Publishing seminar in Guwahati and online bookselling seminar in Hyderabad

The Federation of Educational Publishers in India (FEPI) organised a seminar on Challenges and Opportunities in Publishing Industry at Guwahati which was sponsored by the National Book Trust, India. The seminar was very well attended by booksellers, distributors and publishers from all over North-East India. Prof RS Dhillon welcomed the delegates and while introducing RK Gupta, president, FEPI, Prof Dhillon spoke a few lines about his achievements in the book publishing trade and as president of the federation.

RK Gupta said that problems faced by publishers are common in all parts of India. He said frequent changes in syllabus have become a major concern for all the publishers. “Even there are changes in the middle of the year. The problem of unsold books by booksellers and schools, rise in paper prices, rise in postal rates are some other problems which the publishers face continuously. To provide books in remote areas of the country is major challenge for private publishers. In spite of all these problems, Indian publishers are producing cheaper books when compared with foreign publications,” he said.

The basic problems of high freight cost and the time taken for the delivery of books from Delhi apart from issues like online book sale by flipkart, Amazon, etc. were also discussed.

A small book exhibition was also organised by the federation in which the following publishers from Delhi displayed their books: Laxmi Publications Pvt Ltd, Prachi (India) Pvt Ltd, Souvenir Publishers Pvt Ltd, S. Chand & Company Ltd and Jiwan Books International (P) Ltd.

The FEPI also organised a seminar on Challenges and Opportunities of Online Bookselling at Hyderabad. The seminar was very well attended by booksellers, distributors and publishers from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The proceedings of the seminar were conducted by Ish Kapur, general secretary, FEPI. RK Gupta, president, shared the dais with Radhey Shyam Sharma, a veteran of book trade from Rajkamal Book Centre, Hyderabad.