We’re also witnessing an interesting trend that’s a contra wave to the global politics of nationalism—thirst for diversity. Foreigners are likely to accept an Indian book, as diversity writing is the flavour of the season. Especially the English-language markets are very curious about literature from India which presents enormous opportunity for small and midsized publishers from India, because they can really take their lists global.
International publishers with offices in India already have mechanisms in
place to ensure that the books travel in geographies they operate in, but the shift in interest towards diversity has opened doors for other players too. Q:With the emergence of the London Book Fair as a credible alternative, why do you think Indian publishers will still go to Frankfurt?
Prashasti: In an industry that is so dynamic, comparisons of one fair with another lead to shrinking the share of the pie that you’d want Indian publishers to have.The Frankfurt Book Fair is like a hypermarket, a one-stop shop for global products, global relationships and the engine is the licensing business at a scale which no other fair has been able to replicate.With over 700 agents and 7,300 publishing companies from 102 countries coming together in Frankfurt for 5 days to talk business, it’ll take a highly disruptive business strategy to give it a miss.
Q:What is the key role of the GBO in India? Has this evolved/ changed in recent times? Do share with us your personal journey with the GBO for last four to five years. How has the same evolved and where does your role fit into the Indian publishing context? Prashasti: I joined at a time when the industry worldwide was going through a slow phase and there was a huge discussion around the singular digital future. In the education sector, the business models had graduated to looking at tech solutions as aided-learning programmes and not as core products. Over the years, print has proved to have the proverbial nine lives, with double-digit growth registered in most developing economies.There are more publishing houses in India now than there was five years ago.The market is crowded, with conglomerates and independents, giants and start-ups, reading forums and publish online platforms.The questions have changed over the years—from a query on e-book production to multi-format content, from social media branding to digital outreach strategy, from retail to e-commerce, from book launches to reader engagement and discoverability!
Looking at these developments, at the GBO we’ve always pitched
in with insights, training and forums to build networks to address the pain as well as growth points of the industry.The publishing programme at IIM Ahmedabad was a significant contribution towards the professionalization of the sector.To fill the skill gap in publishing, we initiated the Young Publishing Professionals Programme in 2014, addressing topics ranging from digital rights trading, book to film licensing, new product development, and commercialization of IP. Through GLOBALOCAL, we bring together Indian and international publishers in roundtables and business matchmakings to trade products and ideas. JUMPSTART, the GBO’s annual event on children’s content, which has completed eight editions, has been a first-of-its-kind crossindustry forum for children’s content which provides inspiration as well as facilitates skill development through master classes.We extended JUMPSTART with three satellite editions in Bangalore on demand from many loyal authors and creative professionals. Our role though is not limited to this we’re also the node of the Frankfurt Book Fair in the region and connect the subcontinent to the German and international publishing industry.Translation promotion has always been top priority for us and we regularly invest in capacity development of translators and facilitate translation from German to Indian languages and vice versa. To summarize, the GBO is a service model for the entire publishing value chain, wherein we engage in capacity development of authors and translators and business development of publishers.
Q: How do you see Indian publishing and publishers? How is it in comparison to other markets that the GBO is in?
Prashasti: The Indian publishing industry is very vast, diverse and fragmented.With its constituents so different from one another, it’s difficult to find one voice to represent it on the global stage.This could be addressed by crafting a joint global strategy and breaking it down to specific needs in working groups of different factions who promote their individual interests as well as aid in augmenting the outreach for other groups.An excellent example of this was the Malayalam Pavilion steered by Dr Jayakumar at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2016.The pavilion
promoted literature, technology and printing services along with establishing Kerala as a cultural destination with support from the Kerala tourism department.They were also very welcoming by providing meeting space to publishers from India who were not participating with their own stands.They also organized press tours and a book launch to ensure visibility for their activities. It’s a great example of how one can synergize and maximize outcomes in competitive environments like the Frankfurt Book Fair. I feel that the Korean or the Chinese model will also be relevant to India with collective yet independent representations by the digital service providers, printers, publishers and distributors.They run individual programmes and meetings and yet stand collectively to appear as a service destination of capacity and calibre. Internationally, there are many such examples from Bangladesh, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, France,Turkey, and hopefully there will be examples to quote from India too by the time this collection goes into its second edition. I’d really look forward to the Brand India being presented and spoken about on international publishing forums more often.
prashasti rastogi is Director, German Book Office of the Frankfurt Book Fair in New Delhi. She works at the cross-section of publishing, technology and entertainment to create networks that will build the future of content. Her recent initiatives include the Young Publishing Professionals Programme and a translation portal to provide community orientation to Germanlanguage translators. She has previously served as Head of Communication and IT at the German Academic
Exchange Service South Asia office.
Part 3
Policy landscape
part iii • PolICy lanDsCaPe
industry associations and their role
Federation of Indian Publishers 10820
N.K. Mehra
21 Association of Publishers in India:The Early Years 111 Sesh Seshadri
22 API: Building Partnerships 115
Rohit Kumar
23 API: Looking to the Future 117
Ratnesh Jha
24 FICCI Publishing Committee 120
Sumeet Gupta
25 Tax and Compliance Environment 125
Sanjiv Gupta
role of copyright in indian publishing
26 Key Facets of Copyright Today 128
Michael Healy
27 Legal Aspects of Copyright 133
Saikrishna Rajagopal
ethics, freedom and library movements
28 Publishing Ethics 139
Sushmita Das
29 Freedom to Publish 143
José Borghino and Kristenn Einarsson
30 Public Libraries and Library Movements 148
Himanshu Giri
PolICy lanDsCaPe The publishing industry is faced with many challenges in our market and needs to garner support from government agencies and policies to deal with them. Industry associations have a vital role in this context. The current and past executive members of the Federation of Indian Publishers (FIP), the older professional body, the Association of Publishers in India (API), which represents multinational publishers, as well as the more recent FICCI Publishing Committee, tell us about their priorities and how they support their members.
Beyond this, the wider importance of publishing to society and its contribution to building ideas, educational and research repositories and growing the nation, are part of their advocacy.A key issue in this context is that of copyright protection which is, erroneously, now seen globally as an inhibitor of creativity rather than an enabler, with hostile judiciary decisions towards content creat
ors. Our next two contributors both experts in the field, highlight the key points in this fraught issue from a global and local context. Our next piece covers a related and equally important requirement, for authors and writers to be aware of publishing ethics, including the checks and balances, required while writing, either for academic purposes or for pleasure. Another issue with similar societal impact is that of censorship and freedom to publish. It is addressed here by the leaders of the movement at the International Publishers Association (IPA).
In this tough environment, our final conversation—on the range and breadth of reading movements sprouting around the country—uplifts and bring much needed optimism to the publishing-writing-reading
ecosystem.
20 feDeratIon of
InDIan PuBlIshers
“fIP looks after the interests of its members” N.K. Mehra
Q:What have been the key focus, achievements and challenges for the FIP in the last few years?
NKM: The focus area of the FIP is primarily looking after the interests of its members. One major focus today is to tackle the GST (goods and services tax) problem, which though not applicable to books, is applicable on journals to the tune of 18 per cent.As it is, libraries are short on funds and an additional 18 per cent burden is too much for them. Besides, publishers face a reverse charge of 12 per cent on royalties paid to authors.According to the government, the education system is supposed to be kept as inexpensive as possible, but with the additional reverse charge on royalties, publishers will have to increase prices.
Moreover, the recent judicial pronouncement that for educational purposes one can make a photocopy, has further added to our woes.
Another problem which the FIP is tackling is that though the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) did not have the mandate to publish books, it was doing so. National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) books, which were not available in sufficient quantities, are now available in ever larger numbers. Though it is not compulsory for schools to use NCERT books for Classes 1-8, many schools, which depend on government funds, have started opting for them, thus making it difficult for private publishers to survive in the K-12 segment.
Besides, the Federation also provides facilities for publishers to
interact with foreign publishers. For this, we organize meetings, book
n.k. mehra 109 fairs and trade fairs. Earlier, we used to get help from the government to sponsor these activities, but even this has been cut off now.With this funding, we used to offer 50 per cent of stall charges to regionallanguage publishers at our flagship exhibition, the Delhi Book Fair.We also facilitate publishers’ associations’ meetings during the Delhi Book Fair and also offer Awards for Excellence.
Q:What is the relationship of the FIP with other industry bodies? Are there any points of convergence?
NKM: We have good terms with all major associations like the Association of Publishers in India (API) and the Federation of Publishers’ and Booksellers’ Associations in India (FPBAI).We work closely with each other to address our issues with the government. We meet the same people, talking the same language.We do have our differences, but that does not matter.Together, we have asked the government to set up a publishers council, but it is yet to be announced.
Getting an ISBN was a problem at one time, but it has been sorted now.All the associations worked together to make the process of getting online ISBNs easy.
The FIP organized the 32nd International Publishers Congress in New Delhi in February 2018, at Taj Palace Hotel. The FIP is a member of the International Publishers Association (IPA), which is the world’s largest federation of national, regional and specialist publishers’ associations. Its membership comprises 70 organizations from 60 countries in Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe and the Americas.We are getting good support from all the associations in India.
Q:What about copyright protection? It is a fraught issue: how is the FIP approaching this challenge for the publishing sector? NKM: Copyright protection is a big problem.The copyright law exists and the Indian Reprographic Rights Organisation (IRRO) has been authorized by the Government of India to issue licences. So, for a
small fee, the IRRO gave licences to Delhi University and institutional
110 federation of indian publishers libraries, so that money collected on copyright can be divided between the publisher and the author. But the problem is that the IRRO has not been able to distribute money as people have not made any claims.
n .k. mehra is Managing Director, Narosa Publishing House and President, Federation of Indian Publishers (FIP). He started his publishing career in 1959 and set up two companies, Narosa Book Distributors and Narosa Publishing House. Nandi, as he is popularly known, has been on FIP’s Executive Committee for over ten years, and has also served on the Executive Committee of the Federation of Publishers’ and Booksellers’Association in
India where he was President for two terms.
21 assoCIatIon of PuBlIshers In InDIa: the early years
“the formation, objectives and journey of aPI”
Sesh Seshadri Q: Share the formation, objective and journey of the Association of Publishers in India (API).
Sesh: When this association was being formed on 9 July 2001, there were three other national associations for the publishing/book selling industry—the Federation of Indian Publishers (FIP), the Federation of Publishers’ and Booksellers’Associations in India (FPBAI), and Federation of Educational Publishers in India.
Nevertheless 14 people got together and put on record 26 aims and objectives and formed the association under the Societies Registration Act 1860. Some of its important aims were:
• Promotion and advancement of global publishers in SAARC (South
Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) countries.
• To consider, promote or oppose legislative and other measures
affecting global publishers.
Having said that, the primary reason cited was the attack on export processing zones (EPZs)[1,2] printing.That led to supposedly kindred publishers (read MNCs) grouping together to form an association. Some of the interesting records in their Memorandum of Association are:
• No addition or amendment shall be made to this Memorandum of
Association.
• Membership shall be available only to global publishers having
business establishments in India.
• The membership is by invitation only.
Q:What were the challenges faced, given that the FIP already existed? How has the relationship with FIP and other industry bodies been in the early years?
Sesh: It will not be fair to use the term antagonistic. However, other industry bodies perceived it that way. Some of the API members at that point of time, or even to this date, are members of other associations.
Q:What were the key issues covered in the early years and why? Sesh: The one issue that was (maybe) overplayed for many years was piracy. Others include EPZ printing and other educational issues.The API was and remains a largely education-facing body with very little nuanced understanding of trade.The classic example was office-bearers not even registering the impact of parallel imports, and they would have let the controversial 2m Amendment[3] go through.‘We just missed it’ was one office-bearer’s view.
Q: How has the API evolved over time?
Sesh: With the main problem (EPZ printing) resolved, the API has ticked over tackling the main issues confronting educational publishing with an occasional look-in at trade publishing. Less than a decade ago, a trade sub-committee was formed, and the decision was taken to have one or two office-bearers from trade. However, the office-bearers appointed have not called for even a single trade meeting.
Q:What is the key role played by the API for the publishing sector since it was set up?
Sesh: MNCs/International publishers are large by turnover, and hence the association gets some play from a reflection of the companies within it. But the truth remain
s that the association itself (outside EPZ and the 2m battle where we had non-API members at the finish tipping the balance) can hardly point to any major change effected or policy drafted and say we did that.The publishing associations (all of them, not just API) are largely bureaucratic organizations concerned with
events and seminars rather than real change…and hence what can be
sesh seshadri 113 achieved by writing letters is done (for example GST [goods and services tax] representation for children’s books where everybody wrote in), but where change means real lobbying and sustained push (GST on royalties, anti-piracy government involvement, copyright protection, legal metrology, freedom of speech, decriminalization), the associations can effect no real change and the API mirrors this.
And let me forestall the inevitable—those who complain should become office-bearers and walk the talk—argument.That is a complete cop out.The fundamental principle of efficiency would be to appoint a CEO or president who does this full-time.This was mooted some time ago, but was dropped.
Q: Have the issues and challenges changed or do they remain similar today? Why?
Sesh: The issues of the 1990s remain even today with new twists added from the onset of digital and the increased misuse of laws embodying freedom of speech. It is telling that the API has not chosen to engage in even one freedom of speech issue or ask for change in laws.
Q: One of the key demands for publishing has been to get industry status.Why do you think this has not happened?
Sesh: This is because of a lack of will within the industry.The government will take you seriously if it registers the contribution you make—by revenues, by socio-cultural impact.The industry has effectively conveyed neither.At every stage, the mindset is of the small trader preferring cash trade and keeping business secret. So we have no concrete data; we have less than 50 per cent of the retail book trade willing to be mapped by Nielsen.We have an industry almost unanimously wanting the freebie of ‘tax-free’ status when that status is legitimately merited only by textbooks publishers.
Publishers On Publishing Page 12