The Publishing Horizon

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.

Newspaper turns book publisher

The Sunday Herald, a Scottish newspaper, has done something very interesting. It has leveraged its brand and turned into a book publisher.

Allmediascotland, a portal tracking Scottish media, reports.

The Sunday Herald has not only made a foray into book publishing, its debut title is proving a sales success. Earlier this month, the newspaper's name was lent to the publication of a book on the conflict in Iraq, 'The War on Truth', by its investigations editor, Neil Mackay. A second Sunday Herald book - 'Intifada - The Long Day Of Rage', by the paper's foreign editor, David Pratt - was published last week. Two more titles are in the pipeline: one, 'Collateral Damage', on the impact of war on civilians; the other, 'Good Bad Guys', about dictators "we have loved".

While the newspaper is lending its name to the publishing venture, it is doing none of the publishing itself. That is being undertaken by independent publishing company, Books Noir Ltd, run by Bob Smith. Says Smith: "Early sales statistics for Neil's book, so far are very impressive. I'd say his book has been one of the best sellers in Scottish book stores this last fortnight. The figures for David's book have yet to come in, it having been published a week later, but I expect his book to be performing just as well." Smith splits time between working for Edinburgh publisher, Birlinn Ltd, which specialises in publishing books on Scottish interest, and Books Noir Ltd, publisher of Sunday Herald Books.

In terms of the arrangement Books Noir has with the Sunday Herald, the paper incurs no cost at all, aside from helping with website development; instead, Books Noir Ltd pays a licence fee to use the Sunday Herald brand."

It was Smith who took the idea to the Sunday Herald - that it should lend its name to "a publishing house specialising in topics of international news interests which directly affect UK citizens".

This is something every newspaper having a large audience and a good brand ought to consider seriously. The newspaper can publish books under its brand, while outsourcing the actual work (of publishing including editing, printing and distribution) to a professional publishing house, if it is unable to deal with the editing and printing of books. The newspaper can take on the responsibility of marketing the books to its audience through its newspaper and drive traffic to bookstores as well as sell direct through a mail-order or phone-order model. Excerpts from the books could also be serialised in the newspaper to enable potential buyers to sample the book before purchase.

This could be an excellent opportunity for Indian newspapers, especially Indian language newspapers, to diversify away from being just a provider of news/gossip/views to becoming a knowledge provider, publishing non-fiction. Newspapers, with their constraints of space, cannot be the medium to take knowledge to the masses. Books on the other hand have been the source of knowledge over centuries and are perfect to take up a topic or issue, start from the basics and delve into it in depth.

If a newspaper in India could sell about 10,000 copies of every new non-fiction title published under its brand, it would count as a major publishing success. Given that books typically sell only 2,000 to 3,000 copies on average in India, unless they're best sellers, in which case they might sell upwards of 10,000 copies, for a newspaper to sell 10,000 copies for most titles published under its brand name would be great.

The Hindu has tried its hand at it by publishing collections of articles on various topics published in the daily newspaper over the years. Some of the titles published by The Hindu include, The Hindu Speaks on Management - Volume I and Volume II, The Hindu Speaks on Education, The Hindu Speaks on Music and Mahatma Gandhi: The Last 200 Days .

But these are just collections of disparate articles. There is scope to do far better. For someone like The Hindu, who also have excellent printing infrastructure and can probably use their current editorial infrastructure or expand it a bit, they may only need to be tie-up with a book distributor.