Publishing industry: still new pastures to be explored!

The Indian publishing industry has matured as a big publishing centre. India is the third largest publisher of English books and our books are appreciated and read worldwide. The quality standards have improved significantly and our content, design and production is at par with foreign ones. In this backdrop, the London Book Fair has announced a special Spotlight on India series of events at the 2017 edition of the fair.

Private publishers are doing a commendable job in the education segment. The quality of books available for K-12, college and higher ed is unsurpassable. A lot of toil and research goes in making the books error-free, interesting, child-friendly, besides adhering to the curriculum. The fact that they are high on production value is an added advantage. A recent misinterpretation of the CBSE circular created frenzy amongst all as media reported that CBSE is making NCERT books mandatory for all CBSE schools. A few prominent publishers met the Ministry of HRD and were assured that NCERT books are not mandatory and they also appreciated the efforts and books produced by the private publishers for shaping children in their formative years.

An important upcoming trend in the Indian publishing industry is the focus on language publishing. Publishers are eagerly looking at translations from English to regional language as well as vice versa. New writings in regional languages are also encouraged. This is because there are many good authors and good works in the regional languages. People who are still connected to their soil still love to read in their local language, whether they love in India or abroad. This is a rising trend and even international publishers are eyeing this potential.

Infact, there are still many pastures unexplored as publishing industry is shifting from print-oriented to content-oriented industry and we may see some new developments/innovations in the industry soon.

Happy publishing!

Sonal Khurana
sonal@smediagroup.in