Will Indies Thrive In India?
This article reflects the scenario in the UK but it could well be an indicator of things to come in India.
The question on everyone’s mind: Will small-time independent booksellers last very long in India? Or will the Landmarks and Odysseys gobble them up? Will economics of scale dictate what Indians, already starved of good literature, can and cannot read?
While the savings look good for the consumer, the benefits of these price wars may be short-term at best, according to Jonathan Spencer-Payne, who runs the Peak Bookshop. Independents carry a much greater range of titles, he says, so a greater diversity of authors and books are represented, including traditionally hard-to-shift first novels. “We support publishers with other titles, with the backlist,” he says. “The feeling in the independent sector is that publishers aren’t thinking about tomorrow. If independent bookshops disappeared, where would they sell the full range of their books? It would be a terrible indictment on society if one or two sellers sold a limited range of books and they basically picked and chose what people read.”