“Printed books will never fade away”

Maurice Sendak said, “There’s so much more to a book than just the reading.” Agree? Books are our best friends — we learn from them, we laugh with them and we even cry with them. They widen our horizons of thinking and help us understand the world around us better. Those who do not know how to read are really missing the most important part of the human life.

“Books have undergone tremendous change themselves — from papyrus to cloth to paper to kindle. In the last few years, it was assumed that print books will fade away as ebooks will take over. But, this did not happen,” shares Vijay Ahuja. “Kindle became an overnight sensation but the attraction was short-lived. People are resorting to old ways of reading — the paper book has made a comeback.

It is not just the content that a reader wants, he wants a complete experience of holding the book in his hand, basking in the smell of the book, hearing the turn of the page, feeling the paper of the book and admiring the printing of the book. Can you get the same experience on your ereader? The answer is obviously ‘No.’ The whole experience of reading a print book in incomparable,” he adds. “Also, people love to show off their collection of books as well, which is not possible with ebooks.”

Even the recent surveys on book reading habits indicate that print books sales are increasing while ebook sales are coming down.

There’s a reason to cheer for brick-and-mortar bookshops as well. “People have realised that the experience of browsing a book in a physical bookstore is much appealing than browsing online. The revival of bookshops has begun, with new bookshops opening up,” tells Vijay.

“We continued to service our clients at our store in Daryaganj, even when online sales were picking up. Our customers come to Delhi Book Store as it is one of the leading mega book store in India, with a wealth of books in various genres like Medical, Science & Technology, Humanities, Social Sciences, General, etc,” he shares.

“Booksellers and library suppliers from all over India and neighbouring countries visit us for personal selection and supplies to different state libraries, colleges and universities,” he adds. Spread over 20,000-sq ft., the five-floor showroom in Daryaganj retails books on all subjects. “One of the most important factors that helped DBS to achieve this height is the collection of the huge quantity of books of all academic fields from around the world, especially medical books. This is why medical professionals or doctors always recall us for any need,” he adds.

DBS is the exclusive distributor of many reputed international publishers like Arcler Press, Delve Publishing, Auris Reference, Koros Press, Magnum Publishing, Intelliz Press, 3G E-learning, Callisto Reference, Clanrye International, NY Research Press, Hayle Medical, Foster, Larsen & Keller, Syrawood Publishing, Willford press and ED- Tech Press.

“We will continue to offer variety of books to our customers and strive to fulfil their quest for more. Print books will always remain. Long live the print!” concludes Vijay optimistically.