01/02/09
Jaipur Book Fair, 22-24 January 2009 (UKYPE 09)
[Written as part of our visit to India with the British Council. All such posts will be listed in a dedicated category; apologies if this isn't of interest. If it is of interest, then you can also see more on our Flickr set]
As the cliché goes, India is a land of stark contrasts. And for this trip, the publishing industry is no exception. We have spent the last week in Jaipur and Delhi, two very different environments, with equally different experiences.
The first four days were at the Jaipur literary fair, a mellow, intellectual and civilised event held at Diggi palace, Jaipur, in Rajhasthan. The fair is open to all, and the crowds at the events showed a broader range of visitors than their British counterparts – I’m thinking of Hay, and Edinburgh among others.
Still, the format remains recognisable: panel discussions, readings and interviews, followed by open air mingling of authors and public, lunches and dinners held on the lawn in front of the palace to a live programme of music and drinking into the night.
One of the great things about Jaipur – other than the location, weather and food – is that there are no VIP areas, and all delegates are approachable, relaxed, engaged. The only real exception was Amitabh Bachchan, the world’s biggest movie star by quite some way, and who flew in to launch Bachchanalia, an anthology of his movie posters in a Taschen-esque format. He’s so huge he gets mobbed everywhere. His 20-strong entourage had to occupy the dinner hall as a makeshift Green Room to protect him from the hoardes scrambling to catch a glimpse.
From Chetan Baghat, author of the 2m selling “nights @ the call centre” to Tina Brown, Mohammed Hanif and Simon Schama, the events are packed and spill out onto the covered tea lawn, where TV screens relay the action inside. A-list daily diary and paparazzi fodder mingle with us and each other’s company, relatively unmolested. It is a supremely organised, civilised and enjoyable festival to attend and take part in.
The Indian (Independent) Literary Publishing Industry
We attend an industry event called “March of the Independents”, where publishers and editors from the larger “MNC” (multinational) publishers – HarperCollins, Random House, Penguin, Hachette – debate the difference to the (sometimes longer established) independent sector.
We learn, for example, that it only became possible, following a relaxing of the legislation around foreign investment, for MNCs to set up here in about 1991. The relaxation policies were introduced by Manmohan Singh, the current pm – who has just this week had a second heart bypass. Since then there has been a flood of MNCs into the publishing scene – which is itself split into English language publishing (the clear focus of the fair and the publishers attending) and 20-30 local languages.
There is an obvious tension between the two publishing company types. MNCs are politely berated by Indies for being ruled by marketing departments rather than the heart; the MNCs counter and say that experience at Indies in uk and India are no different to this.
This is a fair point – whilst over the course of the trip we come to notice some very obvious differences between the UK and Indian scenes, there are many more similarities than differences. The largest challenge is “distribution” – here used (I think) more as a catch-all from repping, to (believe it or not) the lack of central buying, the general supply chain infrastructure as well as the hassle of collecting payment from a widely distributed, decentralised and fragmented retail market – although piracy is also a concern. It also becomes clear that whilst publishers in the UK have become very obsessed with BookScan figures, there is no such data collection in India. There is no point of sale barcode scanning; no publisher (or author, or agent) knows their exact sales figures; bestseller lists are fairly arbitrary and local – and all parties seem happy with this. If there is money to be made, then it gets shared around.
Back to the session. There are some very well respected and experienced editors here. Karthika from HC (who employ 80 people in their Noida office) legendary feminist publisher Urvashi from Zubaan (employing ±12), the incredibly dynamic Chiki Sarkar, ex of Bloomsbury and now Editor In Chief of Random House (employing 20), Renuka Chaterjee of Westwood who is *hugely* experienced across the business.
The industry as represented here is very female – of 15 participants, 2 (Mike Bryan of Penguin and Suresh of Tara) are men.
Some numbers come out of the session-
- A literary bestseller is 20-45,000 copies in the English language; White Tiger has sold 150,000 (and many many more in pirated crossroad editions)
- Editors who defy marketing to publish difficult literary titles reckon on being able to “guarantee” 1500 sales at least
- RRP of a hardback is 250-350 rupees, at 70 rupees to the pound
- There are 2 agents in India
- Some houses are publishing 30-50 titles a year, others (e.g. Picador) less than 10
- Advances are low, if any
So really, despite a bit of respectful squabbling, Indies and mncs face the same challenges as each other, and as at literary houses is in the UK, all are publishing more titles than they felt comfortably able to do, are overworked, under resourced, and love every damn second of working in the business. Oh, and all the editors moan about marketing, agents, and the challenges of distribution. Plus ca change…
Personally, I would have liked to hear of the “innovative” marketing that the Indies were claiming to effect better than the mncs. I haven’t heard (or seen) much book marketing here, despite India’s total obsession with covering all surface area with hand-written billboards (on which more later), and assume that it is left up to a combination of promotion in the book stores, press and publicity, and word of mouth. Certainly there is very little if any online marketing being undertaken by the houses here.
[Update. After a visit to see Chiki Sarkar at Random House, I totally take this back. Chiki is incredibly energetic and dynamic - her attitude and approach reminds me of the way we used to approach low/no-budget marketing at Canongate. She's super-smart, super-connected, incredibly resourceful - and passionate as *hell*. She is not timid. From online promos (yay!) to pitching stories to the media ("send one of your TV presenters on our bollywood actress's 3-month diet") she is building a stable of "name" authors where none have previously existed. And here, she says, it is names that sell. She also throws a mean book launch - we went to the launch of Daniyal Mueenuddin's In Other Rooms, Other Wonders at her house and didn't stop meeting interesting, creative, media and arts people.]
We give **our session** to a busy and full tent full of young Indians. Many are female and, based on the questions, may be authors keen to be published. After we give our schticks (mine has evolved from the turgid “commercially, creatively and strategically-focused digital consultancy” to the simpler “marketing ideas for publishers” based on the blank looks the former was receiving). The questions from Sujata Sen are smart, leading, and well-structured.
Afterwards, we are (politely) mobbed outside by people plying business cards and asking advice. I get one pamphlet of poetry thrust into my hand – many less than expected. Davy and I give and interview to the **Indian Reuters**, and we are delighted to discover that a young dude in the audience has been live tweeting the event. We meet more journalists, publishers, authors. Then its back to the lawn for literary chat, London gossip, meeting international book people, food and drink. fun. Familiar. Better than Frankfurt – better than most.
Sadly, we leave Jaipur a couple of days later – and a day before the fair ends with a luxurious ball. We miss events, and have to rush back to Delhi before the police shut the city boundaries in anticipation of the republic day.
Security post-Mumbai is very tight, the British Council are edgy and ask us to not leave our hotel until the parade is over. Empty rooms in the hotel have been security checked for hidden ammunition stashes, and the rooms sealed.
Overall, the atmosphere around us is tense, the city and hotel Locked down and shut up, and in all very different to the one we left in Jaipur six hours previously. We take a walk around Connaught Place, the literal hub of New Delhi, pretending not to notice the army presence, the sand bags and road blocks, or the more usual rickshaw drivers and touts half heartedlly hassling is. Tonight, for one night only, Delhi is quiet, eerily so. The streets are deserted and we walk down their middles just because we can, admiring the signs, the air clear of smog and astonishingly silent of the persistent horns that accompany the insane traffic.
Whilst our mood is partially self-inflicted, Delhi is a major come-down after the magic of Jaipur. We are staying at a large, corporate hotel, which I do not want to be in if there is a security situation (which none of us feels there will be, despite the reported “foiling” of a terrorist plot). Whilst we stayed at a truly amazing hotel in Japiur, and there was intense security, it felt like a formality post-Mumbai. But in Delhi, when we return to the hotel the gates are locked, there is a strong police presence searching cars, scanning bags and visitors for explosives and guns. It feels much closer.
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