Parragon Publishing India expands horizons

Igloo Books, the mass-market division of Bonnier Books UK, have formed a strategic distribution alliance with Parragon Publishing for India and the sub-continent.

Igloo Books are the global leader in the mass-market sector with offices in the UK, USA, Germany and Australia. Annually, Igloo creates over 500 new products across their three imprints: Igloo, Autumn Publishing and Stock & Rocket. In addition to the frontlist, Igloo has an extensive backlist covering 1000’s of titles. Their portfolio is broad covering genres such as storybooks, colour sticker and activity, reference, board, novelty and books plus.

Paul Gregory, Igloo’s CEO commented, “The Parragon management team and I know each other very well, so this association is a natural fit. Aligning the world’s leading mass-market publisher with the market experience of the Parragon management team brings together a partnership that will ensure the best product is distributed successfully to the Indian consumer. The next 12 months will be very exciting and I look forward to this alliance building into something very special.”

Paul Gregory and Ajay Dhawan, International Sales Director, Igloo Books were recently in New Delhi to seal this alliance. Interestingly, Ajay has a good understanding of Indian publishing market and so will be an added advantage.

The strategic alliance…

“It is a co-operative model, which is again something new for publishing in India. Parragon Publishing Pvt. Ltd. India will now offer children books from Autumn Publishing and Stock & Rocket,” adds Vineet Sharma, Managing Director & Publisher, Parragon Publishing India on this new development. “These books will be invoiced by Igloo Books for Autumn Publishing and Stock & Rocket.”

“We will expand or reorganize the customer base. We will handle all marketing activities and strategic decision on these will be taken by the Parragon Publishing India team,” he adds.

Vast gamut of products…

Sharing about the products, Vineet says, “Infact, these titles are complementary to our existing portfolio and fits into our genre of publishing. While, Igloo books have done extremely well in the markets with attractive prices for the consumers, Autumn Publishing books cater to the premium segment in the market and Stock & Rocket books shall be priced on the lower side to have a well-balanced spread across consumer spectrum.”

“Besides, Igloo has licenses for Disney products in UK while Parragon have licenses for the Indian market. So, we can even look at co-edition products for new contents we develop in India and for new content developed by Igloo UK,” shares Vineet.

Further adding to it, Vineet says, “There are over 200 non-conflicting titles with present offering in Disney and over 1200 generic titles with Igloo Books. This will double up our existing titles list.” Parragon Publishing India has over 2000 titles and they hope to add another 2000 titles with this alliance in near future.

Roadmap for the future…

On asking about how the arrangement will work, Vineet explains, “For Disney products, both from Igloo Books and Parragon Publishing India, Shree Book Centre will continue to be the master stockist. Parragon Publishing will also continue to build sales with some key publishers and customers like Scholastic India and many more.”

What’s more?

“Parragon Publishing India is now venturing into high ticket price coffee table books (limited editions). One such product has already been launched and the next one will be launched in Vienna. So, we are going global with this ambitious project and it will be published in German and English to start with,” informs Vineet.

Not only this, they have also roped in a couple of authors for business books. “These are compendium of books in subjects like MSME, FMCG sales, etc. We will keep on adding new titles in this series,” he adds.

“Parragon Publishing India is expanding its frontiers and we are all geared up for the future,” concludes Vineet optimistically.