1. Peter will be taking part in the SYP’s Canon Tales event at the London Book Fair on Tuesday 21st April. It’s a pecha kucha gig, and other speakers include Cory Doctorow, Jamie Byng (of Canongate and Peter’s former boss and current DJ partner) and design legend Jon Grey. I think it’s free, it will be fun, although apprently it clashes with a big fancy Sony party. Details over at the SYP and at the foot of this post.
2. Peter is also following up the blistering evening’s entertainment at the Nibbies with another publishing DJ gig at the Canongate party at the Paradise in Kensal Rise. Straight after Canon Tales. (So if you want to come to the party, come to the pecha kucha and I’ll try to smuggle you in.)
3. James and Peter are both shortlisted for the British Council’s Young Publishing Entrepreneur of the Year, the winner of which is being announced on Wednesday, also at the London Book Fair. No rivalry, no pressure, nope.
4. Finally, if you’re reading in RSS (hello!), we’ve just given the aptstudio.com site a little bit of attention. There’s more details in the relevant portfolio pages, and some secret clues into other stuff going on in the background.

Hope to see you somewhere in the above.

British Council Meeting, Delhi

We went to the British Council’s great, modernist offices in New Delhi, designed by Charles Correa and completed in 1992.

We were meeting with:

• Hema Singh – British Council, Visual Arts & Literature
• Jaya Battarcharjee - Taylor & Francis, consultant
• Manish Sejural – Anmaya

Hema and Jaya have both studied and worked in the publishing industry for a long period of time, and written reports on the Indian publishing scene for the British Council. They gave us an overview of the most significant moments in the evolution of the indian publishing scene over the past 20 years

I have also included in this section notes from SK Ghai’s talk in Kolkata book fair. Mr Ghai is the newly appointed chairman of the Federation of Indian Publishers, the equivalent of the PA.

– History

• Prior to independence, the publishing scene had been controlled by the British – a model of homogeneity. McGraw-Hill had a presence in India from the late 1940’s; a collaboration with steel giants Tata, which worked as “Indian publishing in miniature”.
• Mid-1980s saw the launch of brave and innovative independents who are still around – Kali, Seagull, Roli. Bureaucracy killed the international sale of Indian books; exporting was practically impossible and unviably expensive. These laws were finally relaxed in 2003.
• 1990’s – Great liberalisation, which finally allowed foreign companies to set up in India, rather than enforced minority stakeholding as previously. Policy initiated by Manmohan Singh (now prime minsiter) as finance minister. Exclusivity ended, and distributors finally became publishers. The previous (export) differential margin had been bearable, but publishers are now being squeezed very hard indeed.

– Current Day

1. Now the market is model of non-homogeneity. In fact, India is made up of many markets, structured by the language of the works being published. [Note - most of our trip has been focused on the English language publishers.] Each language also has regional translations of dialectical variations.

– Government support, priorities

1. There is a lot of central government control, via a collection of literature academies, with the intentions of promoting regional literature – when a title gets picked for this, it is very prestigious. Sahitya Akademi is a bit like book trust, funding inexpensive book for children in all regional languages.
2. Obviously, literacy is a huge, huge, concern, above all others. Education is the #1 focus; only when literacy has increased will books bought for leisure and literary reasons really take off.
3. Libraries are regionally funded in each state; there is some fund matching from regional and central government.

– Numbers

• Population, 1.2bn
• Literacy rate 64.8 (30% in 1947, partition)
• 650 m literate Male 380; 270 female
• Kerala 91% literacy. Kottayam has 100%
• India is 7th largest publisher in world; 3rd largest English language
• Estimates for 82,537 titles published in India last year are “way, way too low!” i.e. these are just those which are registered. 16,000 publishers, with 1,000 publishing over 50 p/a
• 10,000 crores annually
• 60% educational
• 40% trade, folk, religious, spiritual
• 20,000 hindi titles
• 19,000 English
• 10 literary festivals
• The subsisdisation of UK & US publishers entering the market in the UK, and the unofficial spread of English, “killed regional publishing”.
• 25% of titles are published in Hindi
• 20% of titles are published in English
• Whilst ISBNs are allocated centrally (at no cost) by Raja Rahomen, there is no central agency – or any agency at all – collecting book data or sales figures [e.g. no equivalent of Nielsen Book Data]. Nor is there any real desire to set one up as yet.
• Government mechanisms support the local and independent.

– Editorial & Rights focus

• Rights-wise, the focus is on selling imported titles (either in terms of imported copyright, or physical editions) rather than acquiring them for original publishing. However this is changing.
• In the english market, there are some characterisations that can be made:
• - Teenage market, dominated by US publishers
• - Older market, dominated by UK publishers
• In the case of competing titles (e.g. Harry Potter, published by Bloomsbury in the UK and Scholastic in the US), then the UK edition is the one that will be distributed (as well as the pirated editions!)
• Penguin has been a case study in growing original Indian publishing

– Supply Chain

• Other than literacy, distribution is the main problem.
• Convoluted Structure: Publisher –> Wholesaler –> Distributor –> Customer –> Reader. Must be strengthened & streamlined
• Sales prices are set @ 3-5 times production costs; according to SK Ghai, in UK is 10x
• Differential margins getting squeezed.
• Pricing c. 295Rs-350Rs for hardback, trade paperback
• Discounts range from 35 – 80%
• Lack of centralisation makes collection of invoices very difficult and time consuming
• 5,000 is a very large (English language) print run; whilst Bengali titles may get a much higher run, 500-750 is more usual for a trade title.
• Bestseller in English may have a 750-1500 initial run; but may have 100,000 in Bengali
• Publishers will usually break even with a fully sold first run.
• Sale or return prevalent, 90 day (or 180 day!) terms
• Collaboration of Penguin with Zubaan, HarperCollins with Mapin etc

– Accounts, Advances, Royaltiesala

• There is a general “fudging of accounts”; the difference between 60,000 sales and 40,000 sales is generally left up to the gentleman’s agreement; authors will be “damn happy” with either figure (!)
• However the gentleman’s agreement extends into the perception and reputation of the publisher, and so honesty prevails; at any point the (fully audited) accounts can be opened up for inspection.
• Piracy and copyright violations are rife
• GoCap – liaison IFP & Publishers to resolve copyright disputes

– Retail

• Explosion in retail in last 10 years
• Now dominated by corporate chains: Crossword, Landmark, Odyssey & Oxford
• Strong regional players with multiple outlets
• New players entering
• Malls and premium locations
• Retail software and “grand interiors”
• Long hours, 7 days a week
• Offer e-commerce and post, free delivery
• Broad range of products, 35%-40% books only
• One-off author events (e.g flew in Jeffrey Archer last year!)
• Attracting new talent
• Margins increased
• Entering stage of consolidation

– Siddhart Pansari – Crossword

• Crossword: evolution from stockist to retailer. Format and concept evolved from bookstore to community centre.
• Penguin turnover less than 100 cr.
• Top 10 cities only have large book chain presence. Penetration of books still very low. No real promotion of books: focus is on printing & sending to distributors. Must promote titles more – that is the job of publishers and booksellers.
• Race between “watch and wallet” for customer attention. Shopping a form of entertainment.
• Piracy “will always exist – we can’t fight it – justice mechanism is very slow; must have aggressive pricing formulae”
• Bestseller market, with “a little bit” of range
• Internet trading will “only grow” – bookshops must compete
• Publishers and retailers must work together in an aggressive, pro-active manner to promote reading and books.
• Must promote indian authors “in a big way”. Chethan Bhagat, Q&A, Chick Lit.
• Evolution of infrastructure is required

– Web, ebooks, etc

• Emerging market for eBooks in academic; Audio books not very popular but may grow
• Online shopping – IndiaTimes.com; many other bookstores (incl. Oxford)
• General feeling is that booksellers have an urban focus; that the touch and feel / haptic qualities are very important
• OAPs get discounts in shops, and the system of haggling, means that online (fixed) discounts are culturally disconnect from the existing retail model
• There are also fewer PCs than needed
• Mobile phones much more dominant
• Postal service however very good and strong enough to delivery to dispersed locations
  Growing 19-35 demographic means that this is a new opportunity

– Things to check out

These are a few of the links I was given and told were interesting and worth checking out from a web perspective.

http://www.a1books.com
http://www.indiaToday.com
http://www.indiaTimes.com
http://www.womenswriting.com
http://www.zubaan.com

Also a couple of interesting pubilshers:
KaradhiTales – Audio book publisher.
AKS Media – Interesting and aggressively commercial business set up by ex-MckInsey consultant. Comics, animation, licensing, funded by VC,

[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]

Tina and Tarun were talking about Tina’s new web-only venture, The Daily Beast, which launched in the run-up to the American election last year. Tarun is the editor of Tehelka, India’s leading political, weekly journal.

Tina – previous editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Talk, and author of two biographies (Princess Diana and Hillary Clinton) – focused her talk on three beasts:

1. America. The biggest beast of them all.
2. India.
3. The journalistic crisis around the world, particularly in the US.

I found the entire talk fascinating, but these are the notes I wrote.

- She had just left Washington and the inauguration. She described walking back, with a sea of people behind her – and how such a sea of people had not been seen since 9/11, and in fact reminded her of it. She then described the inauguration as “9/11 in reverse…. as if a curse had been lifted” and that the Bush years had been like a curse, bookended by these seas of people.

- She used a phrase that I hadn’t heard before, of Barack Obama as the first “black berry president”. Ho ho.

- She said that in her experience, it takes three scoops before a publication is taken seriously. She described it her job to get those three scoops, which have the net effect of making readers uneasy if they don’t have your publication (and are therefore unable to talk about it first). That unease is great, from a publisher’s perspective.

- Of her choice to move to the web, she talked about the “unwieldily distribution” of magazines, and the speed and agility of publishing online. She also talked of its massive reach – the Daily Beast gets 2 million unique visitors per month, and 11m page views per month – and how this had been achieved in a very short time.

- I was surprised to hear her give less credit to The Huffington Post [TDB's most obvious competitor; during the election I flitted from one to the other on an hourly basis]. She was perhaps a little snarky about HuffPo’s editorial credentials, suggesting that the articles aren’t finished, researched, subbed or even proofed to the rigorous standards of TDB.

On the whole TB came across as incredibly smart and super-articulate, and obviously a media powerhouse. I am personally fascinated by the fact that someone of her skills, reach and credentials has chosen the web for her new venture, when she could have had the choice of any medium, and indeed backer.

Lucy and I have been invited to the launch of Daniyal Mueenuddin’s In Other Rooms, Other Wonders at his publisher Chiki’s house in Jorbagh, Delhi.

The house is wonderful, top floor with views over the tropical garden and with white marble floors. There are beautiful prints and sketches on the walls; and her built-in bookshelves, going from floor to ceiling, contain not only many recognisable UK and US hardback editions next to their Indian counterparts, but ample space to house even more books. We’re jealous.

After being introduced to Daniyel, we meet lots of people: members of Chiki’s team at RH, authors Tash Aw and Nadeem Aslam (who urges us to come to his book launch two days later) but for the bulk of the evening Lucy and I chat with Ravi Mirchandani (editor of Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger at Atlantic UK).

It’s a great party, in part so familiar with wine, gossip, delicious home-made nibbles and even a couple of dramas – a scarf catching fire, a broken glass, a smashed bottle of red wine on the floor – that we catch ourselves using “here” to describe the London publishing business. Ooops. We couldn’t be further removed from freezing, recession-obsessed London – but a publishing party is a publishing party half way around the world.

As the evening accelerates into night, we decide to go to say goodbye to Chiki, and get instantly sucked into conversation with her. She is sitting in the next room, on her sofa, talking to a friend who runs a shop called Good Earth, selling locally produced, often organically produced home stuff. She tells us the address, in swanky Khan Market, and tells us to visit.

Into the room come a handful of other interesting people, and we talk with them as Chiki hovers over her blackberry at midnight – a young professor of Indian art history at the university, who meets my question about Indian modernism with a fantastic story: in 1922 an exhibition of Bauhaus work was organised in Kolkata, one of the very first international showings, in a specially built tent. The day before the event opened, the tent caught fire, and although all artworks were destroyed, no remnants were ever found. Foul play is suspected, or at least (he suggests) provides enough material for a novelistic speculation. He suggests that if they were looted, the lack of photographic evidence would mean they could easily slip back onto the market 20 years later. He gives me the name of some Indian modernists to check out — Ramkinkar Baij, Amrita Sher-Gil, Santiniketan — and, after chatting a bit more to Chiki about her list (she is fantastically excited about an RHUK title “The Case of The Missing Servant“) – we say our goodbyes.

On republic day, a national holiday and without meetings planned, James, Lucy and I defy BC guidelines to leave the hotel and go to see the parade. We have been told that it is a very nationalistic, miltaristic event, and that national pride runs high. We are also told to “be expecting a mobbing”.

We leave the hotel with the bare minimum, although we are warned that cameras and phones are not allowed, we walk the four blocks to India gate by following the flow of the crowds. There are barricades and sandbagged gun stations everywhere. But the mood is fun, excited, and we particularly enjoy the empty streets and warm sunshine.

At the gate, security confirms that nothing is allowed in – no electronics, mobiles, cameras, pens, combs, not even James’ Marlboros and lighter (which are confiscated, somewhat judiciously we feel). Lucy is carrying her bag and decides to turn back, taking our mobiles back to the hotel. The street around the metal detectors is littered with discarded items not allowed in, and crowds more attached to their items congregate around the gate, unable to see past the security fences erected around Janpath. Food sellers, drink stations, huge sacks filled with what looks like giant prawn crackers, have made their way to where we are as well.

We get in and see the parade, and it turns out we are right by India gate, among about 800 indians. We see motorcycle displays, and the impressive, loud, low-flying air force fly bys of helicopters, F16s? Migs? bombers and jets. We cheer, feel somewhat nervous to betray our nationality among the masses clebrating independence, but all is jovial and well. As we walk back to the hotel, already the streets are filling up with tuktuks, taxis, and the blaring horns.

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.

James Bridle (producer at Apt) has been shortlisted for his awesome work on Bookkake and Bkkkpr (among other stuff).

Peter Collingridge, Managing Director of Apt, has been shortlisted for Apt’s innovative commercial work in the publishing industry.

We’re thrilled that Apt staff make up 33% of the most innovative young publishers in the UK, and with us on the trip are Davy Nougarede, Lucy Luck, Nii Parkes and Jessica Purdue

So far we’ve been to Jaipur for the Book Fair (where we took part in a panel discussion) and are currently in Delhi (we’ve just seen the National Day parade under intense security following suspected terrorist activity) before going to Kolkata for the book fair there on Thursday.

Highlights so far include:

• Sitting next to Colin Thubron on the flight out
• The Rambagh Palace hotel in Jaipur
• Tina Brown talking to Tarun Tejpal about her career and the decision to launch The Daily Beast online rather than in print
• Chatan Bhagat talking about how he persuaded his publishers to avoid piracy on his popular novels by pricing them at Rs 95 (about £1.50) – and selling them by the million
• Meeting and talking to editor and translator Gioia Guerzoni about her in-depth knowledge of Indian writers
• The world’s biggest movie star Amitabh Bachchan coming to the Jaipur fair!

There is a Flickr set of our photos to date as well, and if you watch the Apt Studio Flickr stream, more will be appearing soon.

Update:

Here’s some press following our panel at Jaipur:

• The Hindu: “Looking for new opportunities in a new land, a group of six young and enterprising publishers, who have made a mark by breaking new ground in the British industry and promoting budding writers and concepts, hope to extend their innovation in India.”
• “As life hurtles on the fast lane, the publishing industry is opening up new, cost-effective and easier reading formats for literature buffs.” The Hindustan Times