Local E-Books

Local E-Books Breaking Cover

More Indian titles will be in the digital format as publishers hope to ride on higher growth rates and device explosion

A small team at Penguin India’s New Delhi office is agog with excitement as the publishing powerhouse – with 250 titles every year – waits for its E-moment – launch of the first set of 150 ebooks slated for this month. Not just Penguin, other Indian book publishers are taking the risk to launch e-books to try out the potential of this virgin market at a local level. Top publishing houses like Harper Collins and Amar Chitra Katha are all expected to release their first set of e-books within the next six months.

“We are aggressively converting books into e-books. At this point in time, there is not a big market for e-books here but when the device explosion happens, we’ll be there,” says Ananth Padmanabhan, vice-president for sales at Penguin Ind-ia.

HarperCollins India, the Indian subsidiary of American publishing major HarperCollins, will launch its first e-book this year. Right now, it is now preparing the ground for entering the e-book market: developing the technology conversions, working out the legalities and creating the right distribution and sales strategy. “Online sellers entered a few years back and has since then very quickly grabbed a growing percentage share in the sales charts… now the movement to e-books is a natural progression keeping in view a certain set of audience,” says Lipika Bhushan, senior marketing manager at HarperCollins India.

Penguin says entry of ebooks will contribute to wider availability of content, but wouldn’t affect sales of standard books. “We want the readers to be comfortable with digital content and want it to be available in every possible format. Both physical and e-book markets will flourish. One will not cannibalise the other,” Padmanabhan said. HarperCollins’ Bhushan also says e-books would not take over the physical book bit since there would still be those who would prefer the touch, feel and smell. “It might move towards print-ondemand kind of set-up. But yes, e-books are a serious consideration for additional revenue generation and we have already started to work at it.”

Home-grown publishers such as Amar Chitra Katha - the creators of Jataka and Birbal tales - are also rolling the dice as they prepare to foray into the e-book market. The company is currently creating e-books for the Apple platform, but soon plans to tie-up with other vendors. Penguin, India’s largest book publisher by revenue, will launch its e-books across platforms like Kobo, Nook, Kindle and IPad.

There are three key drivers which could transform this initial excitement into a successful foray. First, the growth of tablets and smartphones in India, devices that would host the e-reader. The second is the growth of the publishing industry in India – ebooks can piggyback the success of the print versions. And third, but not the least, is the far lower cost of an e-book.

India’s publishing industry is growing at a compounded rate of 30% annually and it is expected to grow at the same pace over the next three years, says industry body Ficci. It ranks behind the US and the UK in English-language publishing when measured in number of titles.

But the success of e-books will hinge on higher sales of tablets and smartphones. According to hardware lobby Manufacturer’s Association of IT Industry, there are 300,000 tablet users in India today and it forecasts a 100% growth for the current year. Smartphones sales have been rising 8% year-on-year right now. Sayoni Basu, publisher at ACK Media -- which brings out the Amar Chitra Katha titles – says: “The e-book market in India is in the nascent stages. But once the cost of devices reduce, it will be a big market. Also, the mobile market in India is huge, and publishers look for ways to tap that.” But HarperCollins feels the devices will probably have to be remodeled and designed keeping the Indian demographics in mind. Releasing a book on an e-reader is far more cost-effective than printing copies of the same, it is generally assumed. For a buyer, e-book prices can be 10% to 20% lower than that of a hard-bound volume. But from a publisher’s perspective, certain parts of the digital value chain can be expensive and hence the cost reduction may not be as sharp, an ET poll of the top publishing houses and research estimates point out.

For instance, conversion of text into the e-book format, digital warehousing which includes storage and maintenance of data and hiring people with the right technical know-how can be expensive, a senior official from a top publishing houses said.

“In fact, even the sales and marketing of e-books is going to be different from the way we market physical books as more focus will be on positioning. E-readers are innovative and user-friendly devices. They are the need of the hour,” he added. Basu of ACK Media says digitisation of content has become extremely important and her firm is already innovating in this space.

The innovations in India’s nonacademic publishing industry, estimated at anywhere between Rs 1,500 crore and Rs 2,000 crore in 2011, have to be seen in the light of successes in the US and Japan. In the US, e-books have been so successful that on December 15, 2011, Amazon announced that it had sold one million units of its Kindle e-book reader in the previous three weeks. Exactly as in a print title’s sales success in US and the UK would have some ruboff effect here.

With the rising popularity of ereaders in the West, an increasing number of authors have now turned self -publishers, giving them a higher share of the profits. 27-year-old Amanda Hocking, an American writer, has sold more than 150,000 copies of her book Switched on Amazon in less than six months after release. Publishers suggest that self-publishing is slowly catching up locally too.

Sceptics are there too. Jatin Varma, founder of Delhi-based Pop Culture Publishing says the present market is too small and undependable for e-books. “It is an investment for the future and it’s going to take some time. But I am not sure how the market would respond.” Pop Culture Publishing brings out Random Comic magazine.

An e-book is something Alok Kejriwal, 43-year-old co-founder Games2win, an online gaming platform, swears by. But he doesn’t think the digital variant is going to overtake physical books. “I think conceptually we are book reading country. There is a charm around them,” he said. “I think for the big publishers, releasing an e-book is about smartening their proposition.”

And an e-book drive may be new trigger ...

Top Indian publishing houses like Penguin India, HarperCollins and Amar Chitra Katha are gearing up to release e-books. Penguin is likely to release close to 150 e-books in January

Technology-linked innovations in India’s publishing industry have to be seen in the light of success stories from the US, Europe and Japan

In the US, for one, e-books have been extremely successful. On December 15, 2011, Amazon said it had sold 1 million units of Kindle e-book reader in the previous three weeks

Releasing a book on an e-reader costs less than printing the same, it is assumed. For a customer, e-books will cost 10-20% less than actual books

The success of e-books in India would critically depend on tablet and smartphone sales. Hardware lobby MAIT says there are 300,000 tablet users in India today with expected 100% growth in 2012. Smartphones comprise 8% of the mobile market

A future driver could be India’s reasonably-priced textbooks are in great demand in developing countries.

INDU NANDAKUMAR & SRIVIDYA IYER 20J0112