Far From The Madding Crowd

While a tea-stall owner is making the news for writing novels, the Indian Postal Service is planning to utilise its network to sell books. According to a news report in the Hindustan Times, such an arrangement will afford publishers access to markets in the hinterland.

Having dealt with the business development section of IndiaPost, I read this article with skepticism. There is no denying the good intentions and business acumen of the people who develop schemes such as these. But the arrogance and ineptness of the postal workers (on who the implementation of these schemes actually depends) has to be seen to be believed. With the “my way or the high way” attitude that they possess, well-meaning initiatives such as these usually come to naught.

• When the long-awaited fourth film in the Indiana Jones franchise is released on May 22, 2008, Scholastic and DK—both long-time partners of Lucas Licensing on Star Wars—will release a range of children’s books appropriate for a PG-13 movie. In addition, Penguin is on board for Mad Libs, and Lucas is in talks with other publishers for formats such as tween activity books, according to Carol Roeder, director of publishing
• Sales of audiobook publishers increased 6% in 2006, to $923 million, according to the latest industry sales survey conducted by the Audio Publishers Association. The survey found that consumers continue to migrate to the CD and downloadable formats while leaving cassettes behind. CD sales accounted for 77% of sales ($710 million) in 2006, up from 74% in the prior year, while digital downloads accounted for 14% of sales compared to 9% in 2005. Cassette sales represented only 7% of sales, down from 16%.
• The Penguin Group has launched the VP Book Club, an online reading resource featuring titles from Viking Press and Penguin Group. The site is aimed at reading groups and will feature the regular presentation of new Viking hardcovers, Penguin paperbacks and Penguin Classics. The new site offers a monthly newsletter, an archive collecting the books featured on the site, excerpts and author info, book tour updates, contests and giveaways. Visitors to the site can personalize it and in the coming months Penguin will launch a VP Book Club blog

An interesting article chronicling the revival of interest in poetry.

I know I keep coming back to this but perhaps poets could test the market for poetry using the print-on-demand model. Now available in India, this model will allow poets to write their poetry and put their books up for sale, without having to print a single copy. The books are printed only when the order is placed. After gauging the demand for the book, they can always then go and have their books published by a publishing house having a national reach.

• An article on the BBC website about a person considered untouchable in India who runs his own newspaper to highlight societal discrimination and government apathy against his people.
• Pulitzer-winning US author Cormac McCarthy wins the UK’s oldest literary award, the James Tait Black Prize.

Here’s a fun article on Lulu, “the iTunes of literature“, from the Times of London. The author argues in favour of Print-On-Demand, a service recently introduced in India by CinnamonTeal Print & Publishing Services. Put simply, Print-On-Demand allows one book to be printed at a time. That avoids the need for investments in expensive inventories. Further, Print-On-Demand allows the author to be in direct control of her manuscript and allows for extremely low turnaround times of about a week. Contrast that with the traditional publishing process, which takes one-to-two years from contract to finished book (if one is lucky enough to get a contract in the first place).

The publishing industry in India, for the most part, follows the traditional model. This model is characterized by the following attributes:
- Printing is done using the offset method, where unit costs decrease with volume
- Publishers therefore insist on a minimum print run of about 5000 copies (smaller publishers agree to a print run of 1000 copies)
- Authors whose titles cannot guarantee sales of 5000 copies or more are often turned down. The judgment on whether or not an author should be rejected is made by the publishers on mere intuition.
- This model therefore shuts its doors on most new authors and authors of books in regional languages
- It also makes the publication of titles that cater to a small, niche audience an expensive proposition

The print-on-demand model of publishing, popularized by the likes of lulu.com and xlibris.com in the US and Europe and now introduced in India by CinnamonTeal Print & Publishing Services, might have the answers to the issues that the traditional model of publishing does not address. The Print-On-Demand(POD) model makes use of special machinery that allows books to be printed and bound in small quantities, starting from a single copy. Authors will therefore only need to submit their manuscripts and the book will immediately be available online for sale. Once an online sale is made, the book will be printed and bound, one copy at a time and dispatched to the customer.

While the unit cost of a book or print produced using POD is usually higher than one produced as part of a longer print run, POD does bring some key business benefits:
1) large inventories of a book or print do not need to be kept in stock,
2) the technical set-up is usually quicker and less expensive than for offset printing and
3) there is little or no waste from unsold products
4) books in various languages and scripts can be published

This model will appeal especially to authors of books that will appeal to very small sets of readers. Some of these authors may include:
- translators of titles in regional languages into English (and vice versa)
- authors of books with niche appeal
- people seeking to gift personal collections of poems or photographs
- authors of business presentations/ college theses or project reports
- first-time authors
- companies seeking to publish in-house documentation (such as SOPs and annual reports)
- publishers who wish to keep slower moving items “in print” after earlier print runs are exhausted and who wish to aggressively promote their backlists
- authors of travelogues, cookery books, weekly column and other compilations
- professors in educational institutions who wish to publish their research and findings

While the world moves towards POD, an exciting opportunity is presented to the world of literature to make good on its potential to reach the masses. For the readers of this blog, it presents an opportunity to stop dilly-dallying and write that book - be it about your personal experiences, knowledge or competence.

For more details visit http://cinnamonteal.dogearsetc.com

Could something like this happen in India?

India is already one of the largest markets for books in the world. Yet there are thousands, perhaps millions of people who still want to read a book but cannot get access to one. One way of getting to people the books they want would be to have a mobile library. However, the lack of all-weather roads in most rural areas would hamper an initiative like that.

Perhaps time to ride off a donkey’s back?