Indian publishing | Jaya's blog

15 years of Hachette In India and the state of the market: a Q&A with Thomas Abraham, MD, Hachette India

A few weeks ago, I happened to email Thomas Abraham, MD, Hachette India, with a bunch of questions about the status of Indian publishing and trends. My head was buzzing with a few questions. As always, Thomas Abraham replied. We discussed the replies over email and here is the final version.

1. What has changed in the last year? How have reading appetites grown? Has the pandemic had an impact?

— The pandemic had a severe impact in 2020 with the lockdown and book sales being stopped.

Subsequently in the years following, sales have grown for most publishers and in spades. Certainly, one or two trends have caught fire here, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say that reading itself has grown. There is a big difference between the books market growing and reading habit growing. I still believe we’re a far cry from the latter in terms of what it should be (or so I think…. what it was in the 50s-70s, but there are reasons for that). But it all depends on how you choose to map it. The market has been buoyed up by a particular trend (I’m not knocking it but clearly indicating it as aberrant) and certain sorts of generic product has exploded. All of this is fantastic and is a part of much needed growth (in terms of capitalization of the market) but whether leisure reading has grown is I believe another deeper question. And the true measure of that would be if all (or at least a lot of leisure) categories grew—that would then demonstrate an appetite for all round reading. To give you an example of what I’m talking about—if the children’s segment has grown by 30% on the back of generic product like ABC or 123 books that can’t really be equated with children reading more; any more than Harry Potter spiking growth rates can be taken as children returning to reading as a habit (if other all round sales don’t also grow). Sure, it is hoped that these spikes are first steps towards what lies ahead in terms of the reading habit growing, but right now happy as I am with sales results, I believe it’s too early to start celebrating the return of reading.

2. Is print still dominating at 90% or will it ease soon?

–yes, it’s about that much, as a rough ballpark… maybe slightly more even. Other formats have spurts but have not been able to dislodge print. Certainly digital (ebooks) have not caught on enough to be anything more than a 5% to 7% contributor. Audio is the new kid back in town (I say back because the format had one big spike in 2005-08 with CDs) and let’s see how that pans out with the current digital formats and streaming platforms.

3. Did ebooks have the resounding success during the lockdown as many claim it did? Where does the popularity of ebooks rest now?

— I personally don’t think so and would be happy to see any concrete data that contradicts my impression which is based on our own sales data (and we’re the No 1 ebook publisher in the world) and a few other publishers who’ve shared the same experience. Certainly, the months of lockdown saw eBook sales doubling because print book sales were not allowed. But in terms of market impact, that doubling over 2-4 months meant nothing if it didn’t change the existing modes of reading subsequently. And that it was a temporary blip was reflected in subsequent sales contribution of eBooks which went up slightly to the 7% -9% level in 2020 (where print fell by over 20% due to 3-4 months of zero sales) and then subsequently settled back to the 5%-7% level it was earlier.

4. Based on this claim, is it fair to assume that digital is making inroads in the print publishing industry?

–To me no, at least not in the past few years if you mean in terms of either sales or even replacing the basic reading vehicles for fiction, and narrative nonfiction. The jury is out on the potential of audiobooks, and yes it seems that this could see more robust uptick than ebooks. But certainly, digital has impacted print publishing in many segments like reference or visual publishing or travel guides where it’s virtually replaced the print models there. So, it’s inevitable that with the growth of technology and current rate of advancement in AI etc the digital side will have some impact (coupled with other trends like paper scarcity and paper prices), but I don’t think even the medium term will see that big transformational changeover just yet.

5.With the increasing adoption of UPI, don’t you think it is possible that in the near future, the publishing industry will have to view new ways of accessing customers? Digital payments mean cash payments before the transaction is completed. There is no need to wait 3 to 4 months for consignments to be either paid for or returned in a damaged condition.

–Unfortunately, no, that would be a seamless model if eBooks were like 60% of your business. As long as the current models of distribution and retail remain (remember international publishers themselves can’t retail by law) that pace will improve but not change fully. UPI finally is just another transactional mode—we’ve had cards and bank transfers for decades, so any enabling change would have happened by now. What you’re talking of can flow if one is selling direct to end customers with little or no via-media channels. That also probably will happen but is some time away.

6. Post-pandemic restrictions easing, do you think there will be changes in the traditional business models of publishing? (Have publishing models have experienced a shift with the pandemic? Are publishers reviewing their lists differently? Are backlists taking priority? What is it that publishers seek in their frontlists? Has the very concept of a planning a new book changed?)

— Yes and no. Certainly there were many learnings in 2020, and the importance of fiscal responsibility was evident—whether in the nature of book acquisitions or the management of the cash cycle.

The fact that traditional backlist sales went up so much was a great consolation to those with strong backlists. But the frontlists falling off by so much as an average should concern everyone. And we’re not talking of a 5% fall off. We’re talking of the monitored market seeing over 90% of frontlist sell less than 1000 copies across the industry. And that’s a trend that began before COVID.

Frontlist will remain key because one can’t stop investing in frontlist if you want a backlist in the future. And herein lies the rub. There is definitely a new market reality that clearly tells one that many old assumptions are wrong, and we’ve seen that demonstrated not just with the failure of ‘big ticket’ books but with publishing companies going down or unable to continue without a distress bail-out sale.

But the bounce back the overall market has seen has buoyed up most publishers and the recent brick-and-mortar rebound is a welcome sign. The worry is that the fundamental frameworks of trade distribution and retail are still fairly archaic and we know that old bad habits die hard (irresponsible returns, purchasing discounts instead of books, and delayed payments). So, will the sales forecast be twigged to make the book P&L work rather than assessing known benchmarks and market reality? Will the rash expansions of rushing into high priced malls to open loads of new stores be thought out more carefully? Yes, publishing and bookselling are both hunch and passion based businesses and the business is about swings and roundabouts. But equally can one forget that barely over a decade ago there were about 5-7 national chains where there’s one today and a couple of regional multi-outlet stores.

7. Many other sectors that depend on publishing, such as film/tv/audio and digital platforms, see publishers/authors as content creators or as storytellers. Do you think this will impact the manner in which publishers commission stories or sign up authors?

— I think yes. Of late post the OTT explosion, we’ve seen a rise in page-to-screen Rights sales industrywide and audiobooks seem to be the next ticket-to-ride right now. While publishing is and will remain book based, it is still an all-round content industry. Of late, we’ve seen a movement towards carving out rights piecemeal by agents or authors. This mirrors the early attempts when eBooks began to try and separate those rights. So, at Hachette India we’re clear that’s a deal breaker. I see no reason why a Publisher should be viewed as just a print vehicle. There are self-publishing platforms for that sort of solution. So either it’s the whole publishing Rights agreement (with all subsidiary rights) or none.

8. Will publishers be a little more careful regarding their ROI on an author?

— I hope so. It’s my belief that in India we’ve pursued the loss leader for too long and for no reason other than turnover (or sometimes hypothetical award potential) rather than the quality of the book or by looking at the segment. A sustainable business is measured by profit and that top-down movement of a clear path to profit must be visible (I believe) in a 3-year cycle. Remember the adage ‘turnover is vanity and profit sanity’. For too long have indiscriminate advances, illogical trade discounts and the slowest cash cycle in the world been a characteristic of Indian trade publishing. The pandemic did show us it could be otherwise; and we’re seeing of late that even the tech and start-up companies are having to establish a clear road map to profit with pressure from promoters.

9. Hachette India has a fabulous backbone of domestic authors, such as the amazing Roopa Pai and Rana Safvi but you tend to place your bets more on new and contemporary voices. Some of the best stories I have read are from your new authors. Why invest in new voices when others shy away from it?

— Thank you… yes we’ve got some great talent including Roopa and Rana. We do have a good mix of established big brand and the new voice. Don’t forget we also publish Sachin Tendulkar, Viswanathan Anand, Subroto Bagchi, and most recently Indra Nooyi on the non fiction side. Plus there’s Anuradha Roy and Manjula Padmanabhan who are huge names on the literary side. But yes we’re proud of the fact that our list actively scouts for new talent. That was one of our stated publishing objectives when we began local publishing as a full programme a decade or so ago –across both Adult and Children’s programmes; and it remains in place today. Of course one wants the mega sellers… and we’re grateful we have JK Rowling, John Grisham, Nicholas Sparks, Stieg Larsson etc. And its great planning their next release. But equally there is as much if not more of a rush in creating something from scratch that was not big before. We’ve done that with a few across both our imported and local lists –Keigo Higashino, The Last lecture, A Man called Ove, Govinda, The Art of Thinking clearly, Roopa Pai all of which were built locally and weren’t bestsellers earlier or elsewhere that flowed down here.

Though today all our local publishing divisions are both list-and division profitable (and these are two distinct things), we won’t forget that our journey was a rough one for the first few years and we had to reboot midway. We began with a big focus on commercial publishing and gave that up because it just didn’t work when looked at as a sustainable list—for us. There were aberrant sellers yes, but commercial list building in India is fundamentally a low-priced game and that’s not a segment we can operate in at all. From FSC sustainable paper, to overheads we were not meant for the sub-Rs 250 price categories. We changed tack but retaining our aim to look for new voices and publish in genres like sff, historical fiction, crime, humour. The reason we continue to invest in it is because in its own way that has paid dividends, and we publish successfully within our framework because we’re really P&L driven.

10. How challenging is it to introduce new authors/storytellers — domestic and international– into the book market? What does it take to make their book sales happen? Do authors have other opportunities to earn a living based on their books? For instance, appearances, speaker circuit etc? Or are publishers not concerned with those spin offs?

— It is very difficult in a market that is not primarily a reader’s market like the UK or Australia. And as mentioned earlier, if you look at the average frontlist numbers today they are far from reassuring. What breaks out is bigger than ever before, but the average has slumped far lower, and that’s a matter of concern (going back to the point about growing reading as a habit). There’s a lot more publishing happening, and both shelf-space and shelf-lives therefore have dropped considerably. A new book today has roughly 4-5 months to work; or the odds are that by then it’s done. Publicity and marketing can provide a tail wind on release but finally it is word-of-mouth that makes a book a bestseller.

11. What are the major trends in publishing that you see in vogue today? Are translations really as big as they are made out to be or are they a miniscule proportion of the 4% of trade literature? Do you think these will change in the near future as the boundaries between other storytelling formats and traditional publishing elide?

— The Booktok storm is the biggest trend of 2022 and we’re also a major beneficiary of that alongside other publishers. So even without Tiktok here, the Booktok picks from the west make their way here through other social platforms and the romance genre has seen the biggest uptick with some truly staggering numbers.

Translations have always been a staple of lists here from the 90s—they were a fair percentage in terms of title count when I was at OUP in the late 90s, at Penguin 15 years ago and it’s been the same in the subsequent periods too. So its not quite the new phenomenon it’s made out to be. There has been a steady tickover from the epics, mythology, and literary staples like Tagore, Premchand and Manto, and the odd buzzy book that stands out. In sales terms a few years ago Ghachar Ghochar emerged as a one-off big seller. We’ve had some amazing translations that made award shortlists and wins from Walls of Delhi, The Man Who Learnt to Fly But Could Not Land. Watch out this year for Sin, The Boar Hunt,

The Helicopters are Down The Chariot of Wisdom, The Starved, Kallo, Maran Swasta Hot Aahe and Menstrual Coupe to name a few.

But last year saw a big surge of excitement from Tomb of Sand and that has single handedly cornered over 40% of the monitored (translations) market. The translations share of Nielsen’s monitored trade market was in the 4 cr ballpark of which roughly 1.82 cr was Tomb of Sand alone. Yes, there’s a lot more buzz than ever before (it was also remarkable that every title of the JCB shortlist last year was a work in translation) but again in sales terms the average hasn’t really moved the needle that much. This is not to say that the potential isn’t there. It’s still a relatively unexplored area, and that is definitely going to go up—statistically by title count first. But the patterns of sales remain the same as for English (aberrant seller break out, midlist numbers being flat).

24 March 2023

On Sridhar Balan’s “Off the Shelf”

07 08 , 2020 No Comments

Sridhar Balan is an Indian publishing industry veteran who joined the sector when it was considered a cottage industry despite “big” firms like Oxford University Press, Longman, Macmillan and Tata McGraw Hill having Indian offices. Balan continues to be an active publishing professional who is currently associated with Ratna Sagar. He is always full of interesting anecdotes when you meet him. It is not just the anecdote but the pleasure of watching him narrate the stories with a twinkle in his eye and is forever smiling. He is always so generous in sharing his experiences in publishing. So I am truly delighted that Balan was finally persuaded by Ravi Singh of Speaking Tiger Books to put together a few essays of his time spent in Indian publishing.

The essays span a lifetime in publishing where Balan recounts joining it as a salesperson. He is also a voracious reader with a phenomenal memory and a magnificent ability to tell stories. Mix it all together and voila! — a rich colection of essays that recount significant personalities associated with Indian publishing such as Dean Mahomed (1759 – 1851), a barber’s son from Patna who wrote his first book in 1794 and ultimately settled in Brighton. The essays on other publishers such as Roy Hawkins who is known for settling in India happily wedded to his job as general manager at OUP for more than thirty years. More significantly, Hawkins is credited for having “discovered” many writers such as Verrier Elwin, Salim Ali, Minoo Masani and K.P.S. Menon. Hawkins also published Jim Corbett’s unsolicited manuscript “Man-Eaters of the Kumaon”, first published in 1944. ( It is in print even today with all of Corbett’s other books!) The account of the international publicity organised for this book is a fascinating story. A dream run. A tale worth repeating over and over again including the tiny detail of having two tiger cubs join the book launch party in Manhattan on 4 April 1946. The cubs were encouraged to dip their tiny paws and leave their footprints on the books as a special memento for the guests. A copy was specially inked in this manner for the author too. Corbett had been unable to travel to NYC under military quota as his status was that of a civilian. So he missed his own book launch. Nevertheless the book sold close to 490,000 copies in that year alone. A staggering number by even today’s standards of bookselling! As for the cub footprints on the cover page of the book proved to be such a magnificent book promotion detail that it was then replicated in subsequent editions of the book.

Off The Shelf is full of such wonderful gems of publishing history. For instance, the scholar and academic trained in classics, E.V. Rieu ( 1887 -1972) was selected to head the Indian operations of OUP. He was absorbed in his work but Rieu found time to write verse for children too. Balan recounts a poem that Rieu wrote called ‘Hall and Knight”. It was written by Rieu to record his sympathy for the generations of schoolchildren who had to endure Hall and Knight’s ‘Algebra’, which was the standard textbook in mathematics.

Many of the essays revolve around the time Balan spent at OUP but there are others such as about Dhanesh Jain ( 1939 – 2019) who established Ratna Sagar or legendary bookseller of Lucknow, Ram Advani. ( Whom I too had the pleasure of meeting and who upon hearing I had joined publishing, sent me such a lovely email welcoming me to the industry.)

Balan’s enthusiasm for the book trade shines through Off the Shelf but it is his passion for inculcating the love of reading that needs to be talked about more. He shares one example of his efforts in “Reading in Tirunelveli”. It is an essay worth sharing amongst educators, librarians, book clubs etc for the gentle kindness Balan demonstrates in encouraging children to read. He suggests constructive steps in building libraries and engaging in reading sessions. It is an essay seeped in wisdom.

This is such a lovely book that I could go on and on about it but I shan’t. Just buy it. Read it for yourselves. I could not put it down and read it in one fell swoop.

31 July 2020

IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON THE INDIA BOOK CONSUMER: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

21 07 , 2020 No Comments

The COVID-19 crisis is an unprecedented time, suspending large parts of human normalcy and disrupting global economies, including India’s. The Indian publishing industry has experienced difficult times with the advent of the pandemic and subsequent complete lockdown. With the ease in the lockdown situation, the publishing industry is focused on book sales and preparing for post-lockdown by seeking answers which can strategically fortify their business needs. As a result, Nielsen Book India has undertaken an initiative to provide meaningful consumer insights to the publishing industry. The research aims to understand book reader’s behaviour and engagement during and after lockdown.

“At Nielsen Book we are committed to supporting the publishing industry around the world during these unprecedented times. In India we have initiated a consumer research study to understand the reading and purchasing habits of book consumers during the pandemic. The study provides a vital understanding of how long people are reading for, their favourite genres and what their preferred formats are (print, e-books and audiobooks) as well as how they are discovering and buying books and how much they are willing to spend. The findings are extremely valuable to anyone with an interest in the publishing sector, providing insights into the behaviour of the Indian book consumer and helping inform future plans.” Vikrant Mathur, Director, Nielsen Book Research, India.

Nielsen Book conducted an online survey of 1,084 Indian adults (with a ratio of 60:40 female/male) to examine the impact of reading and buying behaviour on leisure books (excluding academic books) in India. The survey was conducted from 14 May to 7 June 2020. It was disseminated to publishers, media companies, etc. and across social media where followers used the snowballing technique to reach other respondents. It should therefore be assumed that the majority of respondents are likely to be keen book readers and buyers as per the methodology used to conduct the survey. The responses from employees working in publishing, book retailing and market research companies are excluded from the study.

CHANGE IN TIME SPENT READING AND OTHER ACTIVITIES

The report shows that two thirds of book readers say they are consuming more books since lockdown began. Before lockdown, Indian book readers read books or listened to audiobooks for an average of nine hours per week. Since lockdown this has increased by seven more hours a week. Two out of five respondents spend more time reading print books, similarly one in two spend more time reading e-books and one in five listening to audiobooks.

FORMATS USED FOR READING/LISTENING

On average, print books accounted for two thirds of book reading before lockdown and respondents predicted that print books would remain nearly as important even after lockdown. A marginal improvement was also noticed in the consumption of other formats.

Before lockdown, men tended to spend comparatively more time than women reading print books and listening to audiobooks while women are shifting slightly towards digital books after lockdown. Across all ages, readers are reading majorly print books while it was noticed that the ≥35 years age group (older readers), are marginally consuming more e-books after lockdown.

POPULAR GENRES DURING PANDEMIC

Women are more likely than men not to have changed their fiction reading interests since the outbreak of COVID-19, with both sexes more interested in Crime/Thrillers and Literary/Classic Fiction, alongside Historical Fiction (men) and Romance (women). Historical/Political Biographies followed by Self-Help/Personal Development and Self-Study (learning new languages, etc.) are the most popular amongst non-fiction readers. Respondents with children aged 0-8 are especially likely to have changed their genre interests when buying for children since the outbreak of COVID-19, with increased interest in Picture Books, Activity Books and Animal Stories. Those with children aged 9-17 are more interested in buying Spy/Detective/Mystery Stories, Fantasy and Classic stories.

AUTHOR AND LANGUAGE PREFERENCES

English is the most preferred language for reading followed by Hindi. One in three male readers prefers to read in Hindi. Younger consumers (≤34) are reading more titles from international authors compared to older readers (≥35). Two thirds of respondents prefer both international as well as Indian authors while one in 11 respondents prefers only Indian authors.

METHODS FOR DISCOVERING AND CHOOSING BOOKS

Recommendations from friends/relatives followed by media articles/reviews and general browsing on bookseller websites were the most influential factors on discovering books pre and post lockdown. Female readers are more likely than men to seek out recommendations from friends/relatives and read media articles/reviews. Meanwhile, male readers like to discover books by browsing on bookseller websites and looking at bestseller sections.

CHANGE IN SOURCES USED FOR BUYING BOOKS

Purchasing online followed by physical bookstores and then home delivery were the most preferred options for buying books post lockdown. Six out of 10 respondents expect to buy books through physical stores and seven out of 10 through an online bookshop after the lockdown is lifted, with the proportion higher than before lockdown in each case, but more so for online than in-store. Respondents also think they will make more use of home delivery after lockdown than before.

PURCHASING BEHAVIOUR FOR PAPERBACK BOOKS

Fifty percent of fiction readers and forty percent of non-fiction readers prefer the price point of INR200-INR400 when purchasing paperback fiction and non-fiction titles.

If you would like to request a copy of the report please email: [email protected]

ABOUT NIELSEN BOOK

Nielsen Book provides a range of services to the book industry internationally, aiding the discovery and purchase, distribution and sales measurement of books. We are proud to run the ISBN and SAN Agencies for UK & Ireland as well as providing search and discovery services for booksellers and libraries. Our electronic trading solutions, including Nielsen PubEasy, help everyone involved in the book supply chain trade more easily and our Research services provide retail sales analysis for both print and e-books alongside research from our Books and Consumers Survey. If you would like to know more visit: www.nielsenbook.co.uk

ABOUT NIELSEN

Nielsen Holdings plc (NYSE: NLSN) is a global measurement and data analytics company that provides the most complete and trusted view available of consumers and markets worldwide. Nielsen is divided into two business units. Nielsen Global Media, the arbiter of truth for media markets, provides media and advertising industries with unbiased and reliable metrics that create a shared understanding of the industry required for markets to function. Nielsen Global Connect provides consumer packaged goods manufacturers and retailers with accurate, actionable information and insights and a complete picture of the complex and changing marketplace that companies need to innovate and grow. Our approach marries proprietary Nielsen data with other data sources to help clients around the world understand what’s happening now, what’s happening next, and how to best act on this knowledge.

An S&P 500 company, Nielsen has operations in over 100 countries, covering more than 90% of the world’s population. For more information, visit: www.nielsen.com

Copyright © 2020 The Nielsen Company (US), LLC.
( Used with permission)

21 July 2020

Interview on Radio France International with Catherine Fruchon-Toussaint

02 07 , 2020 No Comments

In March 2020, India was slated to be the Guest of Honour at the Paris Book Fair. Unfortunately due to the pandemic, it was cancelled at the last minute. But in anticipation of the book fair, the French Institute in India had begun preparations in 2019. One of these initiatives was to organise a tour for a delegation of French journalists in November 2019 to meet publishing professionals. During this trip, Radio France International journalist, Catherine Fruchon-Toussaint interviewed many people, including me, across Delhi. Mumbai and Kolkata. Her half-hour programme giving a bird’s eye-view of publishing in India was broadcast on Saturday, 26 June 2020.

“Chorashastra: The subtle science of thievery”

26 06 , 2020 No Comments

Chorashastra: The subtle science of thievery is an oddly gripping novella by award-winning Malayalam writer V. J. James. Absurdly imaginative storyline that within a couple of pages seems to be so believable that it is impossible to put the book down. A thief breaks into the house of a professor who has spent his days salvaging ancient texts, long forgotten or overlooked by scholars of present times. On the night of the theft, the professor is poring over an ancient manuscript called Chorashastra that holds within its pages mind-boggling tips and tricks for thieves. The professor persuades the thief to become his disciple. And thus begin a series of ridiculous adventures for the thief. This is a story easily read during these surreal times. Perhaps a plotline that will fascinate readers after the pandemic is over too. Read it at face value or search for alternate meanings. It is a choice left to the reader. It is certainly a plot that will not be easily forgotten. It has been translated smoothly from Malayalam into English by lawyer Morley J. Nair, who is now based in USA. Meanwhile V J James works as an engineer in a space research organisation.

There is a fascinating interview between two legendary award-winning contemporary writers, Benyamin and V J James at the end of the book. An excellent element to include with the novella as Benyamin asks all the questions one wishes to have asked V J James!

Good stuff! Worth reading.

26 June 2020

Guadalajara International Book Fair 2019: Guest of Honour, India (Nov 30 – Dec 8)

19 12 , 2019 No Comments

India was the guest of honour at the Guadalajara International Book Fair 2019. The Publishers Weekly carried some promotional articles on the engagements — Guadalajara 2019: Introducing India, the Guest of Honor! and India Rights Catalog and Participating Publishers .

The following images taken at the fair by the Indian delegation were shared by the National Book Trust, the government agency, responsible for the collaboration.

19 Dec 2019

Interview with Dipankar Mukherjee, founder, Readomania

13 12 , 2019 No Comments

Dipankar Mukherjee is the Founder & Director of Readomania, an independent publishing house based in India. Under his stewardship, the house has produced more than 80 books in five years of its existence. Dipankar holds an MBA degree from IIT Madras and has been a management consultant in his professional avatar, working in organisations like IBM and Ernst & Young. Apart from publishing his business interests include a consumer electrical products brand, Aeronova and literary resort, Faraway Renz. He loves traveling and can be found playing with his daughter, if not at work.

Why did you start Readomania?

An entrepreneur starts with a dream. Mine was, and is, to build a company that is known for creating and curating good content. Readomania was, and is, a manifestation of that dream. There is a lot more content waiting to be discovered. There are a lot of stories that need to be told. We want to be a part of this ecosystem that takes this content, and the stories to a wide audience.

2. What attracted you to publishing?

A publishing house plays a very important role in the society. It can drive narratives, influence points-of-view, and be a catalyst for change. This is what makes publishing a perfect choice for someone who wants to bring out a change for good. I aspire to take Readomania to a position where it can do this effectively, along with being a profitable, sustainable venture.

3. What is the focus of your publishing programme? How many titles have you published so far?

We started in September 2014 and our annual publishing list was streamlined from 2016 onwards. We have published 80 odd titles since 2014. As of now, we publish about 18–24 titles a year. Our list includes literary, midlist, and commercial fiction across multiple genres, short stories, poetry, non-fiction, and children’s fiction. The current focus of our publishing programme is diversity in content. We want to bring in as many flavours as possible. We are delving into mythology retelling, historical fiction, period drama, crime, thriller, romance, short stories, poetry, children’s fiction, humour etc.

4. How do you decide what to publish? Do you commission books or select manuscripts from unsolicited submissions? Or do you look at what agents supply?

Publishing a book is like making a movie, it is not possible to accurately predict how will the audience—reader in this case—react. Though the uncertainty is less for books.

Selection is based on a potent mix of analysis, instincts, and market trends. Analysis focuses on the content, market trends on the genre and competition. Instincts are hard to define but is based on experience, author interaction, and a bit of in-built bias.

We still don’t have fat budgets for commissioning books, so that has still not started. We do, however, discuss projects and potential books with our existing authors and take them forward. Manuscript selections also happen from unsolicited submissions and those that come through agents.

5. Do you think there is an appetite for print books or is the preference for digital books increasing? What are your comments on the digital versus print debate?

Print is winning this debate by a significant margin. I don’t think this will change much in the near future. There will definitely be better adoption of digital formats (text and audio) but that may not dent the market for print books.

Device fatigue is setting in. People want to stop looking at the blue screen. As the awareness for this increases, I feel print books will take up the gap left by some of these devices. However, this may not happen for first time readers. Many of them may directly start reading on a device.

6. Do you look at translations too? If so how does the translations programme operate?

We want to look at translations as well. But we have not started as yet.

7. What is your average day like?

I wake up in a room full of books and start reading with a cup of coffee next to me. I then go to a nice bistro, eat some nice food and drink coffee and read more. I then go to a nice park, sit below a tree, read some more and drink some nice chai from the local fellow, until it’s time to go back home. Back there, I sit next to my window and read, until I fall asleep.

Well, I can always dream about this kind of a life. Reality though is a little different. My regular schedule includes sales and collection follow ups, editorial discussions, an hour on social media, an hour on online reading, marketing discussions, and author discussions.

8. How do you distribute books? Via online retail or brick and mortar stores? Why did you start an online store on your website? Isn’t that rather unusual for an indie publisher?

Distribution has been strong for us, at least amongst indie publishers. I think we have done this well. We distribute through all possible modes. For brick and mortar stores, we work with the regular distributors like IBD, Prakash, Variety and Jaico. In addition, we directly sell on Amazon, are represented on Flipkart and as you mentioned sell through our website as well. Our own website is also a very big channel for sales. Since we are very active on social media, it is easy to drive sales through our own website.

9. What is the kind of publicity you invest in? Do book launches help you sell books?

Publicity is a nemesis for indie publishers. The ROI on publicity is questionable and hence we are careful treading this path. We use a lot of online resources, bloggers’ community, and outreach for marketing. We do work with the stores and on Amazon. We still have some work to do in PR and co-branding concepts. However, we keep trying out different methods of communication and branding for books. Some work, some don’t.

As for book launches, in my opinion they do not recover the investment made and are a drag on our resources. A book launch, or any event for that matter, works well only when there is a good PR angle.

10. What are your thoughts about the Indian book industry? Is it growing or not? What are the pain points if any? What makes this book market stand apart from the others?

Deciphering the Indian book industry is quite a challenge, especially the trade book segment. There is growth. However, that growth may not be real. Many systemic issues lead to this problem. First amongst them is the concept of Sale-Or-Return. How does one explain growth when returns can potentially come after the financial year is closed? Does one go back and revise growth figures?

However, there are a lot of positives that do point to the growth-story. Many more titles are coming up, online sales are strong, and sentiments are good.

As far as pain-points are concerned, there are a select few that I would like to mention, both on cost side and revenue side. On cost side we have GST, payment terms that publishers have with distributors and distribution margins as major issues. The cost pressures have significantly increased. On the revenue side, I think there is over-supply of books. If I may say, India is now a land of more writers than readers. This coupled with shrinking shelf space makes it difficult to reach out to the readers. The power may be shifting away from publishers to distributors or platforms like Amazon, especially since distributors and platforms are now operating as monopolies.

11. What are the changes you have seen in publishing since you began Readomania? What are the genres that sell the most amongst your readers/customers and do you think these align with the more popular buying sentiments amongst Indian readers?

Since our inception, quite a few things have changed. I have seen the self-publishing industry grow significantly over the years. There has been a good growth in new genres like true-crime, celebrity-autobiographies, bureaucrat narratives. Growth in the regional language publishing and demand for translations also is a positive change. For publishers, a big revenue stream has opened up through rise in book-to-screen deals. However, there has been a fall in per-title print runs. I also feel there is now an overload of marketing content for readers and a big boom in book-marketers who promise the moon but not sales.

Popular genres for us include mythology, historical fiction, non-fiction, and light reads. I think the market too would have a similar trend.

12. What are your future plans for Readomania?

We are just five years old and we have many miles more to go. Readomania aspires to be one of the top five publishing brands in the country with a strong list, a few international awards in our kitty, and be the publisher of choice for authors and readers.

13 December 2019

Interview with editor and translator, Mini Krishnan

05 11 , 2019 No Comments

Mini Krishnan worked with Macmillan India (1980-2000) and with Oxford University Press (2001-2018) to source, edit and promote translations into English of works by Indian writers from 13 languages many of which won national prizes and are included in study courses both in India and in universities overseas.

She is currently co-ordinating multiple publishers to build a programme of Tamil-English translations. This is an initiative designed by the Tamil Nadu government and located in their Textbooks and Educational Services division.

1.How did you begin your career as an editor of texts translated from Indian languages into English?

Well…I think it is fair to say that it began as both an accident and an affinity for things Indian long submerged by training in English Literature! I always felt a vague dissatisfaction with the texts I was reading / studying but had no clear idea of how to access materials written by Indians. Nor how to relate them to what seemed to be important intellectual tools gained in UG and PG degrees in English Literature. In the late 1960s-early 70s when I was a student, books were not that easily available. Because my father was with the Deccan Herald (Bangalore) I got to read the books he received for review and that was about all. My college and university libraries did not stock books by Indian authors.

Seven years after my post-graduation I got an opportunity to freelance with Macmillan India in Madras. I was put to work on anthologies of prose, poetry, fiction and so on. Quite dull work really but I kept asking my editor why she couldn’t include some Indian writers other than Nehru, Sri Aurobindo and Tagore. “The members of Boards of Studies do not even consider other Indian writers worth teaching,” she said. I thought to myself that if I ever got a chance I would campaign for the inclusion of Indian writers in foundation English courses.

I got my chance when my editor (Viji Sreenivasan) left, creating a vacuum which I filled. I was a square peg in a square hole. A week later the Kerala Sahitya Akademi and Macmillan India signed agreements to produce a two volume publication titled Comparative Indian Literature edited by KM George; with 16 chief editors and 200 contributors, it was a stupendous work. The entire chronology of Indian literature was catalogued and described. Ancient Poetry (all the languages recognized at that time) Modern Poetry. Ancient Theatre, Modern Theatre. Fiction. Short and Long. And so on and so on. It was 4000 pages and took five years to push into shape. I worked on nothing else.

But where might all those Indian language works, described in this publication be accessed? Only a very small number of them were available in English translation. So, since fools rush in, I designed a project of modern novels from eleven Indian languages and tried to persuade Macmillans to invest in the idea. They were astounded. They were textbook publishers and I was their golden goose publishing for the school and college market. Why waste editorial time and money on translation? So I set about looking for support outside Macmillans. If I secured funding I would be allowed to do the project. For seven years I went from door to door trying to convince powerful institutions to part with some money for Indian literature. Mind you I had nothing to show anyone as a promise of what might be possible. Only a single failed translation by V Abdulla of Malayatoor Ramakrishnan’s Verukal.

Finally, in March 1992, my friends Valli Alagappan, her father, Mr AMM Arunachalam and her aunt Mrs Sivakami Narayanan who jointly ran the MR AR Educational Society of Madras agreed to fund me. I still do not know why they decided to help me. I had nothing to recommend me but my enthusiasm and determination. I received a letter saying that they would set aside Rs 80,000 per book for 50 books.

No one was more surprised than my highly commercial management but there was trouble. Though my Vice President R Narayanaswamy supported me, my Managing Director Sharad Wasani was unwilling to let me spend a lot of time on what he saw as an unsaleable project. When he received the forms seeking his approval he refused to sign. I wrote him, “You are the only person in the world who will refuse funding for his country s literature”and closed by offering to resign. Only two people from that time left — Jayan Menon and Sukanya Chandhoke— who will remember this.

Anyway, after Wasani changed his mind, I invited eleven eminent writers to be the chief editors for the languages I had selected for the project ( Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya, Bengali, Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi) and they helped to make up lists of five post-Independence novels from their respective langauges. Because I had been dealing with 16 chief editors on the C.I.L volumes I didn’t think this strange at all but anyone who discussed the project with me was astonished at the volume of work I had undertaken. It didn’t seem like work at all to me ! At last I was getting to do what I had really wanted to do when I entered publishing 12 years before.

Many important works were published in full for the first time in English: Brushte ( Outcaste) by Matampu Kunhukuttan, Randamoozham ( Second Turn) by MT Vasudevan Nair, Bharathipura by UR Ananthamurthy, Danapani (The Survivor) by Gopinath Mohanty, Subarnalatha by Ashapurna Debi, Ponniyin Selvan by Kalki and Karukku by Bama.

In all, between 1996 and 2000 when I left Macmillans I published 37 volumes. They went out of circulation a year or two after I left the company and the C.I.I.L Mysore bought the whole project including unsold stocks in 2007 with a view to republishng the entire list. It never happened because the Director (UN Singh) whose dream it had been, left the Institute.

2. What were the languages you first worked on? How many languages have you worked upon so far?

The first scripts I worked on were translations from Malayalam and Tamil. In all, I’ve worked on translations from Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Konkani, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Odia, Hindi, Kashmiri, Punjabi, Urdu, and just one from Dogri.

3. How do you select which book is to be translated especially if it is a language you are unfamiliar with?

As I said because of the work I did on Comparative Indian Literature it wasn’t difficult to identify what needed to be translated particularly if the Sahitya Akademi had not already commissioned translations. Then again once the Macmillan project took off I was flooded with advice and suggestions. The difficulty was what to leave out. A great disadvantage is that I could not and therefore did not read the critical material on any of these works. I rely a great deal on the advice of others. But when it comes to translators I use a process of running trial drafts of different kinds of passages from the selected work — one might be a descriptive paragraph, a second something very emotional or lyrical, a third passage would cover conversation – to check the translator’s strengths and where s/he might back off, or skip or be lazy. The editing process can take anything from two drafts to six depending on the competence of the translator and the cooperation between all parties. Long silences, gaps in the process are not healthy for the project nor is impatience or being a speed queen the answer. As for the reception of a translation! Much depends on how well the publisher promotes the finished product. Publishing is only 50% of the responsibility. The other 50% depends on promotion and follow-up.

4. Do you think it is necessary for an editor to be familiar with the source language? If not, how can the editor ensure that the translation is true to the original text?

Of course it is important for the editor to know the source language but then in how many languages can one gain proficiency? The editor/ publisher must appoint reviewers who will read the translation carefully to ensure (as far as possible) that nothing has been left out or distorted. Then the editor can take over and polish in consultation with the translator and author.

5. What are the kind of guidelines you think an editor of translations should be bear in mind while working on a manuscript?

Listen very carefully to the voice of the author. Does it chime with the translator’s? It helps to have someone read out the original even if you do not know the language while you follow the English in a parallel reading. You cannot but help hear the inflexions and emotions as the reading proceeds.

Be respectful. Very important to gain the confidence of the translator. Make suggestions tactfully. Once the translator is convinced you are not out to destroy his work or appropriate it, he will breathe easy and work and redraft willingly. It helps to read other works from the same period and familiarize oneself with the language – bank of that time. You need to enter that world emotionally through images and atmosphere not just intellectually through words.

6. What is your definition of a “good translation”? What are the qualities it must have?

This is something I have been trying to figure out for 30 years! Sometimes a smooth read will fail to capture the imagination of the reader. Sometimes even if a translation is jerky and appears to be rushing along, it will work. I think it is a combination of inspiration and zeal on the part of the translator and very patient work on the part of the editor. The qualities? The language must bring the author alive. It must make you think “If XY had written in English instead of in Marathi this is how he might have phrased it”. Now it is all very well to say this to ourselves but to someone who is not Indian, this might still not work at all. Basically I think we should be translating first for our Indian market before trying to reach spaces and minds outside India.

7. When you began translating texts into English for the Indian market, at the time, most publishing houses ignored translations. Today the reality is very different. Most publishing houses have dedicated translation lists and even the local literary awards are recognising translators. What in your opinion are the pros and cons of this deluge of translations in the market — locally and globally?

It is extremely encouraging to see the increased interest in translations and the care with which they are produced but a worrying feature is the way publishers are responding to criteria laid out by the big literary bursaries and prizes for translation. There is a growing tendency to ignore works published more than 20 or 30 years ago and no one seems to want to do a fresh translation of a classic. Then there is the secret craving on the part of publishers to promote a translation as not a translation. So the translator’s name disappears from the cover page, a most unfair practice. I put this down to the second-classing of translations—as if they are something inferior and not worthy of being viewed as works of art in themselves.

8. Recently machine translations such as Google’s neural technology are making an impact in the space of translation. How do you feel about the impact of machine translation in the literary sphere?

Any technology which helps the human translator will be of enormous help I’m sure but I doubt whether it can supplant imagination and nuanced word choices. For mundane passages for instance this interview can be processed by Google translation but — a poem full of feeling and fire? I doubt it. An approximation would surely be possible but would it be good enough? I’ve always maintained that the translator is as much an artist as the writer of the original work.

9. Your name in Indian publishing is synonymous with translation evangelism. You have been responsible for kick-starting many notable projects. The current one being the Translation Initiative of the Thunchath Ezhuthachan Malayalam University (TEMU). Please elaborate more on this project.

Actually I did not initiate the TEMU project. That was designed by K Jayakumar the first VC of the University. It was a simple plan: an advisory committee selected works, I commissioned the translations and marketed the idea with multiple publishers. In some cases, the publishers already had scripts on hand; in other cases, I found the translators and did some light editing before handing over to the concerned group. The University signed agreements with the publishers to buy 300 copies at a discounted price and the publishers agreed to carry the logo and mission statement of the University in the selected works. I did not initiate any project other than the Macmillan list. In OUP I enlarged and diversified an already extant list which had not — till I began work in 2001— published a single woman writer. Nor had Dalit or Adivasi writers been considered. That was an arm I grew for OUP India and it has done well.

For a year now, I’ve been working with the Tamil Nadu Textbook Educational Services on a Tamil- English translation project modelled on the TEMU plan. Our collaborators in the first phase are OBS, Niyogi, OUP, Ratna Books, Harper Collins and Vitasta.

10. Can the art of translation and editing a translation be taught or is it a lived experience?

Commitment, determination and passion are crucial to sustained work in this area. To find a forgotten work, to convince people that it must appear in English, to struggle with the translator at its rebirth and to learn that a major publisher in the language of the original work decided to reprint the book (which had lain in a rabbit – hole for four decades) —- that is the best thing an editor of translations can hope to enjoy.

Strategies in translation can certainly be taught. Translator training is certainly possible and necessary but finally the translator is on her own except for her editor and together they complete the phantom work. It might succeed. It might not. It might succeed as an aesthetic product and bomb in the sales department. But then that is the fate of any human product which is judged by both ignorant people and by those who know far more than you do. No amount of reading about tennis or watching it on television can help you to be a good player on the court!

11. Translations are most often construed as being undertaken as a labour of love with little financial resources being available for underwriting the costs involved in the task. What are the economics of publishing translations in India? What has been your experience?

Love is great but it won’t put food on the table. Translations need financial support either from a patron or from another line of books from the same publisher who sets aside resources for the translations list.

12. What do you think is the future of literary translations in the world of publishing?

The world literary mart is only just waking up to the hidden power of translations and what they do to cross-pollinate creativity across cultures and civilizations. Consider all the talk about world peace! How can this happen if cultural understanding isn’t an organic process? One way to ensure this is to expose children and young adults to writing from different parts of the world at an impressionable time in their lives. Translation can help the humanities to make a brilliant comeback in a global sense. Comparative literature is impossible to teach without discussing the central role of translation. If we are to survive all the artificially orchestrated hatred and violence and misunderstandings created by politicians and power –mongers, venues of mutual understanding need to be very deliberately developed. Cultural competence, soft –skills — these are words one hears very often but what are we doing to build that theatre of human understanding? I think that if literary translations can be included in academic programmes and introduced into high-interest professions like management, finance and public policy it would help humanize these professions and give publishers the big print runs and inflow they need to keep doing what only they can do.

Note: Women Writing in India edited by Susie Tharu and K Lalitha (OUP) was a reprint of the Feminist Press publication, 1993, NY and not commissioned or developed by Oxford University Press.

5 November 2019

“Krishna in Rhyme”

26 08 , 2019 No Comments

Krishna in Rhyme is a fabulous retelling of the story of Krishna by Kairavi Bharat Ram and Ananya Mittal, published by Scholastic India. It is in couplets. Ishan Trivedi’s sumptuous illustrations fit so beautifully with the text, making the reading experience magical. Gift it now. Gift it in Diwali hampers. It is a book for children and adults to read, whether already familiar with the stories or not, is immaterial.

He is always remembered for the fun he had,
For being a playful god, beyond the good and the bad.

He represents the child in us, who enjoys life and is free,
He’s the balance between fun and responsibility.

He taught us that to your fate you are bound,
This idea’s called karma, what goes ’round comes around.

The Gita is perhaps his most famous speech,
In this all about duty and dharma he does teach.

When you do what you must, things will always be okay,
Following your heart will never lead you astray.

We hope this epic story you all have understood,
Remember this forever: evil never beats good.

26 August 2019

Interview with Ashok Kumar Banker

21 08 , 2019 No Comments

Ashok Kumar Banker began writing stories at the age of nine. He is the author of over seventy books, including the internationally acclaimed Ramayana Series and the recent Burnt Empire Series which is published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in USA and in the sub-continent by Simon and Schuster India. Ashok Banker’s works have all been bestsellers in India, and have been published around the world. He lives in Los Angeles and Mumbai. He has returned to the genre with which he first made his publishing debut – children’s fiction – with his first chapter book series released by Scholastic India. It is called the Secret School Mysteries. The first story called The Invisible Spy was released in July 2019. The second story in the series arc is called Aliens Ate My Homework! It is slated for release in early 2020.

The Invisible Spy is a far cry from your mythological stories that you are better known for. So why venture into children’s publishing? Also why did you choose to tell a school story and not retellings of mythology?

It’s actually the other way around. I started my career as a children’s book author and only ventured into mythology much later. As the headnote above says, I began writing at the age of 9. Now, that may seem like childish scribbles, but that’s when I became serious about writing as a vocation. I started my first novel at that age. It would be considered a children’s book today and was several times the length of The Invisible Spy. I never completed it because it was too ambitious and I had bitten off more than I could chew. It was titled Childworld and was about a plane full of children that crash on an island and learn that all the adults in the world have mysteriously died of an unknown virus, and only the children are left alive. I was reading my way through the classics at the time and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies was a powerful influence. Today, looking back across the distance of five decades I would describe it as Lord of the Flies meets Lost meets The Stand.

I never finished Childworld but I continued writing stories (and poems and essays and novels) at feverish speed, filling dozens of ledger books with small cramped handwriting. (Ledger books were the biggest blank notebooks I could find, and I wrote small to make maximum use of the space.) I was recently contacted by an old neighbour from that time, Bianca, who now lives in Canada, and she told me that she remembered me sitting at the dining table in my grandmother’s house filling page after page, completely intent on the task. That was when I was ten. Almost five decades later, I’m still writing.

I wrote at least one book-length work every single year from the age of nine, several books – and stories, poems, songs, essays, scripts – and the vast majority of them were what would be classified as children’s books. I didn’t work up the confidence to actually start sending them out to publishers till I was 15, at which point, I would carry the manuscript of my science fiction YA trilogy (The Man Machine, The Ultimatum, The Last of the Robots) to publisher’s offices in Mumbai, in the hope of getting someone to read my work.

I was a published poet by that time – I published a lot of poetry in my teen years, in journals ranging from Jayanta Mahapatra’s Chandrabhaga in Bhubhaneswarto Menke Katz’s Bitterroot in New York, was interviewed on AIR and other outlets. When I was around 19, Doordarshan Mumbai even did a half hour interview-based feature showcasing my work as one of the youngest emerging poets in the country. I was published at the age of 14 and was a regular contributor to the children’s section of almost every newspaper and magazine that would take my work, from Illustrated Weekly to Evening News, The Afternoon, Free Press Journal, JS, and I don’t even remember all the other names now. I also self-published my first book of poems Ashes in the Dust of Time and it was selected to represent Young India at the World Book Fair in Paris, France, that year. There’s probably copies of it in the National Archive, Asiatic Society, and elsewhere. I had some wonderfully encouraging rejection letters from TLS, The Atlantic Review, and New Yorker. (I also never stopped writing poetry, by the way, and am planning to start sending out some of my more recent works to literary journals here in the US soon.)

Anyway, coming back to my children’s books. I found the addresses of Indian publishers and wrote to them. The first and only one to reply was Zamir Ansari of Penguin Books India. It was basically just a distribution office back then and I think he was the only employee. He was kind enough to meet me on a trip to Mumbai and was the first, and one of the kindest, people I ever met in Indian publishing. You can imagine a teenager in school uniform (I would take off my school tie and my Headboy badges in the hope that I would look older than my age, which I did – I looked mature enough to be allowed into The Exorcist when I was 13), sitting in the coffee shop of The Oberoi with this elderly gentleman, discussing publishing. I had done my homework, spending hours in the USIS and British Council Library, reading every book on publishing, every copy of Bookseller and he must have been impressed by me. He didn’t read my manuscript but he gave me some insights into Indian publishing.

Anyway, I persevered, still writing at least one children’s book and one novel every year, and eventually in my 20s, I finally got accepted by a small imprint called Better Yourself Books. It was the children’s imprint of the Daughters of St. Paul, also known as the Pauline Sisters, and my editor was a wonderful nun named Sister Nivedita. She offered me a small advance and they published what was my first fiction book, Amazing Adventure at Chotta Sheher. It sold over 10,000 copies, which in the 1990s was a huge number, and went in for reprints. I received royalties from it which was more than I ever expected.

I also adapted it to a feature film and it won a prize for the Best Children’s Film Script from the CFSI (Children’s Film Society of India). I was invited to a meeting with the jury, headed by chairperson Shabana Azmi, and I earned even more money for the adaptation rights. (I was already working in advertising as a copywriter, quite successfully, and writing scripts for some of the earliest TV shows such as Saanp Seedi and docudramas, winning a number of awards in both advertising and scriptwriting and making a decent living.) The film never did get made but it was such a zany, fun book that I wish I had a copy to see if it holds up even today.

(One of my quirks is that I never keep copies of my own books, I give them all away. I always believe that I can write much better and keeping my work around seems like an exercise in vanity. I also give away the books I buy to read, since I believe books should be passed on, not hoarded.)

By that time, Penguin had started local publishing headed by David Davidar, and he published another children’s book by me under the Puffin India imprint. It was titled The Missing Parents Mystery and while it was just as much fun as my earlier book, they simply couldn’t sell any of their titles in the market. I began my career as a children’s book author, and the mythological books, while great fun to write, comprise only about a small part of my total output as a writer. So, in a sense, I never really stopped writing children’s books.

Then I met my editor at Pan Macmillan India, Sushmita Chatterjee. Later Sushmita joined Scholastic who then commissioned a chapter book series — the Secret School Mysteries. The first three titles are The Invisible Spy, Aliens Ate My Homework, and The Haunted Centre.

Now, for some unknown reason, the dam seems to have broken.

I have picture books coming out from Lantana Publishing (I Am Brown, illustrated by the amazing Sandhya Prabhat) coming in March 2020, Tiny Tiger to be illustrated by Sandhya’s sister Chhaya Prabhat coming in late 2020, a baby book series called Superzeroes illustrated by Abhijeet Kini coming in late 2020/early 2021, graphic novel adaptations of my Ramayana Series from Campfire Graphic Novels starting with Prince of Ayodhya coming in September 2019, a graphic novel YA series on Shiva starting with The Legend of Rudra coming in October 2019, a YA graphic novel on the Gita in early 2020, an adventure series featuring an SC/ST protagonist called Bhumia Adventures from Tulika, a YA version of the Ramayana from Speaking Tiger, an original middle grade fantasy adventure series starting with Pax Gandhi, Sorceror Supreme, also from Speaking Tiger, and much much more. And those are only my children’s books, of course.

And I’m only getting started. As you can see, I have a lot of lost years to make up for! Besides, I LOVE writing and few books give me as much pleasure as a zany, fun children’s story. So expect many more. 🙂

2. What is your writing routine? How many words can you get done in a day?

Oh, I don’t write every day. In fact, I don’t write most days. I never have a word target. You see, I have a problem of too much focus. I’m the kind of person who could write in a war zone. (I speak from experience, having written an entire book while reporting from Kargil in 1999 for Sunday Mid-Day and Rediff.com.) I have to be careful not to let myself get sucked into writing otherwise you would find me someday, with a miles long beard, filling my 100^th Terabyte sized hard disk! I spend most of my reading, day dreaming, exercising, with my family. My wife and I take care of our grand-daughter Leia most days of the week, and she loves to read too. I take a very long time to live with a book and story before setting fingers to keypad, so when I do sit to write, it comes out fully formed. When you read a book or story by me, you are reading the result of several decades of gestation and several hours of actual writing. I’ll talk more about this when answering your other questions below.

3. You are a phenomenally well-read and an eclectic reader. So do you have a reading routine? What format do you prefer reading — print or digital (eBooks/audio)? In fact, any tips on what makes an individual a reader?

It’s kind of you to say so. I read for pleasure, and am lucky (as well as unlucky) that I have such variegated reading interests. I think I actually read about 50 books a month, but that doesn’t include old favourites I dip into now and then, books I reference for my work, and books I start but don’t care to finish. It includes children’s books, which I love because they’re pure story vehicles. I prefer to read in print, hardcover ideally. (Thanks to the incredible library system here in the US, I’m able to indulge my love for reading like never before, ordering as many new hardcovers as I wish, all free. It’s a miracle!) But I also love to listen to audiobooks – also available here free through the library apps. I listen to audiobooks in the morning, while checking my email, cooking my breakfast, eating, and before I sit down to work. Later in the day, I’ll read a print book. And that doesn’t include the picture books I read with Leia.

Speaking for myself, I think growing up in a house full of books (my mother, grandmother, and grandfather were all avid readers) makes a huge difference. Books and reading are like blood and oxygen. You can’t get one without the other. Even as a parent, I was the first one in the house to get hooked on Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games, you name it. I would buy those books, read them and leave them for my children to discover. They would ignore them or pass them off as “Dad’s latest obsession” until suddenly one day, years later, all their friends were talking about the book and they would come to me and say “Dad, where’s that Harry Potter book?” I was one of the first people in India to register for an internet account and I spent almost all my time (and still do) browsing for books! I think it’s something in your blood.

Leia, as you can see, is fascinated by all my bookshelves and by seeing me reading all the time. But she loves looking at books and being read to, and I have no doubt that she will grow up with books as part of her eco-system. It also helps that almost all my children’s books are dedicated to her!

Leia, Ashok Banker’s granddaughter.
(Picture used with permission of her parents and grandparents.)

4. This year is a first for you in many ways — many new book releases, spanning age groups and spanning continents. If the publications originate on different continents, does it inform your writing style, bearing in mind that you may be writing for slightly different sets of readers who perhaps different expectations?

Oh yes, it changes completely. American editors have a completely different attitude. In India, editors still consider a book to be the author’s work. Children’s book authors here, by and large with a few famous exceptions, are essentially delivering what’s acceptable to their editors.

For instance, we have a wonderful boom in Indian’s children publishing right now, with such amazing books such as the h0le series from Duckbill, books like A Firefly in the Dark by Shazaf Fatima Haider, Calling Muskaan by Himanjali Sarkar, Jwala Kumar and the Gift of Fire by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, Amra and the Witch by Arefa Tehsin, The Hidden Children by Reshma Barshikar, to name just a few.

Yet, they’re all incredible, amazing books. In the US. I’m incredibly lucky to have found a great editor in John Joseph Adams, and publisher in Bruce Nichols. Having said that, as I said, I’ve had a little luck and somehow managed to slip one through the cracks. The critical and reader response is wonderful and universally laudatory. The book is doing well and I’m very happy with my editor and publisher.

5. How do you work upon a series arc? Does the plot take shape as you write it or do you create an outline beforehand?

I simply daydream about it. Over time, it all coalesces in my head. It just comes together somehow. I accumulate details, characters, writing styles, structure, all in my mind, and one day, I feel the urge to sit down and “write a little”, and it all comes out in a torrent, pretty much fully formed. It’s a gift from an unknown place and I don’t question or analyse it. I simply accept it with grace and piety.

6. Writing three different kinds of series arcs — chapter books, retelling of the Mahabharata and a yalit trilogy based on Indian mythology — must require a fair amount of mental agility. How do you keep track of all the story plots? Do you make extensive notes?

I read. At some point, a story comes along. It’s all somewhere in my head. I generally have several dozen going at the same time, and I have no idea how I keep track of them all. I just do. No notebooks, no computer files full of notes, no assistants, secretaries, nothing. Just me and my laptop. Sometimes I write. Mostly, I read. Always, I dream.

7. Has dividing your time living in Mumbai and Los Angeles changed your perspective on writing or is context immaterial to your writing?

Living in America makes it easier to see India in a different perspective. I’m finally approaching the completion of a literary novel set in Mumbai which I first started almost 40 years ago. It’s called The Pasha of Pedder Road and is one of those mammoth realistic literary novels that I aspired to write as a young author, but never had the life-experience to attempt. Ironically, or perhaps fittingly, I had to leave Mumbai (where I was born, grew up and lived for 51 years) before I could write about Mumbai again. On the other hand, I no longer feel the slightest bit interested in writing about the US.

8. How/ where do you find ideas for your stories?

Oh, I could never find them. They always find me. I believe there’s a Human Directory that’s secretly handed around by the Story community. My name must feature right at the top, since my first and last names are A and B. So they constantly come calling, at all hours of the day. I often have to pretend I’m not home, otherwise I’d never get any sleep or rest!

9. How did you come up with these five delightful characters — Google baba Peter, gamer Sania, identical twins Usha & Asha, and aspiring scientist Arun? When creating characters, do you work on their backstory or is it sufficient to see them develop as the story moves ahead? (I am always curious whether the character comes first or the plot or is it a bit of both and then it evolves.)

Good question. I wish I had the answer. As I said, I simply write the whole thing. All fully formed. More or less the way you read it. When I hold a copy of one of my books in my hand, I read it and it’s all just as new to me as it is to you. I remember these words passing from my mind to the screen, but have no clue how they came to be there. As Erica Jong once wrote: “We write as leaves breathe: to live.” I simply breathe, and the air comes out as perfectly shaped stories, characters and all.

10. It is early days as yet but do you have any idea what is the response, particularly amongst children, to Invisible Spy?

It’s my first book ever to receive five star reviews, and to be loved by everyone who reads it. The response is overwhelming. I think for the first time in my 72-book career I have a book that’s universally loved. It is a wonderful feeling!

11. Who are the writers you admire and may have influenced your writing as well?

They change every few days. I read so much, it’s like pointing to one fish in the ocean and say, that one. It’s gone almost instantly, and then there’s another, and another. Hundreds. Thousands even. More than writers, it’s individual books. Often, I pick up a book at random in a library and if I like the first page, I keep reading. I may not even look at the title or author name until much later. I’ve often thought I would prefer that my books be published without my name mentioned anywhere. After all, all art is ultimately a collective creative experience. It takes a village to create a story. A writer merely jots it down.

12. Do you have any all-time favourite stories? Does this list change over time?

Too many to count or name. Ever changing, ever expanding list. A monster with a bottomless appetite, that’s me as a reader! As a young kid, I used to read my way through entire circulating libraries. I can devour whole series like guzzling water. Books are life to me.

Thank you for these wonderful questions!

Happy Reading!

Ashok Kumar Banker

Los Angeles, July 2019

21 August 2019

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