Trends Scientific Publishers pulling alongside

Jodhpur-headquartered Scientific Publishers is now into the swing of modern trends to enhance wider readership and quality of their books. Revealing the company’s activities and certain substantial requirements in the current book publishing market of India, Tanay Sharma, MD, Scientific Publishers shared his rational viewpoints during a chat with Jyaneswar Laishram of All About Book Publishing. One of the regulars to popular book fairs around the globe, Scientific Publishers is a noted ‘brand’ in the arenas of science book publishers at both national and international levels. “We have been attending New Delhi World Book Fair since last 15 years,” said Tanay adding that other widely attended book fairs like Frankfurt Book Fair, Nigeria International Book Fair (NIBF), Nairobi International Book Fair, Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, etc are some which Scientific Publishers never miss to attend.

Scientific Publishers boasts of roping in more than 500 Indian and around 10 international authors whose books are now successfully distributing at global level. On an average, this publisher publishes 5-10 new books by different authors every month. And this count does not include the ‘reprint’ titles. “Sometimes there is a fluctuation in the number of titles in a month due to variations in volume and copies of books in production,” mentioned Tanay.

E-revolution

Being one of the promising aspects in the current book market, e-publishing is where Scientific Publishers has been tapping to push it in an aggressive way. “We have already entered into this domain with close tie-ups with some e-pub conversion companies,” asserted Tanay. He further explained that they are converting their books into e-books and selling at their own portal. It has also been planned to rope in some reputed international booksellers for the new venture.

“However, a fact about e-books in India is that this trend may take certain time to get into full swing in the academic world since teachers and students are not adhering to the culture of using laptops or computers in the classrooms,” explained Tanay adding, “Even the trend of i-pads, tablets to read e-books amongst students or commoners is still not picking up on mass scale because of the non-affordability factor of these modern gadgets.”

Indian scenario

“Compared to the international book publishing market, we are still lagging far behind in terms of printing technology, language skill and supports from the government,” opined Tanay. He picked up some instances that scientists (authors) in India are not getting proper and instant funding from the government for their research and lab practices to write books, which eventually hinders the whole process of producing their books.

Another major hitch which Tanay hinted to Indian authors writing science books in English is the language part. He argued that most of the Indian authors of science books give little or no attention over English language construction which in turn results in poor descriptions or misinterpretations.

The genesis

A flashback of the early days of Scientific Publishers brings back the company’s establishment as a mere publisher of books on floras in 1973 which then followed by array of titles on engineering and others, making the company a Rs 2 crore establishment today. “This is completely a family-run organisation. My grandfather opened the company, joined by my father and me later on,” narrated Tanay. Today, genres or subjects which make the company’s catalogue full of widely read scientific books comprise agriculture, engineering, medical, competitive books, etc.

On changing trends in quality and contents in books, Tanay explicated that students are now very much aware of print quality when they observe illustrations, colour images, figures and charts in science textbooks or reference books. “Sharp and good textured illustrations and images in science books are essential for the reason that it gives an illustrative and supportive idea of what is written in text and helps students learn the lesson fast and clear,” he concluded.