February 3, 2024: The third day of reputed publishing conference Jaipur Bookmark (JBM), which is running parallel to the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Series Jaipur Literature Festival 2024, delved deeper into the world of publishing with thought-provoking panel discussions across an eclectic range of subjects.
Being held at Hotel Clarks Amer in Jaipur from 1st February to 5th February, the conclave brings together writers, translators, booksellers, publishers, and literary agents from across the globe to foster connections as much for mutual values as for business opportunities in the industry.
Over seven sessions that unfolded on Day 3 of JBM, speakers encompassed themes such as the secrets of effective bookselling, evolving pedagogical practises that are shaping educational publishing, the trials and tribulations of Indian language publishing, the legal nitty-gritties of taxation and piracy, the role of editorial sensibilities in designing winning book covers, and making intelligible the obscure universe of market trends, among others.
THE ALCHEMY OF BOOKSELLING
Aakash Gupta, Ajay Jain, Aditi Maheshwari Goyal, Vishal Pinjani, Pulkit Tiwari, and Priya Kapoor
Bookstores are the key link between writers and readers that enable a society’s literary landscape to flourish. India, though, is famously underserved in terms of bookstores, rendering the task of curation all the weightier and more challenging.
“We often plan our curation thematically such that it can be scaled, say special books, and offers for Valentine’s Day. Then there are other ways to make the bookstore more enticing. Coffee and books go wonderfully well together, we have learned, for instance!” explained Aakash Gupta, CEO, Crossword Bookstores. “So, we lay out our stores with more table space and vision merchandising to create the right ambience. We often hear the feedback that reading space is not enough in our stores, but with real estate costs being so high in India, that’s a challenge for us. But we are trying to remedy that,” added Gupta.
New Delhi-based CMYK Bookstore, founded by brother-sister duo Kapil and Priya Kapoor, who also run the publishing house Roli Books, was born out of the dream to build a haven for illustrated books. “Till this day, people tell us that our bookstore in GK II has transformed the area, especially since we added more events than were strictly literary in nature, including the screenings of usually inaccessible movies and even DJ nights. We also pay particular attention to which books could lend themselves well to merchandising,” stated Priya Kapoor.
Any discussion of bookstores is incomplete without the mention of virtual ones such as Amazon Bookstore, which are increasingly occupying a big share in the pile. “The lifestyles of our consumers are changing rapidly. Amazon has the disadvantage of not being able to provide that sense of a latte to go with your book or the comfort of a couch to sink into while reading, but then we can provide other services. A virtual bookstore can be customised to a customer’s needs and wants, so everyone who browses the website visits a different Amazon bookstore.”
GROWING AND HOW? EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING IN INDIA
Speakers: Atiya Zaidi and Neeraj Jain in conversation with Ananth Padmanabhan
Academic publishing and children’s literature form the biggest share of the Indian book industry. There are many similar and dissimilar ways in which curriculum-based publishers and trade publishers for children have responded to the changing educational policies and social realities. Educating children is a huge responsibility and while NEP has tried to reform Indian classrooms, its impact has not translated in practice. Economic disparities, the impediments of infrastructure in digital learning and limitations of textbook learning continue to remain.
The CEO of Pratham books, Himanshu Giri, shared how Pratham books was born out of a need for good quality literature for children. “We want children to become avid readers, but we don’t have access to good quality literature for children. Moreover, we don’t promote reading beyond textbooks. We start at the bottom of the pyramid through our innovative outreach programmes and publishing books in mother tongues.” Atiya Zaidi, publisher, Ratna Sagar, also spoke about the gaps in textbook learning and how publishers of children’s books can complement classroom learning for holistic development.
“If you asked me, what is needed more, joyful learning or textbooks, I’d say that textbooks have to be joyful,” added Himanshu Giri. “Pratham books, like any publisher publishing for children, is helping make joyful reading complement the educational sector for children.”
EAR TO THE GROUND: EVOLVING LISTS OF INDIAN LANGUAGE PUBLISHERS
Parminder Singh Shonkey, Gita Ramaswamy, Ravi Deecee, Shailesh Bharatwasi, Kannan Sundaram, and Esha Chatterjee
In a session that brought to the fore the realities, some heartening and others humbling, of the Indian language publishing scene, publishers of Telugu, Malayalam, Bangla, Tamil, Hindi and Punjabi literatures discussed key industry trends.
“We largely publish poetry and non-fiction, and also make classic works of other languages available in Punjabi through translation. But one must acknowledge that decoding readers’ interests is not easy; mediocre and worse books sometimes do several times better than quality ones. Equally, a large number of people buy seminal texts, such as Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, without any intention of reading it. Very difficult to determine what excites the reader’s mind,” conceded Punjabi publisher Parminder Singh Shonkey, who is the founder of Rethink Foundation.
For Esha Chatterjee, managing director of Patra Bharati, the third-largest Bengali publishing house, the idea is to have a diverse list where the focus is split between intellectual and popular fiction. “We do lots of B2C selling, including book fests at schools, colleges, etc. Our strategy is that we need to serve every kind of readership; an ‘80-20 rule’, so to say. Twenty per cent of our titles fend for eighty per cent of our business and vice versa. Additionally, a lot of recent young Bengali publishers have been giving space to Young Adult fiction featuring colloquial Bangla, shorter sentences, a sprinkling of English phrases and so on. We often approach these writers to expand our list,” stated Chatterjee.
But next to the many stories of success is also the occasional tale of woe, with some Indian languages struggling to cope with the crises generated by cultural movements and linguistic homogenisation. Telugu literature, for instance, seems to be struggling for dear life, according to Gita Ramaswamy, co-founder, Hyderabad Book Trust, a non-profit Telugu publishing collective.
“We are in a dismal situation right now. Over the years, several cultural movements relegated the value of literature to its rootedness in one or the other ideology, say Communism or feminism or Dalit politics. And these threw up major shadows. Everything besides progressive literature was dismissed as “bourgeois”—the surest way to kill a book,” said Ramaswamy, adding, “The only thing keeping Telugu alive today is the film industry, but that’s bad for literature because unlike in Kerala or Tamil Nadu, books in Andhra Pradesh don’t inspire movies. It’s pretty much the other way round.”
UNDERSCORE: ISSUES OF TAXATION IN PUBLISHING AND THE HEADACHE NAMED PIRACY
Speakers: Nandan Jha, Ravi Deecee and Dahlia Sen Oberoi in conversation with Aditi Maheshwari Goyal
The publishing industry in India is plagued by the problem of rampant piracy. The menace of copyright infringement continues to fuel it despite strict copyright laws being in place. Parallel to this, the returns on books for publishers have not matched up with the cost of production in the post-GST years and changing economic trends.
Speaking on the issue of no GST being placed on books, Nandan Jha, senior VP, sales & product, Penguin Random House India, said, “We have taxed the raw material and other services, but there is no GST on books. Ultimately, the result is that the prices go up. Allowing some GST component or some sort of notional tax might allow the book prices to not go up significantly and simultaneously also keep piracy in check. It would act as a detriment for producers and sellers of pirated books because then they would be forced to maintain and file reports.”
“Piracy is not just a commercial loss to publishers but is also affecting the country and the world,” said noted lawyer Dahlia Sen Oberoi while also encouraging publishers to lobby their efforts in order to curb piracy. “Counterfeiting is a sign of a parallel economy running and flourishing. We have to think about who is funding this economy and being benefited by it. There are available means of redressal that publishers need to come together to utilise. With the right information, laws and lawyers, publishers can combat piracy if they unite. Piracy can only be fought together.”
BEAUTY AND THE BOOK
Speakers: Sunandini Banerjee, Ahlawat Gunjan, Philip Watson, and Svein Størksen in conversation with Priya Kapoor
The making of a book is just as much a challenging and creative process as writing it. The cover, typography, layout, spacing, and spine all come together to give shape to a book and mirror its essence in totality. One of the key factors that often goes underlooked in this process however is production value. “No matter how good everything is, if the production of a book is not good, it won’t make a mark,” shared Ahlawat Gunjan, head of design, Penguin Random House India. Also discussing the art of cover making, Gunjan remarked, “A book cover is half text and half image.”
Giving her insights into the process of cover designing, Senior Editor and Graphic Designer at Seagull Books, Sunandini Banerjeee said, “A great book cover arises out of great deliberate research. One has to spend a lot of time reading up on the place and time and look at photographs and archives. The most important thing that goes into making a book cover that accurately reflects the content of the book is immense visual research.”
MIRRORS OF THE WORLD
Speakers: Luise Braunschweig, Jan Karsten, Alvaro Enterria, Vera Michalski-Hoffmann, and Gabriella Page-Fort in conversation with Naveen Kishore
Publishers all over the world are exploring different subjects of interest, ranging from a specific focus on translations to finding and promoting contemporary voices, but what binds them is the passion for giving stories a home. With changing culture and evolving readership trends, industry professionals from across the world shared how publishing is both responding to and reflecting changing culture and readership trends.
The CEO and editor of CulturBooks, Jan Karsten, believes that books make the world bigger. “I think what is changing is that the audience wants to be introduced to new voices and new perspectives on the world. What constitutes our sense of identities are the stories that we tell ourselves and about ourselves.”
Talking about the independent publishing house Matthes & Seitz Berlin, Luise Braunschweig shared, “We publish about 100-120 titles per year, fifty percent of which are translations. It’s a big part of our publishing house. It is motivated by the desire to understand the world and ourselves. We hope to inspire the people and the readers to think and reflect on their own. We publish contemporary authors from Germany; we are also known for translations for classics and contemporary French authors, and we have a focus on Russian literature.”
QUESTING FOR DATA: THE NIELSEN REPORT AND OTHER INSIGHTS
Vikrant Mathur and Rick Simonson
The last session took on the brave task of wrestling with the insufficiency of data on the Indian book market, leaning into insightful offerings of The Nielsen Report for gauging market trends and growth potential. Industry expert Vikrant Mathur, who is the executive director of Nielsen Bookdata, advocated for the collection of more data across the spectrum of publishing.
With two more days of JBM still to go, the conference is expected to further address compelling subjects such as indie publishing, emerging digital platforms, literary friendships, and more, including a roundtable with festival directors as the valedictory session, thereby pushing the discursive boundaries of what it means to talk the business of books.
