The Publishing Horizon

Market size of book retail in India

Technopak Advisors claim in the Business Standard that

The Indian book retail industry is estimated to be over Rs 3,000 crore, out of which organised retail accounts for only 7 per cent.

The industry is expected to grow by approximately 15 per cent a year.

Book retail contributes only about 1 per cent to the overall retail industry. Text and curriculum books account for about 50 per cent of the sales. Second-hand books are also a big chunk of the book retail market.

In the past few years, several large format book store chains have come up, such as Landmark, Crossword and Om Book Shop.

Book retailers are focusing on improved customer experience. Many book stores have also introduced coffee shops and provide a library-like atmosphere where customers can sit and read, while sipping coffee.

I expect better from Technopak Advisors. This kind of estimate is such a generic and meaningless estimate with no information on the basis for it, that I would discount this completely. It doesn't give me any data or insights that I can trust or use. They seem to be saying something for the sake of saying it and meeting a weekly deadline. It also does no good for their brand - I now wonder about all their other estimates of market size.

The sad part is that there is little or no other data on book retail out there and this is likely to be taken as correct and quoted over and over again by virtue of being the only data on the Indian book retail market out there. Use it as you please, but don't get taken in by it.

Sunil Khilnani speaks on The Paradox of India's New Prosperity

Prof. Sunil Khilnani, the noted historian, is visiting Chennai. New Horizon Media is organising a talk by Prof. Khilnani on Sunday, November 1st, 2009. Details of the talk are provided below. Please spread the word to any of your friends who might be interested in attending. We look forward to seeing you there.

Topic: The Paradox of India's New Prosperity
Venue: C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation Auditorium, 1, Eldams Road, Alwarpet, Chennai 600 018
Date: Sunday, November 1st, 2009
Time: 4.30 PM

About the speaker:

Sunil Khilnani is the Starr Foundation Professor and Director, South Asia Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. His publications include Arguing Revolution: The Intellectual Left in Postwar France (Yale, 1993, German translation 1995)), Civil Society: History and Possibilities (with Sudipta Kaviraj: Cambridge, 2001), and The Idea of India (3rd Edition, Penguin, 2003) – translated into several languages, most recently Arabic.

Sunil Khilnani was formerly Professor of Politics at Birkbeck College, University of London and was a visiting Professor of Politics at Seikei University, Tokyo. He has been a Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge; has held a Leverhulme Fellowship and has been Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin. He has served one the editorial boards of Economy and Society, Critique Internationale, and Political Quarterly, and is a member of the Scientific Council of the Institute for Advanced Study in Nantes. He was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge and King’s College, Cambridge. He is at work on a study of Jawaharlal Nehru, and on a history of democracy in India.

Reading Spa: A great bookselling idea

From The Penguin Blog: In praise of independent bookshops

But [Mr B’s Emporium in Bath, England] have also started what I think is a brilliant initiative. It’s called a Reading Spa: for £55 a person gets an hour of undivided attention from one of their extremely nice and knowledgeable booksellers. You sit and have tea and cake and talk about what you like, what you don’t like; they talk about what’s come out recently, what’s selling well. Based on this, they then go away and come back with a pile of books. £40 of that £55 goes towards these books, plus of course any extra you want to spend. So far they’re doing at least one a week and one chap spent an extra £400 a couple of weeks ago.

I wonder if bookshops in India would think of something like this. Maybe not since the floor staff are not very well informed these days.

Translating The Economist into Indian langauges? Why not!

Andy Baio discovered The Eco Team.

... a group of dedicated fans of The Economist newsmagazine are translating each weekly issue cover-to-cover, splitting up the work among a team of volunteers, and redistributing the finished translations as complete PDFs for a Chinese audience.

...

It's an impressive example of online collaboration with simple tools, a completely non-commercial effort by volunteers interested in spreading knowledge while improving their English skills. In the process, they're taking a political risk in translating controversial articles about their homeland behind the Great Firewall.

...

They call themselves The Eco Team, a group of about 240 passionate Economist fans led by a 39-year-old insurance broker named Shi Yi. The ECO China forum was originally founded in May 2006 by a mysterious character named "nEo," though he's no longer involved with the site. On their About Us page, nEo delivers the mission statement:

"Like the forum name says, producing a Chinese version of The Economist is our goal. But we're still young and immature; very amateur, not professional. So what? Because we are young, we have the fervor, the enthusiasm, the passion. Because we are amateurs, we'll double our efforts to do our best. As long as we wish, we can be successful and do a good job!"

Every week, in their Weekly Topics forum (translation), a moderator creates a thread linking to every untranslated article from the newest issue on Economist.com. Here's the list for this week's issue, published on February 21.

Volunteers choose their stories in the comments, while the moderator keeps track of assignments. As each story's translated, it's posted as a new thread in topic-specific forums, like Special Reports or Science & Technology.

Each article weaves together paragraphs of the original text and its translation, while other volunteers suggest their corrections in the comments. The lead editor incorporates all the comments, eventually arriving at a final draft ready for publication.

The best part is that The Economist is actually ok with the Eco Team doing their thing - an extremely smart move on the part of The Economist.

How long before we can get Indian language translations of magazines like The Economist? Time we did something about it.

As an aside, The Economist is part of my staple media diet. Though I don't necessarily agree with all the views expressed in The Economist, I'm an unabashed admirer - it is a simply superb magazine.

Who willl be the brands in future in publishing? Authors? Editors? Publishers?

When we look at a book or consider buying a book, the first thing that strikes us is the Title or the Author, not usually the Publisher, let alone the Editor, who is more often than not unknown except for a mention in the acknowledgements. But could it be different? Kate Eltham wonders.

… is the author the only brand? Isn’t it possible, however unlikely, that some publishers could create an identity so strong and a community so vibrant that audiences seek out their books because they trust and like the people producing them?

and David Henley looks at the possibilities and suggests what authors and editors can do to promote their books better.

I think the long tail of the internet makes branding more and more important than ever. But not just for publishers, for authors, editors, designers, contributors and reviewers. The internet never forgets... unless someone actively deletes their content but few people ever do this. This is something I've been thinking about for a while and this is the place to share it to test whether I'm crazy or not. My partner and I speculate that books will take on similar aspects to films. Not everyone chooses a film because of who directs it or who the screenwriter was, but some of us do, and now with databases like IMDB we can easily find lists of films containing the actors we like, or directors and discover more things we might like to watch. I think books can be the same. Currently I don't get to know who edits each book, or acquires the rights, but if I did I might start to follow their work. Authors need not be the only brands. Publishers can establish a brand identity the way imprints used to. Most will have to start over as they've diluted any meaning they ever had. Now to tie back up with the review sites, and the desire to have every book ever be reviewed, the reason people want this is because they're writing books and nobody is hearing about them. Getting something reviewed is nigh on impossible for the little guys, but to get the ball rolling just imagine that every author has a blog, every editor has a blog, every producer has a blog etc, so when they are working on a project they tell the public about it. Links are created, discussion is begun. Add to this a circle of blogging beta-readers (pre-reviewers if you will) and by the time the book is released into the wild there is four or five independent sources of information about the book, all hopefully tied to an author hub site. Remember aswell what Jamie said, external links are important, so lots of different blogs interlinking is better than one site with internal links. Its a small start but better than nothing. And the game changer for the industry is that the sales window for ebooks and POD books is limitless, so you can play a long-strategy game rather than the current one of timing your efforts for impact in a 90-day opening while the books are on shelves.

Indian fiction market in English - going from back-list to front-list?

So says Thomas Abraham, head of Hachette India.

Commercial fiction will be a significant genre in India. “We may not have a first- mover advantage but the market is changing from being a backlist one to a frontlist one,” said Mr Abraham. At 60-40, the ratio in favour of backlists (classics or bestsellers), India still compares badly to the rest of the world where 75-80 per cent of the business comes from new books. Mr Abraham also feels pricing, which hasn’t changed in a few years, will need to be raised steadily.

The mega promotion (author tours, publicity hype, and awards won by the authors) the front-list fiction titles in recent years might well be driving this trend.

The report also adds,

The Indian business under Hachette UK is already in discussion with authors and will be launching 20-25 books in 2009, with the full programme bringing out 75-80 titles a year by 2010, said Mr Thomas Abraham, Managing Director, Hachette Book Publishing India.

Comparison of estimates of the size of the Indian Book Publishing Industry

At the outset, it should be borne in mind that the cardinal word when referring to size of the Indian book publishing industry, whether in this post or anywhere else for that matter is "estimates" - unfortunately, there are no proper studies of the Indian book publishing industry so far.

The Strategist (October 21, 2008) provides estimates of the size of the Indian publishing industry, based on data provided by Technopak Advisors.

THE INDIAN publishing market is estimated at Rs 20,000 crore (~ US$ 4.5 Billion)

IT CONSISTS OF books, magazines and newspapers.

THE BOOKS MARKET IS estimated to be Rs 13,000 crore (~ US$ 2.9 Billion) , which is segmented into education and non-education books market.

THE MAGAZINES market is estimated to be 15 per cent of the total market, which is Rs. 3,000 Crore (~ US$670 Million).

THE NEWSPAPERS market is estimated at Rs 4,000 crore (~ US$ 890 Million)

Technopak Advisors haven't mentioned the basis for their estimates, but the above estimates from Technopak Advisors for the Indian book market are a good 30% higher than the estimates provided in the The India Publishing Market Profile 2008 (also only rough estimates based on hearsay and not any study) which had suggested that

The total book market was worth around Rs. 10,000 Crore, of which

The school book market may be worth around Rs. 3,500 Crore

The higher education book and journal market may be worth around Rs. 2,500 Crore

The trade book market may be worth Rs. 4,000 Crore, of which the English language segment may be worth about Rs. 2,400 Crore

The figures from Technopak Advisors for newspaper and magazine revenues in India are much much lower than other estimates for the same.

According to the 2008 PriceWaterhouseCoopers report    

Print Media (Newspapers and Magazines)
Current size in 2007 – Rs 149 billion (Rs. 14,900 Crore) ; Rs 128 billion (Rs. 12,800 Crore) in 2006
Projected size in 2012 – Rs 281 billion (Rs. 28,100 Crore) projected for 2012
Growth in 2007 over 2006 – 16%; 14% CAGR for 2008-12

According to a recent article in Knowledge@Wharton

Magazine advertising revenues are Rs. 1,400 crore, while circulation revenues are Rs. 500 crore.

For newspapers, the corresponding figures are Rs. 8,000 crore and Rs. 5,000 crore.

PwC projects growth in magazine advertising revenues over the next five years at 16%, compared with 10% growth for circulation revenues. For newspapers, the numbers are further skewed, at 16% and 8%, respectively.

Hachette India test-launches "part works" in India

 

 
Hachette India has quietly test-launched a "part work" product in the state of Tamil Nadu. It is neither a magazine, nor a book, which is why it goes by the technical name of "part work" in publishing parlance.

Hachette has named its part work Tree of Knowledge - The Collectable Encyclopaedia for Children. The first issue was available on the stands in September 2008 and a new issue was planned for every fortnight. I haven't yet noticed the second edition on the stands as of November. They launched the first issue at an introductory price of Rs. 30 per copy, though they have set the price at Rs. 60 per copy.

A few other lines in their communication on the product packaging include

The definitive children's encyclopaedia
Build a complete reference series and give your child a headstart at school
The encyclopaedia for every school child

Tree of Knowledge is a new way to learn and understand the world around you. it is an indispensable source of information and knowledge for your children and will help with their homework and school projects.

Issue-by-issue, you will build a complete encyclopaedia. This easy to use family guide covers all the facts kids want and ned to know about science, technology, the Arts, history and geography.

Each issue is divided into 5 sections o cover all of the key subjects. Each section is colour-coded for quick and easy reference. Issue-by-issue, you will build a complete encyclopaedia to help your child discover, learn and understand the fascinating world around him.

So what are part works? A recent article in Kidscreen Magazine explains the genre and the business of part works in fair detail.

In a nutshell, they're collectible magazines containing quizzes, games and fun facts, usually published weekly or bi-weekly. Each part can range from 16 to 32 pages, and they often include a toyetic cover-mount like a figurine or mini-pack of trading cards. Much emphasis is placed on the first issue as a starting point from which kids can build a whole collection of exclusive products. When the first issue of Nickelodeon's Dora Dress Up & Go launched in January, it came with a Dora doll, and subsequent parts featured doll clothes that tied into a different theme each time. So the "Ice-Skating Fiesta" issue sported a lycra figure skating costume, and "Cowgirl Adventure" offered a tasseled vest and denim skirt.

Although partworks have been around since the 1950s, they really made their biggest gains in popularity in the '70s, most prominently in the UK and France, but also in Australia, Japan, South America and Latin America. They experienced a resurgence in the market in the '90s, thanks to new technologies that allowed publishers to package them with higher-value cover-mounts such as DVDs and CD-ROMs, driving the retail price up to a top end of about US$15.

A typical series lasts anywhere from 30 to 60 fortnightly issues or between 70 and 100 weekly releases, so they tend to be on shelves for around two years - and sometimes even longer. Eaglemoss Publishing Group's Lord of the Rings partwork, for example, has been in distribution since the first movie's release in 2001 and was recently extended to 140 issues.

But not all properties are good candidates for the partworks format. Brands that do well in this category tend to already have a solid and widespread fan base, as well as a wealth of characters and environments that can be translated into the vast amounts of content needed for an extended print run. Gregoire Halbout, VP of home video and publishing for Nickelodeon & Viacom Consumer Products International, which derives 25% of its total publishing revenue from partworks, stresses that they should really only be considered for the second or third phase of a property's licensing program. "The partwork is not a trendsetter that can be used to establish a franchise," he says. "You would always wait to have established your main product categories, especially where publishing is concerned. The (brand) awareness has to be sufficient enough to sustain such a heavy investment-based project."

To this point, the creation and approval process on partworks can take quite a bit of time, not to mention the intensive market testing that's typically involved. Susan Bolsover, a category director at Brit agency CPLG, says the company's latest Shrek partwork with DreamWorks and publisher GE Fabbri was in development for two years, going through many rounds of editorial tweaking, testing each new version vigorously, and then waiting for licensor approval.

Although tedious, the testing phase is vital to the process because it determines whether the partwork is marketable and what distribution levels it will support. Hachette Partworks starts off the process by testing concepts, magazines and cover mounts with focus groups. Then if the feedback is favorable, the company will release a handful of issues in a specific geographic region. MD Celeste Surugue says he waits for statistics from the first four issues to come back before making a final call about whether or not the title is viable. A good test not only yields decent sales on the first issue, but maintains or exceeds that level of buy-in on the next two or three to indicate that consumers will keep coming back for more over the duration of the program.

If a partwork comes out of testing successfully, then the publisher embarks on an expensive, high-profile media launch. It's not uncommon to spend upwards of US$1.5 million on the television campaign alone, says Hachette's Surugue, delivering the same number of ads in 10 days as a Fast Moving Consumer Goods company does in a month. Because the program will hit retail with so much marketing behind it, Surugue adds that retailers are generally quite eager to display the product to its best advantage. He says an average partwork running in the UK will be distributed in as many as 25,000 to 30,000 newsstands, kiosks and supermarket magazine aisles across the country.

Subscriptions have also become an integral part of the sales strategy in this category, and most programs kick off with subscription inserts in the first few issues. Eaglemoss's editorial director Maggie Calmels says that this distribution method is experiencing increasing success and observes that "some people subscribe based on seeing the URL on the TV ad, without buying anything at all in the shop." CPLG's Bolsover says that in some cases, subscriptions can account for more than 50% of a program's total lifetime sales.

Royalty rates in this category are based on cover price and can range between 2.55% and 6%. CPLG's Bolsover expands that companies don't start recouping on their investment until about 15 or so issues into the run, which can make for a stressful first year. But despite the inherent risk, a successful partworks program can do wonders for a brand and trigger a high revenue flow. Nickelodeon sold 19 million units of its Rugrats, Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob SquarePants partworks in four years. And though he wouldn't divulge specific numbers, Halbout says it's a multi-million-dollar business, and NVCP is currently working on developing partworks for other territories. For its part, Eaglemoss's Lord of the Rings program experienced a US$27.6-million turnover.

With such solid potential, you may be wondering why this publishing model hasn't hit North American shores. It's certainly not from lack of trying. But almost without fail, partworks sales for test programs in the US and Canada have tended to drop instead of increase as time goes on. Hachette's Surugue believes that one factor working against the category is that North America doesn't have the same penetration of newsstands and smaller kiosks as Europe, which gives customers better and easier access to product.

Nickelodeon's Halbout theorizes that the economic model of partworks doesn't jibe with consumption habits in North America, where shoppers have become accustomed to and almost reliant on a heavy and constant barrage of marketing to remind them to keep buying an ongoing product range. Instead, the "declining curve" of the average partworks planogram funnels all the investment into the beginning stages of the program to maximize brand exposure, and then consumers are left to their own collecting pleasures with no further promotions beyond the initial push.

It will be interesting to see how Hachette drives this forward in the Indian market.

But this is not the first part work in India. That honour, to my knowledge, should go to the Amar Chitra Katha, which used to launch one new issue every few weeks back in the late seventies and early eighties. Each issue was numbered, but there was no date on the issue. The new issues were available on the news stands. I used to buy my copies regularly at the local news stand as when a new issue was out.

Spanish book publisher Grupo Planeta acquires French book publisher Editis

In May 2008, the largest Spanish book publisher Grupo Planeta (GP) acquired Editis, the second biggest French book publisher from Wendel Investissements, a French private equity firm, for EUR 1.026 billion. Barcelona-based Grupo Planeta, founded in 1949, with subsidiaries in Colombia and Mexico now has a made its first foray into publishing in a language other than Spanish. There're very few reports or analysis in the English language media (that I could find online) of this mega deal in the book publishing sector, which is likely a harbinger of deals to come. Here's what I've been able to gather on the deal.

• Some background on the Acquirer as described on Grupo Planeta's website,

  GP is the leading Spanish communication group with wholly family-owned capital and a producer of cultural, news, educational and entertainment contents for the Spanish-speaking market. It is the foremost publishing group in Spain and Latin America and is a reference shareholder of Spanish mass media including television, radio, press and the Internet. Founded in Barcelona in 1949 following the creation of Editorial Planeta and the promotion of direct sales of major encyclopaedic works, Grupo Planeta quickly became consolidated as a prestige brand with a capacity for combining tradition and a forward-looking approach. In 1966 it opened its first subsidiaries in Colombia and Mexico, marking what would be a constant part of its activity: an uninterrupted presence in Latin America. Today, Grupo Planeta boasts over 40 publishing labels that publish works by over 5,000 authors including the most outstanding writers of classical and contemporary literature. It is also leader in the commercialisation of major encyclopaedic works and in sales by instalments.

  and the Target as described on Editis' web site,

  With 2600 employees and about 44 publishing imprints, Editis holds leading positions in three segments of the publishing business, in particular Literature (trade and mass market formats), Education (scholarly, scholastic aids, middle school, high school, university, legal and medical), and Reference (dictionaries and encyclopedias), as well as in the field of publishing services (promotion and distribution). Prestigious publishers and efficient group-wide services have made Editis number two in the world of French publishing and a major player in Europe.

  20 December 2002: Vivendi Universal Publishing (VUP) sold its publishing business (including Editis) to the Lagardère group, subject to authorization by the European Commission.
  7 January 2004: The European Commission authorized Lagardère to retain ownership of part of the VUP's publishing assets, representing some 40% of Editis' total sales. Lagardère decided to keep the publishing firms Larousse, Dalloz, Dunod, Armand Colin, Sedes, Nathan-Université, Anaya group (Spanish) and the Ivry-Rigaud distribution center. The remaining 60% of VUP's publishing assets were put back on the market. Taking the name Editis, this group refocused its activity on publishing for the French-speaking world.
  30 September 2004: WENDEL Investissement announced that it had acquired Editis from Lagardère SCA for € 660 million.

  [Lagardère's agreement to buy VUP's publishing business] attracted criticism from competitors and government agencies (e.g. comments that Lagardere would have over 50% of France's paperback sales, 80% of textbook sales and 69% of book distribution), reflected in the decision by the European Commission's competition unit that Lagardere should relinquish much of the acquisition. (Source: Ketupa)

• The details of the deal as described by Calcyon, Grupo Planeta's investment banker

  With a value of EUR 1,026 million, it is the largest acquisition ever made in France by a foreign media group and one of the largest media mergers & acquisition deal in Europe in 2008. Editis is the second largest French book publisher next to Hachette and the leader in its domestic market. With prestigious publishing brands such as Nathan, Bordas, Le Robert, Plon, Perrin and Robert Laffont, it generated sales of EUR 760 million and operating profit of EUR 93 million in 2007. Through this acquisition, Planeta becomes one of the leading European publishers of textbooks and literature and reaffirms its international ambitions.

  With the integration of Editis, Grupo Planeta will generate revenues of EUR 3.2 billion of which EUR 1.7 billion in publishing.

  Calyon is financial advisor to Grupo Planeta for the EUR 1 billion acquisition of Editis and bookrunner and coordinator of the acquisition syndicated loan. The acquisition financing is structured in two facilities: one EUR 120 million tranche for the acquisition holding company, owned by Planeta and its shareholders, and one EUR 550 million tranche at Editis level to refinance existing debt.

  The deal values Editis at 1.35 times 2007 revenues. Grupo Planeta's annual sales prior to the acquistion were EUR 2,500 million of which about EUR 1,000 was from their book publishing division.

• The logic for the acquistion?

  José Manuel Lara, Planeta chairman, stated that "the signing of this operation is doubly pleasing for us. Firstly, because it means an important step forward for the strategic development of Grupo Planeta, whose publishing activity, since its creation, has been exclusively focused on the Spanish-speaking market. From now on, we will have access to another great linguistic market, the Francophone market, making us one of the major European publishers. Secondly, because for Editis, belonging to a group like Planeta, with its clear international vocation, opens up great expectations for development as there is no duplicity between them but there are, in contrast, enormous potential synergies.

  Another report in Spanish dated April 22, 2008, accessible through Google's translation into English (sic) says

  [GP chairman] Lara has explained today at a press conference that 'in 2004 and the Grupo Planeta tried to buy Editis, then in the hands of Vivendi Universal, but the operation was closed because not appeared on stage Wendel'.

  According to Lara, the operation in France is a consequence of the strategy Planet, which can hardly grow in the domestic market because 'we can only Spain in a shaft of growth, the textbook, but now is a sector with uncertainty by raamatut policy, because you need some runs high and because it is not known how education will evolve in the future with the new electronic media '.

  Editis, which has a turnover of 760 million euros and 2,600 employees, is also one of the distributors of reference through its subsidiary Interforum. Since 2004, has initiated a process of internationalization with the acquisition of seven new companies, including the Belgian Boeck, who have contributed 150 million euros of turnover. The Planeta Group manages, on balance, a turnover of 2,500 million euros, 1,000 of them for the publishing, and has 12,500 employees. The transaction will be financed with 40% -50% of own resources and the rest through debt ratios, according to Lara, who 'do not represent a debt overhang of paternal society'.

  The acquisition of Editis lead to Planet group to 'think of other magnitudes, not so much to buy another group in France, such as expanding the business into other languages powerful', which has ruled the Asian languages, 'as a matter of different business cultures '.
  

  Grupo Planeta seem to have ambitions of expanding into Asian languages too, which would mean they may be interested in acquiring publishing houses in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and various Indian languages, some of which have far more speakers than either French, German, Japanese or Korean.
  
• How is GP planning to fund the acquisition? According to a Business Week report,

  Jose Manuel Lara, Founder of Grupo Planeta told Le Figaro that the company may launch an initial public offering (IPO) to finance the acquisition of Editis. When Jose Manuel Lara was asked if the company was planning to list on the stock exchange he replied: "Why not?" He did not exclude other possibilities to fund the acquisition.

  
  
• Grupo Planeta's next step? To break into the English publishing market? So says The Bookseller

  The €2bn (£1.57bn) book publishing giant created by the merger of Spain's Planeta and France's Editis will attempt to break into the English--language market once the takeover has been digested.

  In a ranking of global publishers, the deal will take the combined group to just outside the top five, competing for sixth position with Hachette Livre. Significantly, it will be the only group in the top 10 not to have either a UK or US presence.

  In an interview with the French daily newspaper Le Figaro, José Manuel Lara, president of the family-owned Grupo Planeta, said that the combination of the two would "be stronger to tackle the Anglo-Saxon market, even if it remains very difficult to penetrate". Editis chairman and c.e.o. Alain Kouck backed the plan, saying the deal would "enable us to build a new European publishing leader and ensure that Editis can expand outside the French-speaking world". He told The Bookseller: "Publishers reaching a certain size cannot grow [by acquisition] within their national borders without the risk of violating anti-trust laws."

  Planeta is little known outside of continental Europe. Based in Barcelona-when first contacted it said it wanted to conduct the interview in Catalan-the business was founded by Lara's father in 1949 and generates 70% of its €1bn (£785m) in annual book sales from Spain, 20% from Latin America and the remaining 10% from Portugal and Italy. Including its wider media activities, it generates €2.5bn (£1.96bn) in annual sales.

  Lara is a Francophile, having been French-educated in Barcelona during the reign of General Franco. "Our group, which had a tie-up with Larousse for years, always wanted to develop in France," he said. The company had talks with publishers Presses de la Renaissance (before the latter merged with Belfond) and with Presse de la Cité before it was bought by Editis, he said. It also looked at Editis before it was taken over by Wendel four years ago.

  
  
• How did Wendel fare with its acquisition of Editis in 2004 and sale in 2008 to Grupo Planeta? The Bookseller throws some light.

  Wendel should make a capital gain of about €320m (£251m) on the €1bn (£785m) deal. Although the sale came as no surprise, sources noted that when Wendel aquired Editis in 2004, supervisory board chairman Ernest-Antoine Seillière said it would keep the publisher for 10 to 15 years. "Instead, it has walked away after four years with a handsome profit," said one source.

  "No one could know in 2004 how difficult the publishing market would become," Wendel said in response. It denies reports that it opted for Planeta under pressure. "There was no ultimatum," the spokesperson said. "We accepted Planeta's offer, because it has a real project, with a sound, long-term vision and an uncontested leadership. The offer has been welcomed by the whole of the French publishing industry."

  
  
• How is the Planeta-Editis merger likely to fare? An op-ed piece in Spanish, (accessible through Google's translation into English) looks at the possibilities.

  The purchase by Planet of the French Editis is a qualitative and quantitative leap to another international dimension, in a mature market and an unknown environment, highlights the complainant. However, the trajectory of both groups and their management teams generate, in their view, optimistic expectations.

  Apart from the report in The Bookseller, there are no other reports or analysis of the Grupo Plaenta - Editis deal that I could come across in the English press - quite surprising.

For perspective (data from respective annual reports),

• Random House, owned by the Bertelsmann Group, publishes books in English, German and Korean (through its own subsidiaries) and in Spanish (through a joint venture with Mondadori) and Japanese (through a joint venture with Kodansha). Random House's 2007 revenues were EUR 1,837 million (EUR 1,947 million in 2006) with operating EBIT of EUR 173 million (EUR 182 million) at an operating margin of 9.4%. Random House contributes 10% of Bertelsmann's revenues.

• Multilingual book publisher Hachette Book Group, owned by conglomerate Lagardere publishes in French, Spanish and English. It's English publishing division acquired Time Warner Books in early 2006 from AOL-Time Warner in 2006 for US$ 538 million, at a little more than 1 times 2005 sales. Hachette's 2007 book publishing revenues were EUR 2,130 million (EUR 1,962 million in 2006), with operating margins of 11.2% (up from about 6% in 1998). 35% (EUR 746 million) of their 2007 revenues was from France, 10% (EUR 213 million) was from Spain and 41% (EUR 873 million) was from UK, USA and Canada.

• Penguin, owned by Pearson, is an English publisher. It began publishing in the Indian languages of Hindi and Marathi in 2005 in a small way. Penguin's 2007 revenues were £846 million (~ EUR 1,150 Million) with operating EBIT of £74 million (~ EUR 101 million) at an operating margin of 8.75%. Penguin contributes a substantial 20% of Pearson's revenues.

• HarperCollins, owned by NewsCorp, is an English publisher. HC's 2007 revenues were US$ 1,347 million (~ EUR 916 million) , with operating EBIT of US$ 159 million (~EUR 108 million), at an operating margin of 11.8%. HarperCollins contributes just 5% of its parent NewsCorp's revenues.

• Simon & Schuster, an English publisher owned by CBS had 2007 revenues of US$ 886 million (~ EUR 603 million), with operating EBIT of US$ 88 million (~ EUR 60 million), at an operating margin of 10%. Simon & Schuster contributes just 6% of revenues to its parent CBS.

Both HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster might be attractive acquisition targets for a publishing conglomerate like Grupo Planeta with aspirations of breaking into English publishing through acquisitions. Private equity firms have also been eyeing some of the leading publishers for a while now. The book publishing sector seems set for a wave of consolidation over the next decade.

Repro India aims to print 200 million books per year in its Surat facility

Printweek.com reports,

Publishing giant Repro India is investing INR 52 crore (£6.1m) in a massive 5388sqm-printing unit that it hopes will supply 200m books to the global educational and children's book markets.

Repro has a long client list that includes international companies such as McGraw Hill, Pearson, Longman, Oxford and Heinemann in educational publishing, and Igloo, Arcturus, Beaver Books and Dalmatian in children's book publishing.

The group has purchased a wide range of kit, which will be housed at the site in Sachin – a special economic zone (SEZ) – near Surat in Gujarat, India.

According to Repro, the site is being housed in Surat because it is a SEZ and this means it is a free-trade zone and offers benefits such as reduced regulatory paperwork and no duties or levies.

When fully operational, the unit will be able to supply 100m books to the educational and children's book markets in USA, Europe, UK and Africa, but the company aims to increase this figure to 200m "soon".

Unni said: "We have successfully garnered a position of leadership in global education. Our results are 19% growth in revenue with INR 155 crores (£18.2m) in 2007-08 and 69% growth in profits (after tax) at INR 15.55 crores (£1.8m)."

According to a recent presentation on the Indian print services industry by Satish Malhotra of SWAN Press,

India has over 130,000 printing presses in active operation all over the country, a 1.5 million work force, 20 Printing Engineering Colleges and print training institutions churning out over over 2000 Printing Graduates every year.

The Indian book printing industry is set for healthy growth.