LOGOS

English-language fiction publishing in India1

Jaya Bhattacharji Rose
Jaya Bhattacharji Rose is an international publishing consultant editorial professional and critic has been associated with Indian publishing since the early 1990s. Her responsibilities have included guest-editing the special Childrens and YA Literature of The Book Review, and producing the first comprehensive report on the Indian Book Market for the Publishers Association, UK. Her articles on publishing, interviews and book reviews have also appeared in Frontline, The Book Review, DNA, Outlook, The Hindu, Hindustan Times, Folklife, LOGOS, Business World, The Hoot, Asian Age and Muse India. She is also Literary Director, Siyahi; Advisor, Publishing Next and to Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) for their conference on Business of Publishing. Email: jayabhattacharjirose@gmail.com

Introduction

Today, when you enter a bookshop, browse online stores and libraries for books, or open the book reviews section, there is such a huge variety of books being published in India that it feels like a deluge. It is impossible to keep pace with the reading or even conversations about books. Only a small proportion of these books get reviewed, mentioned, or included as author interviews in newspapers, weeklies, and Sunday literary supplements. Otherwise, a lot of the discussions about contemporary Indian fiction in English have moved online, whether it is in blogs, e-literary maga-

zines or Facebook groups, centred round a specific book/author/event or those interested in discussing fiction. This robust growth in fiction is evident from the confidence shown by publishers in buying rights for the local market. According to an article in the Economic Times, two years ago, Ramachandra Guha signed a Rs. 97-lakh, seven-book deal with Penguin. The publisher had reportedly paid Rs. 55 lakh for author Amitav Ghoshs Ibis trilogy, while former Infosys boss Nandan Nilekani was paid Rs. 25 lakh for his take on

DOI: 10.1163/095796511X604665

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Indias history and its future, Imagining India.2 Interestingly, all the authors are Indian and yet command such fabulous advances. In my article, I not only attempt to map this tremendous boom, but also discuss the business of publishing fiction in English. I will do this, not only through conversations and e-mail correspondence with publishers, authors, editors, reviewers, literary agents, and sales and marketing personnel, but also through trying to sift through the conflicting amounts of data and reports; there has been no accurate mapping until now, although the government of India does have a policy that insists that a copy of every publication, including books, must be deposited with the Raja Rammohun Library.
Publishing fiction in English: the background

the Dutch group Reed Elsevier (4,200 million Euros) and Walter Kluwer (also Dutch; 3,400 million Euros), which has recently sold their educational books to Pearson. These figures make Indias output seem paltry, indeed. And with the global market for books being valued at 70,000 million Euros, we have an even longer way to go. 4 Priya Kapoor, Director of Roli Books, says that 90 per cent of unsolicited submissions are fiction manuscripts, although fiction only constitutes 5 to 6 per cent of their list. Whereas Mita Kapur, CEO of Siyahi, says that todays reader is engulfed bythe consumerist trends and prefers to like books that are quick and light reads. This is not to deny that literary fiction still holds its own and is loved by many and has loyal followers. A Rushdie, Ghosh, Seth book will sell huge numbers. It is an exciting time for authors, since a lot of new voices can be seen and heard. Sales figures are one issue but what is more important is to keep an introspective watch on the kind of writing that is getting published. Are we teetering towards accepting mediocre writing? What kind of standards are we setting for young authors when we let those books out in the market? There has to be a certain watchful benchmark. Readership needs to be educated and informed. 5 In India, the Shakti Bhatt Foundations annual award, Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize, is open to all categoriesfiction, non-fiction, poetry, and dramabut usually fiction has the highest number of submissions. In the four years since it was established, there has been a stupendous rise of approximately 300 per cent in the number of books submitted. Yet the quality has deteriorated. So much so that this year, the organizers are seriously considering announcing a shorter shortlist than the usual six books. This anecdote in itself illustrates the phenomenal growth of fiction publishing in India.
The size and potential of book market in India

According to Thomas Abraham, MD of Hachette India,3 the total current volume of sales of trade or consumer publishing in India is estimated to be between Rs. 1,0001,200 crore (One crore is Rs. 10 million, or US$220,000.) There is definitely no data for sales figure by category. Fiction would be too broad a category to calculate. The general and commercial segment should see a high growth. Literary fiction will be flatter. Crime and thriller sales depend on how many books the top 10 brands have in any given year. But on a very rough average, industry growth is generally accepted as being between 12 per cent and 15 per cent, but would depend on what sort of publisher one was. So, fiction sales can quite easily be pegged at 1012 per cent. To put the volume of business in India in perspective, it would help to remember that this is miniscule when compared with the output of books in the more developed parts of the world. For example, the worlds largest publisher, Thomsona giant in the field of legal, medical, and scientific booksemploys 32,000 people and has a turnover of 5,000 million Euros (interestingly, 88 per cent of their books are available as ebooks). It is closely followed by the Pearson group, which includes Penguin, and then Bertelsmann (4,400 million Euros), which owns Random House, and on their heels come

Of 1.1 billion people in India, only 2 per cent are able to read and write English. The number of young people below the age of 30 who are not only literate in English, but prefer to communicate in the language is 550 mil-

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lion6. According to a readership survey conducted in January 2010 by the weekly news magazine Tehelka, only 42 per cent of Indias book-buyers are habitual readers. Yet India is the sixth-largest book producer in the world and the third-largest producer of Englishlanguage books in the world after the US and the UK in terms of volume, publishing approximately 100,000 titles a year. The value of the Indian book market is estimated at about Rs. 14,000 crore, or GBP 1.6 billion. There are 19,000 publishers in the country, although no single trade association has more than 1,000 members indicating a scattered, but vibrant, industry. Trade books account for 30 per cent of output by value (at Rs. 4,200 crore, or GBP 320 million),7 of which local publishing makes Rs. 700 crore, or GBP 130 million. Trade in English-language publishingincluding fiction, non-fiction, and textbooksis equivalent to Rs. 9,800 crore of the total value of Rs. 14,000 crore. These figures are based on the organized sector; there are many small independent publishers (including institutes and non-profit organizations) that do not give ISBNs to their publications, and therefore cannot accurately be counted.8 The total number of publishers registered with the India office of the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) agency is 123,775 (2007 figures).9 Alongside these statistics, there exists a thriving middle class; increasing amounts of available disposable income, coupled with a disposition to read for pleasure rather than to clear an examination (a noticeable shift in recent years); the continuing aspiration of most Indians to speak and read fluently in English as it helps in social mobility, and the fact that books are now being published to cater to a wide variety of palettes. This is evident by the books (legitimate and pirated copies of bestsellers) sold at crossroads and traffic junctions and by the increasing number of people reading while travelling in the metro, buses, and trains. These changing sociological patterns have resulted in the success of mass market publishers, like Srishti and Rupa, and the Metro Reads list of Penguin Books India. All these factors could ensure that book sales in the country continue to show a healthy growth rate. According to traditional bookshop proprietors and distributors, every month, an average 400 to 500 titles are released into the market, making it impossible to stock every title that is published.

Neelini Sarkar confirms that India is a growing market. It has seen a strong growth of 6.5 per cent in the last 15 years, and an even greater growth in the last 5 years. Many international publishers are setting up offices in India. Pan Macmillan has chosen to expand its publishing programme in India and focus on building a local list from 2012. Aitken Alexander, the literary agency, has set up a dedicated India office. Lonely Planet and Simon & Schuster have set up offices in India, with the latter opening editorial operations from 2012. This shows that India is being recognized as a potential market by international players. 10 In spite of this robust perception of the book market in India, there is hardly any reliable source of data on the market. Last October, Nielsen Bookscan, the international data-tracking service for book sales, arrived in India, but the group is currently providing data from a few major bookstore chains in India, which is arguably not representative.11 Chiki Sarkar, Publisher at Penguin Books India says that this is, of course, good news for Indian publishers (particularly trade publishing in the English language)Bookscan will provide the first properly audited sales figures for Indian titles, something that is much needed. But it is also a sign that the industry is mature enough for English-language general books, and has sales that are significant enough for Bookscan to enter. Although Bookscan at the moment only covers the major book chains, circumventing the small bookshops across the country, out of which you get a vast number of sales.12
Publishing houses in India with lists in fiction

Some of the prominent publishing houses that have fiction lists are the multi-national publishing houses with Indian offices: Penguin Books India,13 Random House India,14 Hachette India,15 Picador/PanMacmillan,16 and soon Simon and Schuster. The Indian publishing houses, including independent ones, are: Rupa, Aleph, Zubaan, Women Unlimited, Seagull, Stree, Blaft, Srishti, Sahitya Akademi, National Book Trust, and Amaryllis. Fiction lists come in various shades, but some of the popular

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categories with brisk sales are historical fiction, thrillers, literary fiction, mass market and commercial fiction, graphic novels, young adults and childrens literature,17 chick lit, Pakistani literature, Bangladeshi literature, folk tales, and translations of pulp fiction from regional languages like Hindi and Tamil.
Categories of fiction that are popular and selling well

Successful authors

Chetan Bhagat, investment banker turned successful writer, is credited by many as the torchbearer of massmarket fiction and recently published his new book, 2 States: The story of my marriage. Over 500,000 copies were sold in the first six months. According to Bhagat, I am part of an inevitable phenomenon triggered by the changing reality of India. Post-liberalization, the spending power of certain segments of urban India has gone up. These growing numbers of Englishknowing Indians want to read stories about people like themselveswhether its the adventures of a North Indian marrying a South Indian in a neutral setting or the antics of a call centre executive. They are confident about their cultural identity and have had enough of old-style depictions of rural poverty and immigrant angst. As the poster boy of his genre, Bhagat leads a burgeoning tribe that writes without claims of literary merit. The accent is on telling a good story that entertains and is easily digestible.23 Advaita Kalas Almost Single has sold

According to Renuka Chatterjee, Chief Editor of Westland,18 it is commercial fiction that is currently selling very well. For instance, mass market campus novels, chicklit, thrillers, etc. mostly aimed at GenNext (roughly the 1835 age group), and low-priced paperbacks, ideally priced at Rs. 95250 maximum (that is approximately US$2). Anurima Roy, Publicity Manager at Hachette India,19 says that in her firm they find that the popular titles are Pakistani literature and a break from the out-andout commercial fiction. People want to read some crossover literature like crime. Historical fiction sells well. Mita Kapur, CEO of Siyahi,20 says editors are looking for cutting-edge voices, newer genresspeculative fiction, sci-fi, mystery, and thrillers. Popular fiction will always be in demand. Saugato Mukherjee, Publisher at PanMacmillan/ Picador India,21 says that readership is increasing steadily, especially women readers for historical fiction. Other favourites are global literary fiction and contemporary, political histories of India. But as Tanuj Khosla points out in his WSJ article, Indians like books with a local flavour, like Chetan Bhagat.22

over 100,000 copies. In the USA it has been released in multiple formatstrade, mass market, and ebook. It was retailed out of Cosco and other major retail hubs, and online. It was released under the Bantam Discovery Programmea major publishing programme run by Bantam Dell that introduces the new voices of commercial fiction to the American reading public. First print runs usually run high in the hundreds of thousands of copies.24 According to Renuka Chatterjee, Chief Editor at Westland, Amish Tripathis Immortals of Melhuha, the first in a trilogy on Shiva, has sold approximately 1,750,000 copies in print so far since it was released in March 2010. Ashwin Sanghis Chanakyas Chant has sold close to 40,000 since January 2011, and is just going

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in for another reprint of 10,000 copies but (sadly) literary fiction and non-fiction still have average sales of 3,0005,000 copies, unless they are lucky enough to hit the big time, as in big overseas advances, which can become a talking point, and being shortlisted or winning a big literary prize. For first time authors it is still pretty much a game of chancesome really take off in a big way, others fall by the wayside. A lot of it has to do with the marketing, and the authors own PR skills. Thats the other big change/trendplus online selling. 25 Some of the well-known literary authors from India are Anita Desai, Amitav Ghosh, V. S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, and Vikram Seth. 26 Of the post-1990 novelists, some of the more recognized names are David Davidar, Hanif Kureshi, and Arundhati Roy.27 It is important to remember that most Indians are polyglot 28 and this is reflected in the way the English language has been adapted and adopted by Indians29. Between 1972 and 1992, Indian origin authors were nominated five times for the Booker Prize. The others to be nominated during this period were: Anita Desai (twice), Naipaul, and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.
Contemporary fiction and some successful stories

run of 1,000,000 copies. The publishers, Westland, have even tied up with Infibeam, an online bookselling portal, to release mugs for each customer of the book. Compare this with the first print run of Booker prize-winner and bestseller Aravind Adigas Last Man in the Tower: just 30,000.31 Westland has also snapped up a few more authors whom they believe have the potential to sell close to one million copies. Five years ago, as an engineering student, and now a successful banker, Durjoy decided to write a book just for the fun of it. Already a blogger, he strung together various blog posts, loosely knit them together, and did what all young English-speaking Indians seem to be doing these days: looked for a publisher. He submitted online to four or five of them, including Srishti publishers. Srishti was the only one to get back to him, in three days. Despite its liberal use of campus slang, its liberties with grammar and generous use of the F-word, Bose spotted the genuine voice of a young man from the wrong side of Delhi trying to make out and move up. His book,Of Course I Love You Till I Find Someone Better, was published in four months in 2008, and hit the bestseller charts instantly. An embarrassed Durjoy, who had kept the book a secret from his family, was forced to confess his guilt when his face appeared in a national magazine. Since then, writing books has become something of an addiction for him. Hes written four already: Now That Youre Rich(2009),She Broke Up, I Didnt(2010) andI am Single! So Is My Girlfriend(2011). Their combined sale is an astounding 7.5 lakh copies. The royalty from his books is more than his salary, but Durjoy isnt ready to quit his day job yet. My books are entertainers, but its an unpredictable business. Who knows how long I can keep belting out bestsellers?32 Jayanta Bose, Publisher at Srishti, tries to unravel the mystery. Ever since he sensed a market in commercial fiction, hes followed the same strategy. Love sells, ac-

A range of novels in the last couple of decades have caught the attention of critics and the public at large. They include the Ibis Trilogy by Amitav Ghosh; the amusing Paro: Dreams of passion (1984) by Namita Gokhale (21 years later she has published its sequel, Priya: In Incredible Indyaa); One Night at the Call Center by Chetan Bhagat; Socialite Evenings and Starry Nights by Shobhaa De; Almost Single by Advaita Kala; Serious Men by Manu Joseph; Alchemy of Desire and The Valley of Masks by Tarun Tejpal; The Bioscope Man by Indrajit Hazra; Dreams in Prussian Blue by Paritosh Uttam; Faces in the Water by Ranjit Lal; No Guns at my Sons Funeral by Paro Anand; Anjali Josephs Saraswati Park; Tishani Doshis Pleasure Seekers; The Folded Earth by Anuradha Roy. Amish Tripathis The Immortals of Meluha, the first part of Shivas trilogy (125,000 copies), released a YouTube trailer of approximately 2 minutes.30 The second book of Amishs trilogy,The Secret of the Nagas, due to hit bookstores in August 2011, will start with a print

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cording to him, especially in small towns. And when you combine love with the anxiety that goes with growing up in the new Indiacoping with board exams, parental aspirations, girlfriend troubles, job stressit sells lakhs of copies. The first commercial book he published, Anything for You, Maam: An IITans love storyby Tushar Raheja, began with a print run of 4,000 and ran out in 10 days. It has now crossed 200,000.33 Jayanta Bose attributes the tremendous success of mass-market paperbacks or commercial fiction to the rising numbers of young Indian authors using easy, colloquial language and identifiable situations in their books have also played a huge part behind this boom. The role of chains like Crossword and Landmark has been significant in driving up the readership at least in the urban areas. Also they provide a platform for high visibility for new authors and easy browsing-cum-navigation space for new readers. He continues to say that difference between publishers in India and rest of the world is that the target market for western publishers is the global market. So for them to successfully segment their market is a bit difficult. That is the main reason behind the failure of many of their books. But the expectation of every title to be a bestseller is unrealistic and to generalize such a situation is also not fair. The Indian industry having a local market does not face such a situation. Therefore, it is easy for them to segment their market and target the desired audience, and then position the book as per the needs. Hence such a model per se does not exist in India. 34 Kapish Mehra, owner, Rupa Books attributes the success of mass-market fiction to their pioneering efforts at studying the market carefully. He says that their fiction list is a judicious mix between unsolicited and commissioned manuscripts. In fact, at times, as with academic lists, Rupa studies a segment of readers and then commissions fiction for the targeted commu-

nity. A confident Kapish says that since they are careful about their strategies, they are able to project in terms of 50,000 as a print run for even a new author. 35
YA literature

Another emerging trend of authors and readers are those of YA (young adult literature).36 For instance, Shival Gupta (aged 17) who wrote Discovery of the Swordcase (self-published, 2007) and Where Edges Meet: A tenth board love story, published by Maple Press in 2009; Anirudh Vasudev (aged 19), Of Ghosts, Wizards and Other Fantasies (Sterling, 2009); and Trisha Ray (aged 18), The Girls Behind the Gunfire (HarperCollins, 2011). Puffin published in 2007 Adventures in Antarctica, by the teen brothersister duo of Rishi and Suravi Thomas, and in November 2010 added 17-yearold mountaineer Arjun Vajpayees name to the list of young authors. Also published are Asmita Goyanka (aged 13) The Mystic Temple (IndiaInk, Roli Books, 2008); Ronen Chatterjee (18), Fire Within and Ready to Rock (Har-Anand Publications, 2007 and 2009); Anshuman Mohan (15), Potato Chips (HarperCollins, 2010). According to Karthika, there are bodies of work missing in practically every genre of writing in India, except, perhaps, in the category known as literary fiction. And that, say publishers, is a crime.37
Rights, territories, and literary agents

According to Saugata Mukherjee, Publisher, Picador, Pan and Macmillan at Pan Macmillan Asia, the impressive change in publishing has been the buying and selling of Rights. The rights for the Indian subcontinent are no longer bundled with UK and Commonwealth writers Indians have become very sure of their writing. They are not looking for the branding of publishers. Earlier books had to be pre-routed through UK channels, but now they are confident of their own territory. The more established writers want India as a part of their focused domain, thereby showing more confidence in Indian publishers. For instance, Arvind Adiga and Vikram Seth copies are selling well here, if not more than their UK offices. 38

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A wonderful example of this is Anita Nair39, a successful novelist who has sold rights to her books in the UK , the USA , Netherlands, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Greece, Israel, Portugal Poland, Serbia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Brazil, Croatia, Sweden, Hungary, Slovenia, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Norway, Korea, Indonesia, Turkey, Russia, and Romania. The reverse trend has also grown in the recent years, of publishers in the subcontinent purchasing the English-language rights for books written in French, German, and other European and African languages. The notable example of this would be Naveen Kishore of Seagull Books, from Kolkata. This is a phenomenon almost unheard of in a largely Westcentred and West-controlled world of territorial rights in English, where there is a tendency to club together the post-colonial world.40 A fascinating new trend in fiction publishing is the relationship being built up between literary agents and authors and publishing houses. This is still a relatively new phenomenon in India. Two of the wellknown agents are Mita Kapur of Siyahi and Jayapriya Vasudevan of Jacaranda. Both of them confirmed that they are inundated by fiction manuscripts, receiving an average of 20 manuscripts per week from India alone. But they only pick those that are truly promising. Interestingly enough, for Jacaranda, 90 per cent of our unsolicited list is college stories or YA. We ask for synopses and 30 pages of writing. From that we gauge if we want to read more. And from the ones we read more of, we might take 2 per cent.41
Sales

dependents, which are publishing books on niche subjects: Blaft in South India is translating regional pulp fiction; Navayana focuses on caste issues from an anti-caste perspective, and Queer Ink is the first publisher in the subcontinent to focus exclusively on gay fiction.42 According to Akshay Pathak, Director of German Book Office (GBO), Delhi, retail estimates say that organized retail is responsible for a mere 7 per cent of book retail sales, but there is certainly an upsurge in shelf space for books (at least in urban settings like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, and Hyderabad) and with the online retail outfits like Flipkart and Infibeam defying all pessimists on the potential of books sales in India. Flipkart claims to have 4 million titles readily available to its 6 million visitors and 500,000 registered users. Its book sales have reached 750,000 so far. Half of the buyers return to buy a second book.43 Flipkart offers around a 15 to 20 per cent discount on every book, hence its revenues are mainly volume-driven. It sells 1.5-lakh books per month and has over 6 million titles listed, ranging across all genre of books. The company, which was started with a personal finance of Rs. 4-lakh in 2007, had clocked a turnover of Rs. 25-crore in FY 10, and is expecting aroundRs.75-crore this fiscal. 44 Jayanta Bose, of Srishti Publishers, adds that their books are not only targeted at the youths in metros, so the role of chains like Landmark and Crossword are limited as they have not penetrated the rural market yet. 45 Hence, this uneven distribution of books has contributed to the stratospheric year-on-year growth of online retailing, lending libraries, and second-hand book websites.
Emerging business models

Chiki Sarkar, Publisher, Penguin Books India, confirms that trends in Indian publishing, luckily, reflect only the growth. Most publishers will tell you that sales of their top books are increasing year on year, although the average book still sells only around 2,000 to 3,000 copies a year. Not only are the local Indian publishing houses thriving, but the last few years have also seen the rise of small, dynamic in-

To keep pace with this fabulous growth in fiction plus

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tackle the uneven distribution, new business models are emerging. For example, large publishing houses, such as Penguin and Rupa & Co. choose to distribute both their own books and that of their competitors, or even enter into co-publishing ventures with smaller independent publishers. Or distributors like Landmark are establishing their own publishing firms like Westland. Or small independent presses are signing exclusive co-publishing and/or distribution agreements with larger publishers like Zubaan and Ravi Dayal with Penguin Books India. Or successful, smaller publishing houses are being bought, but retain their distinct identity in the larger firm, although in the avatar of a distinct imprint like IndiaInk that was bought by Roli Books. As Akshay Pathak predicts, in the future there is bound to be greater consolidation and more efficient ways of making the whole supply chain work, as more and more players enter the market. 46 The possibilities for fiction publishers very positive, as noticed in an emerging trend of regional language houses setting up English-language divisions. Some notable examples are Manjul Publishing establishing Amaryllis; Prabhat Prakashan with Ocean Books; Rajpal and Sons with Vision Books; New Horizon Media with Indian Writing; Abhidantar with Poetrywala; Olive Publications (originally Tamil, now also publishing in English), and DC Books setting up a childrens literature division in English called Mango. Secondly, online selling is growing at a rapid rate. Thirdly, online lending libraries47 such as Easylib and FriendsofBooks48 for general category books, Leaping Windows (rent-acomic niche, Mumbai), and Longlongago, for childrens books, are thriving. Arti Jain, co-founder and owner of FriendsofBooks says that it started in 2008 in Delhi/NCR as an online library. We expanded to provide services all over India in January 2009. In August 2009, we expanded to selling books as well, and after another six months added the Used Books section. At present, our library and used-books section are the most popular with users. Apart from users in all major big cities we are

very happy to have customers from smaller cities and towns from across India. (It is always a joy to get a new subscriber to FriendsOfBooks from remote town in the North- East or a small village in Tamil Nadu.) I hear about that often, tooof a fiction publishing slump; in fact, dire predictions of the death of print. Anyhow,one of the things that always makes me happy, personally, is when someone says that they had stopped reading because their work/life/ current geographical location, which made it hard for them to get any books, and how FriendsOfBooks got them back to books. Add to these reasons the sometime prohibitive cost of buying books (especially for a family of 3 or 4). The library and used books have been particularly good for them.49 Fourthly, factor in the growing importance of social media tools to promote books, plus the technology used by authors and publishers, alike. An Outlook article puts this very well, making the following set of points.50
Unique selling propositions

New authors are shaking up the publishing industry by devising these innovative ways to sell their books. Some of the innovative ways in which authors are promoting their books are: Endorsement deals When former Infosys manager, Ravinder Singh, wrote his first book, I Too Had a Love Story, he approached the popular matrimonial agency shaadi.com for a tie-up, which sent his sales soaring. Free SamplesWeeks before Amish TripathisImmortals of Meluha hit bookshops, he printed sample copies of the first chapter and persuaded bookshops and chains to give them away free to anyone who approached the cash counter, creating a buzz. YouTube Several first-time authors have engaged ad professionals to make a trailer based on their book, then load it on YouTube, resulting in hits and awareness by the thousands. Social media Authors proudly flaunt websites, Facebook, and Twitter accounts, encouraging readers

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to contact them directly. Not only readers queries, but even their complaints are dealt with directly by the authors on a daily basis. Display Unlike in the West, bookshop display space is not yet for sale, but a personal relationship with the man at the cash counter always helps. Amish Tripathi persuaded some bookshops to display his posters and gifted a sample chapter as a small booklet over the cash counter. New OutletsGoing to small towns, bus stops, railway stations, and even newspaper vendors in remote corners of the country has helped sales of books enormously, especially when they are priced low. Online bookshops Buying books online on sites like Flipkart and India Plaza have done away with the old ways of distribution. Pre-orders of forthcoming books are large enough to decide the size of print run.
Self-publishing

Digital publishing

Adding to the literary landscape and this robust growth of reading is the increasing use of ereaders. For the moment, these continue to be purchased as a fashionable gadget, rather than as a book device. But, one-third of Indias current population is under the age of 30; 25 per cent of this youth reads books. Most young people in India dont buy books, but they certainly enjoy spending time reading on the Internet.52 Ebook sales comprise only 34 per cent of Indian book sales, in sharp contrast to the USA, where ebooks comprised 29.5 per cent of the total sales in one month (Feb 2011, Publishers Lunch) and saw a simultaneous decline in traditional print publishing. 53 Having said this, digital publishing is slowly and steadily making its mark, especially noticeable in an interesting trend in Hindi publishing. Ravish Kumar54, a well-known TV journalist and blogger, has been writing short stories within the 420 character spaces that are allowed by Facebook comments. His stories are serialized. Every time he posts a new episode in the story on his Facebook wall, it is lifted as is, and published in Hindi dailies around the country. He is then sent a cheque by the newspaper for having printed his story. Although the payments are of a small amount, it is a continuous and steady relationship, illustrating how a social media space can be monetized effectively. So, there is hope for an ever-growing e-market. Secondly, the number of literary festivals is increasing: Jaipur Literary Festival, Hyderabad Literary Festival, Bookaroo, Hay-on-Wye in Trivandrum, Ghummakad Narain, and Kalaghoda. Recently, the Ministry of Culture in the Government of India, along with prominent people from Indian literature, has established Indian Literature Abroad. Recently, these festivals also started having tables for manuscript submissions. Schools, too, now actually consider organizing a literary festival or having an author-in-residence programme. Thirdly, another testimony to the healthy growth of fiction in India is the increasing number of literary awards being announced. A few that stand out are the Vodafone Crossword, Shakti Bhatt First Book Award, Muse India, and the Hindu Literary Award.

Another outlet for publishing fiction that should not be ignored is the small, but profitable community of self-publishers. They are not necessarily any more perceived as vanity publishers. Some of the leaders are Cinnamon Teal, pothi.com(and their new imprint Green Ink), serenewoods.com, and power-publishers. com . In fact, Leonard Fernandes, co-founder and owner of Cinnamon Teal, won the British Councils Young Publishers Award in 2010. He says that we have about one enquiry each day. So that means potentially 365 titles a year, although we discourage many because of the quality of the language, and many others are only testing the waters and may not come back later. Between the five of us therefore, about 1,500 titles a year? Not to mention those who apply for an ISBN and do it themselves.Authors are from almost every profession you can imaginedoctors, engineers, IT professionals, students, housewives, college professors, even NGOs. Almost equally balanced, or maybe 60 per cent fiction. It is impossible to estimate the volume of business done by the organized self-publishing industry, but the trend is definitely on the increase. So we are talking about 100 per cent year-on-year growth, even more.51

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Conclusion

Fiction publishing in the English language is healthy. It may constitute only 35 per cent of all publishing in India, and may be uneven in its quality, but it is growing so rapidly that it is impossible to predict the future. For the moment, there are a number of publishers in the territory who continue to experiment with their

lists. In recent years, it has become evident that there are distinct segments being created in the market, whether they are for commercial fiction, romance, thrillers, historical fiction, speculative, or science fiction, etc. But given the huge population, coupled with a healthy growth rate in literacy, even a small print run can slowly and steadily add up the numbers.

Notes 1 For this article, I have touched base with a wide variety of people linked to publishing fiction in India, including CEOs, editors, sales and marketing departments, critics, authors, and readers enthusiastic about reading, apart from the basic research 2 Boom amid crisis: Business of selling books set for a wrenching change, Economic Times (20 Aug, 2011): http:// economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/ et-cetera/boom-amid-crisis-business-of-selling-booksset-for-a-wrenching-change/articleshow/9676236. cms?curpg=4 3 Email correspondence with me, 1415 May, 2011. Selected information, reproduced with permission. 4 Butalia, Urvashi 2009, New Horizons, New Challenges in The Hindu (4 Jan, 2009): http://www.hindu.com/ lr/2009/01/04/stories/2009010450040100.htm 5 In an email to me dated 12 Jul, 2011, quoted with permission 6 In an e-mail with Jayanta Kumar Bose, Founder, Srishti Publishers, dated 16 Aug, 2011. Quoted with permission. 7 These statistics are at variance with the estimates provided by Thomas Abraham. And this is precisely the point about the Indian publishing industryit is impossible to get accurate data, even though both quoted sources are reliable. 8 Sarkar, Neelini 2011, Trade Books on the Indian subcontinent: A report, in Moving India: New readers, new creators, new markets, pp. 1820 (Aug 2011): http://www. book-fair.com/imperia/celum/documents/frankfurt_ academy_FAQ-magazine_09.pdf 9 Pathak, Akshay 2011, When markets commission in Himal Southasian, p. 35 (May 2011) 10 Sarkar, Neelini 2011, Trade Books on the Indian subcontinent: A report, in Moving India: New readers, new creators, new markets, pp. 1820 (Aug 2011): http://www. book-fair.com/imperia/celum/documents/frankfurt_ academy_FAQ-magazine_09.pdf 11 Ibid, p. 35 12 Sarkar, Chiki 2011, Tracking the boom: English-language publishing in India has come of age in Himal Southasian (May 2011), pp. 3840 13 http://www.penguinbooksindia.com/ 14 http://www.randomhouse.co.in/ 15 http://www.hachetteindia.com/ 16 http://www.macmillanindia.com/ 17 For a detailed mapping of children and YA literature in India, refer to my article, Much to look forward to: Childrens and Young Adults literature in India, published in Logos (213/4, 2010), pp. 161166 18 In an email to me dated 5 Aug, 2011. Quoted with permission. 19 In an email to me dated 8 Jul, 2011. Quoted with permission. 20 In an email to me dated 12 Jul, 2011. Quoted with permission. 21 Telephone conversation dated 6 Jul, 2011. Quoted with permission. 22 Khosla, Tanuj 2011, Indians like books with a local flavour in WSJ (14 Jun 2011): http://online.wsj.com/article/ SB10001424052702303714704576384531959229602.html 23 Sharma, Nupur 2011, I write, therefore I am in The Hindu (14 Jul 2011): http://www.thehindu.com/life-andstyle/metroplus/article2224553.ece

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English-language fiction publishing in India

24 In an email to me dated 12 Aug 2011. Quoted with permission. 25 In an email to me dated 5 Aug 2011. Quoted with permission. 26 Others are R. K. Narayan; Ruskin Bond; Kiran Desai; Nirad Chaudhuri; Mulk Raj; Anand, Khushwant Singh; G.V. Desani; Ved Mehtra; Rohinton Mistry; Amitava Kumar; Mukul Kesavan; Rukun Advani; Shobhaa De; Bulbul Sharma; Manjula Padmanabhan; Namita Gokhale; Amit Chaudhari; Shashi Deshpande; Githa Hariharan; Shama Futehally; Shashi Tharoor; I. Allan Sealy; and Mahashweta Devi 27 Again, others are Anurag Mathur; Shauna Singh Baldwin; Sarnath Bannerjee; Samit Basu; Ambarish Satwik; Baby Halder; Manju Kapur; Mukul Deva; Upamanyu Chatterjee; Suketu Mehta; Tabish Khair; Rana Dasgupta; Vikram Chandra; Ranjit Lal; Anita Rao Badami; Anjana Appachana; Abha Dawesar; Anjum Hasan; Anil Menon; Mridula Koshy; Siddhartha Deb; Geetanjali Misra; Vandana Singh; Siddhartha Mukherjee; N. S. Madhavan; Omair Ahmed; Anuradha Roy; Advaita Kala; Hari Kunzru; Jeet Thayil; and Indrajit Hazra 28 Renouard, Michel 2011, Indian Writing in English: A Focus on the Novel in India Since 1950 (Christophe Jaffrelot (Ed.), Yatra Books, 2011), pp. 744752 29 A delightful website launched in June 2011 that announces itself as the definitive guide to South Asian lingo, it exemplifies how English is adapted and evolves: http:// samosapedia.com/. Accessed 13 Aug 2011. 30 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GP8Qzv2r3iI 31 Reddy, Sheela 2011, The Lo-Cal Literati in Outlook (18 Jul, 2011): http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?277582 32 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230371470 4576384531959229602.html 33 Reddy, Sheela 2011, The Lo-Cal Literati, 18 Jul, 2011, Outlook http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?277582 34 In an email to me dated 16 Aug, 2011. Quoted with permission. 35 In a telephone conversation with Kapish Mehra, 27 Sep 2011 36 Basu, Arpita 2010, Five go to Gutenberg, in Outlook (13 Sep, 2010): http://www.outlookindia.com/article. aspx?266990 37 Desperately Seeking Writers: Contemporary Indian literature and the Indian market in Hindustan Times Brunch (23 Sep, 2007): http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/ ferguson-centre/indian-lit/documents/pub-doc-kushalgulab-sept07.htm

38 In a telephone conversation with Saugata, 6 Jul, 2011 39 www.anitanair.net 40 Pathak, Akshay 2011, When Markets Commission in Himal Southasian (May 2011), p. 35 41 In an email to me dated 12 Aug 2011. Quoted with permission. 42 Sarkar, Chiki 2011, Tracking the Boom: English-language publishing in India has come of age in Himal Southasian (May 2011), p. 39 43 Pathak, Akshay 2011, Booking India in Moving India: New readers, new creators, new markets (Aug 2011), pp. 48: http://www.book-fair.com/imperia/celum/documents/frankfurt_academy_FAQ-magazine_09.pdf 44 Flipkart eyesRs.4,500-crore turnover by FY 15 in The Mint (6 Mar 2011): http://www.livemint. com/2011/03/06135103/Flipkart-eyes-Rs-4500crore-t.html. Also, Sachin Bansal, co-founder, explaining how even in Kerala, every small town and village places an order for a book via flipkart as they do not have a local bookstore. Kerala boasts of over 95per cent literacy: http://online. wsj.com/video/can-flipkart-become-the-amazon-ofindia/5C0B81C0-2169-42CB-B49C-4576BC524258.html 45 In an email to me dated 16 Aug 2011. Quoted with permission. 46 Pathak, Akshay 2011, When Markets Commission in Himal Southasian (May 2011), p. 35 47 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_book_rental_in_India 48 http://www.trendy.in/2007/02/27/bookworm-boutiqueretreat/; Friends of books: http://www.friendsofbooks. com/; Easylib: http://www.easylib.com/ 49 In an email to me dated 11 Aug 2011. Quoted with permission. 50 Reddy, Sheela 2011, The Lo-Cal Literati in Outlook (18 Jul 2011): http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?277582 51 In an email to me dated 12 Aug 2011. Quoted with permission. 52 Sarkar, Neelini 2011, Trade Books on the Indian subcontinent: A report in Moving India: New readers, new creators, new markets (Aug 2011), pp. 1820: http://www. book-fair.com/imperia/celum/documents/frankfurt_ academy_FAQ-magazine_09.pdf 53 Ibid. 54 In a conversation with Ravish on 31 Jul, 2011

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