In service of book lovers of Bundelkhand since mid 1930’s…the English Book Depot, Jhansi maintains a good stock of general books covering a wide range of subjects such as military, History, Hindi & English fiction, self help, spiritual books, children books, cookery & home management. But, the bookstore has seen myriad changes in the book publishing industry. Here’s more on the changing trends. So what has kept this 80+ years bookstore running and what changes have been in the publishing industry, finds out Varsha Verma in conversation with Sudhir Arora of English Book Depot, Jhansi.

AABP: Tell us the journey since its inception in 1930 and how things have changed in these 80 years.

Sudhir: This passion was discovered in 1935 by my beloved grandfather Late Lala Piare Lal Pahuja, who established the English Book Depot. Prior to this, he was working as SDO in Canal Department in West Punjab (now Pakistan). He followed his entrepreneurial streak, resigned from his lucrative and respectable job, and inspired by his son-in-law Bhoj Raj (owner of The English Book Depot, Ambala Cantt ),ventured into business of books.

During the pre independence era, particularly during the 2nd World War period (1939-1945), war stories, romance, thrillers were highly in demand by the British troops stationing in the cantonments across the country. Besides, magazines & paperfront edition (paperbacks were then popularly known as paperfront edition) were all time favorites.

Jhansi Cantonment came into being in 1880s and during 2nd World War Period, many establishments and regiments of British troops were stationing in Jhansi. Apart from a good showroom of books, we used to have a good number of staff selling books in military camps and in their barracks and in and around Jhansi. During those days, we imported books, fountain pens, wallets, cigarette cases, photo albums and lighters etc from United Kingdom.

Post independence days saw a fall of business in the cantonments; there were few readers of books, it became difficult to survive. It was the dark phase in our business but tough times did not last long, we were back again with success in the 70s. The third generation joined and revived the business by adding academic books with major focus on Engineering and Medical Books along with general books in Hindi and English including spiritual and self help books, management related books, were added to our portfolio.

And today we cherish the reputation of a renowned book store within a radius of 200 Km. It is our proud and pleasure that we display and allow our customers an open access to wide range of books. We cover an area of 1,000 sq ft exclusively displaying English fiction, self help books, management books, children books, coffee table books, military biographies and campaigns and of course a large stock of Hindi books published by eminent Hindi publishers like Rajpal, Rajkamal, Gyanpeeth & Prabha, to name a few. Besides, we also stock books on home management & cookery titles for Ladies. Then, there is a well stocked mezzanine floor covering academic books for medical, engineering, biosciences, management, agriculture, and Ayurveda streams, where students have an open access to browse and select books. We enjoy patronage of students, general public, army officers, local administration and libraries of various army and civil institutions.

AABP: So, what has been the change in the clientele in these years? Which age group is more interested in buying books and what genre?

Sudhir: Over the years the client size has drastically increased as compared to our starting phase. Previously it was only the troops residing in the cantonment, few senior literates, and military officers. But now the scope has greatly increased, with the increase in literacy rates starting from a toddler, to school students, college students, working professionals, seniors, people in search of intellectual content, fiction lovers etc. Age group most interested in buying books can be taken as 15 to 60 years. While youngsters look at fiction and bestsellers, senior citizens go for spiritual and religious books.

AABP: Which are the bestsellers at your shop?

Sudhir: The bestsellers include The Secret of Nagas - Amish Tripathi; The Fountain Head – Ayn Rand; Life is What You Make It – Preeti Shenoy; The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer - Siddhartha Mukherjee; Myth = Mithya: A Handbook of Hindu Mythology - Devdutt Pattanaik; Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography - Walter Isaacson; Revolution 2020 – Chetan Bhagat; I Have a Dream – Rashmi Bansal; Don’t Lose Your Mind Lose Your Weight - Rujuta Diwekar and Chanakya’s Chant - Ashwin Sanghi.

ABBP: . What's the price range of the books at your store?

Sudhir: For, general books price range is Rs 100 to Rs 2,000 while for academics, particularly medical books, the range is between Rs 500 to Rs 10,000.

AABP: Do you think bookshops face threat from online bookstores and why?

Sudhir: I feel online bookstores have been a blessing in disguise for the booksellers, they have always created good publicity for the books, with good book reviews readily available online, creating an interest and desire amongst the readers to reach out to intellectual content. I believe if you sell books at competitive price, maintain good stock of bestsellers, and procure unavailable title at short notice, online bookstores can never be a threat.

AABP: What steps are you taking to face the challenges from the ebooks?

Sudhir: E-books can never replace the major textbooks or leisure reading books. They (ebooks) are always a source for reference studies. In India, we are yet to see that day when ebooks will replace the main books, or people will prefer e-libraries for reference.

Book stores are abundant in any city or town, but the one chosen for being a corner full of titles for all age groups from different walks of life is indeed a rare spot. The Corner Bookstore in Raipur is one such bookshop in this capital city of Chhattisgarh where fervent hordes of readers turn up to pick up their choices of national and international bestselling ranges. Jyaneswar Laishram of All About Book Publishing writes how owner Aditya Agrawal of The Corner Bookstore has filled in the bookshop with absolute attractions to readers of varied backgrounds. It’s not just its shelves are full of bestselling titles, The Corner Bookstore in Raipur is something more in philosophy than what ordinary bookshops in the city do. “In order to pull ourselves along the current market trends, we observe the book publishing industry in fervent manner,” said Aditya adding that they regularly visit book expos in India and abroad to keep an eye on new releases and classic collections. One peculiar feature of The Corner Bookstore is its exclusive set of titles by Indian authors or authors of Indian origin, such as Jhumpa Lahiri, Aravind Adiga, Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh, etc.

Establishment

“Ever since my school days, I had keen interest in books of different subjects. It would be the brainwave which influenced me to unveil this bookshop established seven years ago,” recalled Aditya. With him is his mother who takes part in the bookshop’s overall management and other activities. The Corner Bookstore is just a tiny setup being compacted with all possible titles which can attract readers of different backgrounds-- they could be kids, professionals, youngsters, housewives and so on.

Catalogue

A mixed collection of both Indian and international titles, shelves of The Corner Bookstore are labeled under categories viz. general, children, fiction/non-fictions novels, classics (Hindi/English), business & management, sports, history, cookeries, affairs, self help, references and others. On quality control of the select books available in the shop, Aditya mentioned that he normally evaluates every book carefully before adding to the store’s shelves.

Buyers

The Corner Bookstore always runs on ‘discount scheme’ for its regular customers. When asking the criterion to identify their regular customers, Aditya replied that Raipur is just a small city with a thin population, unlike big metros. So, we easily identify those regular customers in persons, who are primarily from the nearby pockets of the city.

Expansion

The current compact setup of The Corner Bookstore is set in a moderate size which they plan into a bigger area to accommodate more books and comfy in better to and fro of their readers.

Bengaluru-based Sapna Book House (P) Ltd boasts of publishing two books everyday, apart from managing a huge stock of books for book lovers who come and browse through. What keeps this bookshop and publishing activity moving, finds out SK Khurana, editor, AABP, in conversation with Nitin Shah, managing director, Sapna Book House.

The bookshop…

Akin to its name, Sapna Book House, is a dream come true for Nitin Shah’s mother, who dreamt of having a unique bookshop. Established by her husband Suresh Shah in 1967 after he shifted from Mumbai to Bangalore, Sapna Book House has come a long way. Nitin and his father Suresh Shah are the proud recipients of the state’s ‘Rajyotsava Award’, the highest award of Govt of Karnataka to a civilian. With a covered area of over two hundred thousand square metres, it is the largest book mall in India. They are also mentioned in the Limca Book of Records and India’s Book of Records as India’s largest mall. They have eight retail stores – six in Bengaluru, one in Mysore and another one in Mangalore. With staff strength of 800 individuals, the bookshop is growing at a rate of 20-30 percent per annum for the last five years.

Nitin, managing director of the company, joined the family business in 1981 after he finished his college studies. “We have over 1,50,000 titles on display, including education books. Infact, we have one floor catering just to educational books and July is the peak month for us. We add over 2,000 titles every year. We stock both paperback and hardbound books, but the latter are mostly picked up by libraries,” tells Nitin.

Being surrounded by books, does Nitin himself has time to read them? “Not really, but I do read religious books,” came a quick reply from Nitin.
To attract customers, Sapna Book House organizes an array of activities like children painting competition, debates, literary workshops by local authors and book releases almost every month. Arun Shourie was very recently visiting their bookstore.

Nitin, who used to come and spend time at his father’s bookshop after school hours very regularly. This brought with him the necessary skill and passion to go for his career in the same. Throughout their journey till today, credit is also attributed by Nitin to Balram Sadhwani, regional director, UBSPD (UBS Publishers’ Distributors Pvt Ltd) for his whole-heartedly guidance from time to time. To keep the organisation of Sapna Book House on the fast track of growth, Nitin’s brothers Deepak and Paresh are also putting in their best all the time.

As an interesting promotional activity, they also have a system of privilege cards for regular visitors to their bookstore and to date, they have 50,000 such card holders and a database of all these card holders is safe with them and they regularly update them with all new books arrival, book release functions, etc. “We are also planning to introduce gift card system as well,” tells Nitin.

The publishing house…

They began publishing books in 1994 and supply books to retailers or suppliers and libraries. Initially, they started publishing engineering books. Today, they publish two books everyday – one reprint and one new title.
For their publishing activities, Sapna Book House has a panel of eight printers based in Bengaluru and are working with 400-500 authors. “We even do translations in Kannada language and republishing the books which have created a name in English or other language. Our book on LK Advani did very well in the regional language,” told Nitin. Infact, Nitin attributes their foray into publishing to Dr Shivaram Karanth, Jnanpith awardee, who though is not very highly educated, writes extremely well. This Jnanpith awardee has 60 titles to his credit; all published by Sapna in various genres like fiction, biography and children specifies. To their credit Sapna Book House has published 4,000 titles in Kannada and over 500 titles of academic nature in English.

Going online…

Nitin is ably assisted by his son Nijesh, who is concentrating on the online business. “He has achieved triple sales and wishes to go for MBA from Harvard,” tells the proud father Nitin. He also wishes to put the non-book items online as well. In the era when ecommerce is taking a big swing, the move seems more than appropriate!

A good book is always on tap; it may be decanted and drunk a hundred times, and it is still there for further imbibement.

Who says bookshops are passé? Booklovers still and will always make a beeline for bookshops.

BPB Publications has recently converted its company showroom in the heart of city of Delhi to a full-fledged bookshop with books from as many as 150 publishers…and the response has been overwhelming! Here, Nrip Jain, Business Development Group, BPB Publications shares more about this bookshop in conversation with Varsha Verma.

With bookshop downing their shutters all over the world, a new bookshop does create a flurry! Strategically located in the Connaught Place, the heart of the Delhi city, BPB Publications recently converted their 25-year-old company showroom into a bookstore. When people are going the e-commerce way, buying books has become so easy...then what made this BPB Publications go for a full-fledged bookstore?

“People want to open the book, feel the book, read a few pages and then want to make a purchase decision...which is possible only when they enter into a physical bookshop. The love for books made us convert this 25 years old company showroom into full-fledged bookshop,” said Nrip Jain. “Besides, the location of our bookstore has played a phenomenal role in its success. Connaught Place has always been known to be an uptown market, where rich and elite people roam around. Besides, it is also a hanging place for youngsters and the proximity of the bookstore with the Metro station has been the added advantage,” he revealed.

The bookshop offers books from as many as 150 publishers and the range varies from fiction, non-fiction, art, coffee table books, health, Ayurveda, cookbooks, computer books, children books, to name a few. “We have an exclusive range of books. We stock bestsellers across all publishers,” Nrip added. Besides, they also offer computer peripherals, educational CD-ROMs, toys for kids and more. Interestingly, BPB is the Asia's largest publishers of computer, electronic books and CD Roms/ DVDs for the last 50 years.

Little wonder then that the bookshop attracts around 300 visitors during the weekdays and almost double the numbers on weekends. “Almost 75 percent of visitors belong to the age group of 20-35 years while rest 25 percent is between 35 and 50 years,” shared Nrip. Besides, they also receive corporate and institutional orders.

On asking about the trends in purchases made, Nrip revealed that the maximum number of sales is for tidbit books between the price range of Rs 60 and 140. Besides, the foreigners like to buy travel books from Lonely Planet and Outlook and coffee table books on various subjects. Their bestsellers remain the Manorama Year Book, Chetan Bhagat books and fiction from Penguin.

“In case we do not stock a particular book, we deliver them at the customer’s place on request. We also deliver books to our repeat customers,” he added. Interestingly, Nrip shared that people at his bookshop are not looking for discounts; they are looking for good books. So what makes a book good? “Well, we select top 500 bestsellers of the year and top 20 publishers. We stock 200 bestsellers from each publisher and one copy each of their new releases. We pre-judge the demand for the new releases and then ask for more copies. What’s more? We work on the model of sale on return basis,” told Nrip as a matter of fact. Online is the need of the day, so how does BPB Publications wish to cash on this demand. “We are planning to go online, but it would be a continuation to our brand. Our repeat customers can get special discount coupons as well,” he shared.

Talking about his future plans, Nrip shared that they are planning to convert their 15 company showrooms across India into bookstores. Besides, a bookshop in Delhi University Campus is also on the cards. “We are looking at customer trends right now and then would plan accordingly,” he said. So where does Nrip sees the bookstore five years from now? “We hope to come up as a professional run bookstore and become one of the exclusive bookshops in India. We love books and would like to spread this enigma,” concluded Nrip.