“Publishing in Hindi is expanding with new concepts and formats”

Prabhat Prakashan, an ISO 9001:2008 certified company, is one of the leading publishing houses in India. They have a glorious history of fifty years of publishing quality books on almost all streams of literature. Ocean Books Pvt. Ltd., their English division, is also an ISO 9001:2008 certified company publishing books on various topics of general interest. They publish nearly 75 English books every year covering all zones of publishing..

Trends in Hindi language publishing

“Publishing in Hindi is expanding with new concepts and formats coming out every day. New authors, new concepts and new themes in book writing and emergence of new publishing houses are helping the growth of the Hindi publishing industry. Along with traditional printed publications, online platforms and e-books have initiated the growth of Hindi publishing industry during last 4 years,” shares Dr. Piyush Kumar of Prabhat Prakashan.

Challenges in Hindi publishing…

On asking about the challenges faced by Hindi publishers, Dr. Piyush attributes lack of professionalism in editorial and proofreading skills to one of the major challenge. “Besides, distribution channel is not structured as compared to English Publishing. Moreover, there is lack of reading habits amongst 550 million Hindi speaking population,” he adds.

How Prabhat Prakashan tackles challenges…

“We produce one quality Hindi book every day round the year.We are publishing books authored by at least 100 first-time authors every year so that fresh ideas are published and fresh blood in writing is nurtured, besides publishing international bestsellers for Hindi readers in collaboration with major English publishers worldwide,” tells Dr. Piyush.

“We are also doing extensive online promotions of Hindi books on different formats such as AMS, SEO & all major social media platforms.We have the largest presence of e-books on Kindle with over 8500 titles.We are also doing audio books in a big way,” he adds.

Genres for publishing…

Prabhat Prakashan publishes over 400 books every year covering almost 50 major verticals of books publishing. “The major topics of our focus have been on fiction, self help, biographies/autobiography, yoga and health, entrepreneurship and wealth creators, school textbooks, children books, general knowledge, etc,” he adds.

On translations…

“No Indian regional language can grow without translation from English & other languages. We have a team of over 50 quality trained freelance translators. We publish 100 plus translation every year primarily from English, Bengali, Marathi and Gujarati. Most of the translated books are bestsellers in their own categories. Inter-language translation is very important for a mature society to grow so that the cultures of other regions are also shared amongst fellow readers,” tells Dr. Piyush.

On ebooks…

“We are selling over 7000 e-books every month on e-books platforms such as Kindle, Kobo, and Flipkart etc. Hindi readers have welcomed e-book in a big way. We sell 10 books every hour or say 1 e-book every 6 minutes which is a remarkably positive sign,” he adds.

Prabhat Prakashan milestones

• 6000+ Hindi Books
• 600+ English Books
• 8000+ ebooks
• 100 Audio Book
• 500+ Test Prep Books
• 500+ Children’s Books
• 1500+ Authors
• 50+ Translators
• 1500 Retailers
• 75+ Topics