Source: Ministry of Commerce website
Export value in USD millions

Books, Publications & Printing

The Book Publishing Industry in India

In this digital age, the publishing industry is undergoing a landscape change. Print newspapers and magazines are witnessing a decline in subscriptions, whereas print books are navigating the digital era easily. The Indian publishing industry was estimated to be approximately INR 500 billion in 2019, with a growth potential of INR 800 billion by 2024. The industry contributes to India’s economic development, not only by promoting learning and education, but also by creating employment for more than 1.2 million people.

The industry is a promoter of Indian culture, values and excellence with at least 45% of trade books being sold in regional languages. It maximizes the continued uptake of digital platforms such as e-books in regional languages to reach diverse audiences.

The Indian publishing industry is highly fragmented and competitive with more than 9,000 publishers and 21,000 retailers, and is dominated by educational book publishing with a small share of trade book publishing. The industry also helps with the dissemination of scientific research. This report highlights the existence of a strong correlation between access to sources of published information, such as scientific journals and research papers, and the quality of research output.

The publishing industry in India is making great strides, but it still faces many significant roadblocks such as copyright and piracy issues. Pirated books account for 20-25% of the total market and impact the overall industry negatively, leading to a drop in revenue for publishers and loss of tax collections for the government. To tackle these problems, India needs a strong regulatory ecosystem for reducing confusion about copyright infringement boundaries.

The publishing industry faces inefficiencies across its value chain, including complex distribution channels, high costs and challenges related to ease of doing business, all of which affect its financial sustainability. In comparison with mature publishing markets worldwide, India faces a significant issue across the distribution chain in terms of longer payment receivables cycles.

The publishing industry plays a vital role in shaping the future of India. Key educational improvement targets and initiatives of the government, the creation of a knowledge society, and the global dissemination of Indian culture and heritage present the crucial areas where the publishing industry and the government can support one another to achieve these targets.

One of the significant opportunities present for the publishing industry in India is the National Education Policy. The policy would lead to a new structure of education and emphasize teacher education and development, increase Higher Education GER and plans to encourage research and innovation by setting up the National Research Foundation (NRF). The publishing industry could thrive by ensuring the effective dissemination of educational content and collaborating with the research community to design, market, and distribute quality journals to a broader audience.

Suggestions for the National Book Promotion Policy

  • Collection of Authentic Statistics about Books and Publishing: Steps will be initiated to collect authentic statistics about books and their publishers per a nationally standardised format, which will match the national and international users’ requirements. Details of books in Indian languages will be available in the original script and in a standard transliterated format. A website for Indian books containing this data will be created, and all organisations active in the book publishing sector will be approached for their collaboration. Publishers will be encouraged to register through the ISBN system to support the creation of such a National Book Database. This will enhance the visibility of Indian books, and readers in India and abroad will be encouraged to select and purchase new books. As a result, our exports will also increase.

  • A chapter on the importance associated with the Respect for copyright be included in school books from middle level onwards so that our next generations understand the same for the benefit of the society at large.

  • Major Indian Research Journals originally published by India’s national level subject specific research institutions/societies of India, such as Indian Statistical Institute, IARI etc., are now being published abroad, which results into:

    • Loss of foreign exchange by not being able to export these journals
    • Further loss of foreign exchange by way of importing these journals into India at much higher prices
    • Lesser or delayed dissemination of our researches among the Indian researchers
    • Foreign countries enjoying the benefit of our researches immediately.
    • Intellectual Property Rights of such research output permanently goes abroad leading to our brain drain and losses at every step.

  • The process of allocating International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) for journals will be simplified.

  • Domestic libraries may introduce a “One Nation, One Subscription” policy to reduce import costs and journal subscription payments.

  • Authors, scholars, and researchers will be encouraged by a publisher based in India to publish their books to cut the huge import costs of such publications. Example: A research book by an Indian author may cost around Rs. 2500/-if published in India, whereas the same book will be priced at $/Euro 295 or even more if published abroad. Instead of importing such books, we should instead be exporting from India.

  • Creation of an Indian National Repository of researches: A national repository of eBooks, e-articles, and Indian Doctoral Dissertations will be created by the Federation of Indian Publishers with the government of India collaborating and supporting the cause of research in the country, thus elevating India’s status in researches and even export thereof such a platform should establish and categorize these researches under a peer review system.

  • Creators’ / Authors’ National Database to address plagiarism: To support new creativity and avoid plagiarism in published books and journals, creators/authors should sign a statement of responsibility and submit their details for registration in a National Authorship Database before granting an ISBN. This will completely discourage fake/plagiarized publishing in the country.

  • “Each district throughout the country to have “Book Promotion Officers” (BPO) encouraging the development of libraries, book festivals and book reading sessions at all levels. The responsibilities and roles of such officers should be clearly defined. National budget allocation for book promotion is divided among these BPOs for this purpose”.

  • The role of Private Publishers is to be adequately covered and acknowledged in this policy document. It talks about a couple of government publishing institutions at every step.

  • Copyright protection to include “other stakeholders” besides Authors & Publishers.

  • Publishers’ representatives through national-level and export oriented associations will be included in the Govt. committees relating to education, publishing, book distribution and promotion.

  • Corporate social Responsibility: The concerned departments will encourage CSR spending on all types of libraries.

     

    Market Size 2021-22 (E) 2022-23 (E) Growth
    Total Book Publishing Market (INR Billion) 580.3 696.4 19.40%

     

Publishing big challenges

In this age of digital technology, publishing companies are juggling with an enormous array of revenue models, advertising and sponsorship options, and delivery channels. In this type of mixed-revenue environment, publishers using traditional software tools often can’t keep up well. They use different software or do work manually to run business. Here are some of the main challenging aspects of the publishers 

  1. Sustainable revenue growth: The lack of pace at which the publishing industry caters to changing demands of people and that of content consumption is the main point of concern for industry leaders as well as decision-makers throughout the media and publishing industry 
  2. Revenue recognition: The consequences of such inaccuracy and misstating/misrepresentation of accounts can be far reaching and can even threaten the survival of a business. 
  3. Digital Disruption: In order to survive and build a business model for future, businesses need to respond and transform the ways they do business and deliver content in the digital era. It’s all about embracing change, capitalizing on opportunities to restructure, re-organize and re-calibrate their businesses. 
  4. Cost and efficiency: In this era focus on the need to reduce cost and become more efficient exists throughout the publishing sector. 
  5. Royalty Management: The complexity of partnership between publishers, intellectual property owners, consumers and upstream supply chain partners is a challenging area.
  6. Sub contract: Problem exists in production reporting at various machine centre’s and not being able to track of work in progress. 
  7. Subscription Management: The main problem lies in case of online order booking of subscriptions, tracking of payments, and direct booking in ledgers. Problem also crops up in case of multiple channels of distribution. 
  8. Editorial Management: Complications arise in handling projects for editorials and also at times of tracking and monitoring the editorial projects. Need to focus on targets for each editor and also track these against achievements in actuality. Sometimes publishers may attempt to link ERP and emphasize on the solutions they get by using temporary technical solution or manual programming, but the results are usually incomplete and require constant upkeep.

India’s Total Trade for Books & Publication during 2022-23

  • India’s total trade for Books & Publication have reached to US$ 736.84 million during 2022-23.  India’s exports of Books & Publication are US$ 375.92 million during 2022-23.  Imports of Books & Publication into India have reached to US$ 360.92 Million in 2022-23.
  • The major markets for India to export Furniture are U S A, U K, Ghana, U A E, Nigeria etc.

Sunday Book Bazaar: New Delhi

Any mention of Daryaganj was incomplete without talking about the famous Sunday Book Bazaar. From hard-to-find classics to food and drama-critique journals of the 17th century, the book bazaar is a dearly held memory. Across the stacks of dusty books, some rare gems such as a discontinued Urdu film magazine, the Blitz drew much attention. Also known as Kitab Bazaar, Daryaganj market was started in 1964. A journey through humble beginnings, Daryaganj catered to over 250 book vendors who put up stalls on the pavement from Daryaganj Bazar to Netaji Subhash Marg.

Weekends were not a disappointment either. With multitudes of bookshops at Daryaganj selling books for 500 per kilogram, Daryaganj was a supportive foundation, primarily to expand personal libraries. Daryaganj not only hosted second-hand novels but bunches of children’s books, colouring books, biographies, quiz books, memoirs, coffee table books, Mangas, comics, self-help, encyclopedias’, books for competitive exams and ancient books by obscure writers.

College Street (Kolkata)

The College Street is famous for its small and big book stores, which gives it the nickname Boi Para (Colony of Books). People from the whole city and different parts of the state flock the innumerable book stores along the side-walk for books. Many bigwigs of the Bengali publication industry (like: Ananda Publishers, Mitra and Ghosh Publishers, Das Gupta and Company Pvt. Ltd, Dey’s Publishing, Rupa & Co., Asha Book Agency etc.) are situated here. The street is also dotted with countless small book kiosks which sell new and old books. An article in the journal Smithsonian described College Street as …a half-mile of bookshops and bookstalls spilling over onto the pavement, carrying first editions, pamphlets, paperbacks in every Indian language, with more than a fair smattering of books in and out of print from France, Germany, Russia and England. One can buy rare books at throw-away prices and extensive bargaining takes place.

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