The shape of things (to come) in Indian publishing

An interview with Urvashi Bhutalia, co-founder of Kali For Women and founder of Zubaan Books, in Forbes India throws light on the prevailing and emerging trends in Indian publishing.

At the outset, Bhutalia says the only thing that can be “said with certainty about the publishing industry in India is that nothing can be said with any certainty”.

There is no way to estimate the size of the industry, which has been variedly pegged at Rs 7,000 crore at the upper end and Rs 1,200 crore at the lower end.

She is not worried about the death of paper books, as they are just one of the stages in the evolution of books. Earlier, books were made of cloth-like paper. Wide use of paper made from woods started around the 18th century after the cotton industry grew along with industrial revolution. Similarly, more than digital revolution, it is the scarcity of water and wood and the increasing environmental awareness that will result in the death of paper books, she says.

On the prospects of Indian publishing, she says, “Growth will not stop in the near future” because the country has a very low per capita book consumption.

“So as education grows, as literacy grows, as urbanisation spreads, as incomes increase, the media spreads, growth in books will also accompany these, although the form of the book may well change.”

And the change is happening, but there is no way to ascertain how much.

The growth potential has big guns flocking to India. She sees the merger of Penguin and Random House (that happened earlier this year) impacting Indian publishing but only in the long run.

“…At the moment one of the interesting things about Indian publishing is the mix of old, new, independent, multinational, multilingual. All of this may change with the big guns coming in,” she says.

One of the recent key developments in Indian publishing is “the entry of young people, the spirit of adventure and experimentation and the entry of young women into publishing”, for which she has no precise date.

Examples are Kannan (his publishing house is called Kalachuvadu), and New Horizon Media doing Tamil, S. Anand publishing books on caste (Navayana), and Bookport doing Malayalam.

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Have the domestic players reacted to the changes happening, like the entry of multinationals?

“So many are scared of losing their markets to the big guns, but I think we have to really think on our feet about how to deal with this, and people are not doing enough of that,” she says.

A bigger challenge than this is the digital revolution. There are publishers who have adapted to this change and others who have been suspicious, in other words not reacted speedily enough.

Even in the case of the emergence of digital revolution, there is a section of the Indian publishing industry which is feeling threatened and another section which is excited.

“See, in India, I think the paper book will be around longer than in many other countries. We are still, in terms of numbers, a country of book hunger,” she says.

Every publisher is trying to catch up and is releasing e-books along with the print books. They are turning their backlist and out-of-print books into e-books.

But there is no reason to believe that e-books will bring down the cost of books. “There are still costs of conversion,” she says. Moreover, formats also vary. In other words, Amazon has one format but the Apple store has a different one.

Another emerging trend is the changing “experience of a book”.

“Books can now be read with sound, with music, you can witness notes, see what other people have to say,” she says. Especially in the educational books space, many publishers are turning their books into e-books and are not relying on the printed version at all.

On the whole, there is scope to be bullish about Indian publishing. The recent boom in literary festivals also point to “a genuine interest in books and more and more writers writing”.

“All in all, not such a grim scenario overall, but some things look a bit grim. Let’s see if we can prove equal to the challenge,” she concludes.

Read the full interview here .