal fraternity like all commercial and corporate lawyers, as well as relevant persons in the lifestyle, travel and IT sectors.
It would also be targeted at high-level decision makers and key influencers responsible for purchase of products and services associated with the practice of law. To begin with, subscription to the magazine will be by invitation only. Source: moneycontrol.com
Guess the Man Booker Winner Contest 2007
Guess the name of the book which will win the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2007 and you could win fabulous prizes. Send in your response by e-mail to sudha.munjal@in.britishcouncil
Last date for receiving entries is 15 October. Contest is open from 7 September for library members.
The winner of the library contest will be announced on 16 October.
Blogs
Book Covers of Old
This one is about unique book covers. While you are at it, do check out the author’s name.
The World’s Disappearing Languages
This report by Reuters documents the fast pace at which many of the world’s languages are disappearing. Some of them have disappeared because of government apathy, some because there was a deliberate attempt to promote other languages, mostly English. Although the Indian subcontinent is not identified as one of the “hot spots for vanishing languages”, that could probably be the case because many of these languages are hardly documented. In India, especially, although the language has remained, it is no longer written in all the scripts it used to be written in. In an age where printing and archiving technology has made tremendous advances, the loss of languages can hardly be excused.
By the Book
The blogger writes about her difficulty in finding a book that would help her learn the Ladakhi language and expresses her disappointment at the step-motherly treatment the language is getting. Did someone mention something about disappearing languages?
The Indian Clerk
The New York Times’ review of the book by David Leavitt
People
Sanjiv Beckaya joins Parragon Publishing
Sanjiv Beckaya has joined Parragon Publishing as Chief Operating Officer-Retail Operations. Prior to this, he was with Images Publishing Group as Director.
Beckaya began his career with the India Today Group, where he spent 10 years and was Manager-Sales and Marketing when he quit the organisation. Later he joined the Outlook Group as Vice President-Sales and Marketing where he worked for 11 years. He then joined Images Publishing for a brief period of six months.
Parragon is a UK-based publishing house, established around 20 years ago. It is headquartered in England and has offices in Germany, Australia, India, France and Holland. Source: exchange4media.com
Jobs
Ghost-Writers Needed on Freelance Basis
Those interested should email editorialservices[at]dogearsetc
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This newsletter is developed by Queenie Fernandes and Leonard Fernandes, co-founders of Dogears Etc. and CinnamonTeal Print & Publishing Services with inputs from various individuals, publishing houses, websites and blogs.
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- Posted by Leonard Fernandes at 09:50 pm
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Great work, congratulations! Nice to see such a useful and professional initiative come out of Goa! FN