Q: Marketing and outreach: how have these changed in recent times? Ravi: Publishers now use two to three things actually.This is because with so many books in the market, the bookshelf space is shrinking.Traditionally, we share information about the book, along with book launches. Currently, social media has also become very important for promoting books. For example, teaser of a book can be sent via WhatsApp. Facebook has become a big tool for marketing and books can be promoted on various groups and forums. Publishers also use optimazation through Google AdWords. Publishers now have dedicated people who only look after social media.
Q:What are the distribution channels?
Ravi: Mostly, we rely on traditional distribution channels.We have more than 100 major bookshops in Kerala and we also reach out to 1,000 small shops at railway platforms and bus stands.We are also active online and we rely on major online stores like Amazon for distributing our books. Almost 80 per cent of our sales are within the state and 20 per cent is
elsewhere.There is a huge market in the Middle East as well.
ravi deecee 177 Q:What are the key creative trends in this segment?
Ravi: In fiction, formats are changing; publishers are experimenting with new ways of writing, new genres of fiction and a new breed of writers. This is very popular as many new writers are on the top sellers list. People who are above 35–40 years of age also like to read the new breed of writers. For example, there is one author whose book is published by Penguin and Hamilton in English and Malayalam by us—the book has sold more than 1 lakh copies in the last three years which is a good number.
Q: Are you selling translation rights of books to other regionallanguage publishers? How do you view the potential of this? Ravi: We do sell translation rights, especially for translations into Tamil and Hindi.We as an organization have a policy on translations and do 60 books a year.There are other publishers who focus on translations. Translations are also happening in other languages like English, French, German,Tamil and Oriya as well.There has been a very significant development in the last two to three years, where Malayalam University, which has a translations department, now funds publishers in India and abroad for translations from Malayalam.
ravi deecee is Managing Partner of DC Books, a leading book publisher in Malayalam. He is also Managing Director of the bookshop chain Current Books (India) Pvt. Ltd. Ravi serves as President of the All Kerala Publishers and Booksellers Association.
PuBlIshIng In marathI “the future is bright”
Devayani Devesh Abhyankar
Q:Tell us about the current landscape and key players in the Marathi-language market.
Devayani: On an average, about 2,500 titles are published every year in Marathi.This number does not include titles published by ephemeral publishers.
The list of key players is long: Continental Prakashan, Dilipraj, Majestic, Mouj, Manovikas, Mehta Publishing House, Saket are a few which may be mentioned.There are institutional publishers such as Sadhana and Rajya Bhasha Vikas Sanstha too.
The major genres include fiction (novels, short stories collection, poetry) and non-fiction (travelogues, academic books).Translations and children’s literature include both fiction and non-fiction.
Q: How have marketing and outreach changed in recent times? Devayani: The techniques of marketing and outreach have undergone colossal change. From traditional promotion through marketing executives, advertisements, release functions, marketing is now also done online through events such as ‘Meet the Author’, besides release functions in meets of Maharashtra Mandals abroad.
Q:What are the geographies and customer demographics for Marathi books?
Devayani: Though Maharashtra and pockets of Marathi population in India are important focuses, with increasing e-publishing, geographical
barriers seem to be crumbling.
devayani devesh abhyankar 179 Children and adolescents generally read what their elders recommend. Youth go in for what helps to develop their personal and professional skills. The 40+ like to read fiction, though some may prefer academic books. This age group is also interested in books on health, cookery, yoga. Some reread historical novels they may have read in their youth.
Q: Are you selling translation rights of books to other regionallanguage publishers? How do you view the potential of this? Devayani: Sale of translation rights to other regional language publishers is highly recommended. Mehta Publishing House has been successful in bringing out translations of titles from Gujarati, Kannada and Bangla. Periodicals such as Maimavshi, or Kelyane Bhashantar, that are devoted to translation (theory and literature), are gradually becoming popular. Translation needs to be direct, not through English or Hindi.
Q:What do you feel about recent trends like tie-ups with Englishlanguage publishers?
Devayani: Sunidhi Publishers has been regularly publishing academic books in collaboration with SAGE Publications for the last five years. Generating translations for higher academic reading, particularly where the content becomes dated faster, is easier than commissioning titles in Marathi.
Q:What is your view on big multinationals getting into regionallanguage publishing including Marathi?
Devayani: Multinationals are always welcome.They will get quality products in terms of content and production. But they will have to operate in the local language and in local environment.Trying to reach remote areas in Maharashtra with communication in English may not be fruitful.
Q: Do you think they will be successful? How different is this market from the English market?
Devayani: The multinationals will be successful: for one their names carry weight and, for another, they deliver quality products which are
welcomed by the local population.The multinationals will, however, have
180 publishing in marathi
to follow the saying,‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’ to set up dialogue with the locals for their business. Q: How do you see the future of Marathi publishing in the next five years?
Devayani: The future is bright. Digital publishing may give a setback but it will be temporary. Books have survived not only those who burnt them but also theatre, films and other media. In fact all media forms are complementary and face no competition from one another.
devayani devesh abhyankar has been Director and Partner at Marathi-language publishers Continental Prakashan since 1994. She is a member of the Federation of Indian Publishers (FIP), and has won nine national awards from FIP for excellence in book production. For her contributions to publishing, Devayani won the Parvati Bhooshan Puraskar in 2013 and was feted by
Lions Club Pune in 2014.
37 INDIAN-LANGUAGE
PuBlIshIng By gloBal Players “Changing the way Indian-language publishing is viewed globally”
Shalini Singh Q:What was the motivation for getting into translations/Indianlanguage (IL) publishing?
Shalini: Indian languages form the bulk of publishing in India.There is very little commitment to quality in the academic and serious non-fiction space.This is the void that we wish to fill. SAGE remains committed to dissemination of knowledge; publishing directly in Indian languages is an extension of this mission.
Q: How have translations helped to increase the reach of academic titles? Share some facts about new commissioning.
Shalini: Since the launch of the SAGE Bhasha imprint in 2015, we have published 110 titles—65 in Hindi and 45 in Marathi.All these are translations from our own academic English-language programme, majority being from our Indian authors.Although we have not actively started commissioning for original titles, we have received quite a few original manuscript proposals that we are evaluating currently. In addition to this, we are also receiving requests to translate titles that have been published by other academic publishers. Each year, we plan to add at least 50–60 titles to our Bhasha programme.
While our current programme is focusing on the first pillar, that is, translations, we remain committed to publishing original authoritative research that serves ac
ademic needs in each language we choose to
publish in.We are targeting to publish 5–10 original manuscripts in 2018. Q:Which languages have you chosen to start with and why? Shalini: Currently we are focussing on two languages only—Hindi and Marathi. Hindi because it is the most widely spoken language in India— it’s the official language of 10 states in India.The market is large and has great potential even though it is populated with a lot of players.There are no global publishers focusing on this space and hence we see a definite business opportunity and synergy with our mission to disseminate knowledge as much as we can.This is further fuelled by the demand for quality social sciences academic research work in Hindi.
There wasn’t any particular reason for selecting Marathi; it was the first language we experimented with in IL publishing in 2008. Marathi, although dominated by local players, has a large academic market fuelled by the state’s focus on education.
Q: How does the economics work, especially given the low levels of pricing in IL publications and the high costs of translations? Shalini:We understand the needs of this market and also remain sensitive to the pricing requirements of the regional market. Quality translations come at a cost and time, which is the backbone of our regional publishing programme.Yes, maintaining the price point in translations is challenging. But we remain focused on our long-term vision and totally invested in this programme.
SAGE is backed by 50 years of publishing in social sciences, with over 35 years of publishing in India.As a global publisher of repute, we have sufficient bandwidth to invest in a new product line and wait for investments to reach a point when they start becoming self-sustaining.
Q: How is quality managed and controlled? Is there a separate team for different purposes?
Shalini: SAGE takes pride in managing most of the work in-house. While we have tied up with passionate individuals and companies for translations, we have an in-house production team in each language. We take feedback seriously and constantly encourage our readers
and academic communities to share their thoughts with us.We have
shalini singh 183
a dedicated sales team for SAGE Bhasha, each is managing a distinct language.This team eats-breathes-lives SAGE Bhasha. Q: How is your programme different from those of Penguin, Oxford University Press (OUP), etc.?
Shalini: Our USP remains what we are best at doing—catering to academic publishing. SAGE remains committed to dissemination of knowledge.To the best of my knowledge Penguin’s programme is heavily focused on fiction.As of this interview date, OUP’s programme is yet to hit the market even though they had announced their entry in April 2015.We have been in the space since 2008 with our co-publishing arrangements that led to our direct entry into this space in March 2015.We are in this for the long haul.We remain focused on the needs of our authors, customers and market.This, along with our commitment to disseminating knowledge in the academic space, makes us different from other publishers.
Q:What about the local language publishers? How do they view these developments and do you see them as competition? Shalini: There are established players in each of the languages we are currently focusing on.They have been in this space long before we entered. However, the market has grown and there is clearly a demand and supply gap. Our entry will enrich the overall publishing environment by bringing in transparency, rigour and quality standards that have perhaps not been seen earlier in this side of publishing.
In addition, SAGE is uniquely placed to take all of this content global. With one contract (whether original or translated works), we ensure that the IL publication will be displayed and sold globally.All SAGE Bhasha books will also be available globally as e-books.We believe all these factors will clearly set us apart from any real or perceived competition.
Q:What are the opportunities and challenges you see in this arena? Shalini: We believe that our customers and our authors are our biggest strengths.The academic world’s—researchers and academics—response to
SAGE’s entering IL publishing is very encouraging.We are aware of the
type of market we choose to cater to.All these factors add up to a serious opportunity. Being a global publisher of repute, we don’t compromise on ethics and values.This is leading to supply-chain management issues that we are still working through.We remain convinced that there is a demand for our products and it is logical that supply will follow.
Q:What are the prospects?
Shalini: Publishing in Indian languages has been more challenging than we had anticipated. It is a territory that is dominated by regional players with very little transparency.Authors and customers are not served at levels we believe they should be. Our entry into this space should change the way IL publishing is viewed not just in India but also globally.
But we are here for the long haul. Hence our strategy will be to penetrate the market in each of the languages we are publishing in— that is Hindi and Marathi.We are already receiving publishing requests for Hindi journals and the first one is scheduled to launch in 2018.We will continue to explore how we can support academic institutions in publishing quality content.
Our first translation in Bangla was launched in the New Delhi World Book Fair and Kolkata Book Fair 2018.We would like to introduce another language in the next year or two.
shalini singh is Director, Publishing Services, SAGE India.After many years of spearheading multiple roles in advertising, she shifted gears and joined publishing at an entry level in 2005. She established the Publishing Services division at SAGE India and is now responsible for SAGE Bhasha commissioning and production. Her other core responsibilities are managing India Editorial Production (Books and Journals) and SAGE Global
(Publishing Services). 38
translatIons: a PuBlIsher’s vIeW “In translations lie our histories, identity and belonging” Mini Krishnan
Q:Your work and experiments in translations are noteworthy. Please share your experience.
Mini: I publish translations of Indian writing because in them lie our own histories, our sense of identity and belonging; because we need to breathe our native breath; because it is our historical duty in a largely illiterate country to preserve our word worlds and slow their disappearance. In the indigenous writing of the subcontinent lay the memories and history of a people who were rapidly losing their languages.What better service than to retrieve and reinterpret in a link language creating a body of work which is emotionally important for India?
Q:Tell us about your first translations project.
Mini:The first project I handled at Macmillan India was a 4,000-page typescript called Comparative Indian Literature (two volumes). It included a survey of all the literary forms from the recognized languages of the country, managing 200 contributors, 17 language editors. I went from harbour to the high seas in a month! As I helped our editor for that particular project to write up synopses of work after work in all the languages and polished the mangled drafts the editors sent up, I kept asking him where I might read the works.‘You can’t.There are no translations,’ was his unvarying response. By the time both volumes were published in 1985, I had made up my mind to try to publish at least modern Indian fiction in English translation.
My grandiose dreams to publish English translations of modern
Indian fiction took flight, but not before they met with a few big dips. I experimented with V.Abdulla’s translation of Malayattoor Ramakrishnan’s Verukal (Roots, 1982) and failed. Not a single salesman showed interest in promoting it. Macmillan made it quite clear that there was no money for translations. So I set about looking for funding which, after seven years and many ‘nos’ from others, came from the MRAR Educational Society . If ever a low-key group influenced trends and shaped tastes, it was this trust in 1992 when it decided to sponsor the Modern Indian Novels in Translation project out of Macmillan India. Luckily, we got a grant of Rs 50 lakh for five novels each from Tamil, Kannada,Telugu, Hindi, Malayalam, Bengali, Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Oriya and Marathi. No on
e setting out to publish translations today will ever know how difficult the terrain was 20 years ago.
From 1992 to 2000, when I left Macmillan, the unquestioned support of a few people helped me to source and edit 37 works of fiction and one autobiography.The publications were prepared both for the Indian market and for Macmillan’s overseas market in the UK, which absorbed 200 copies of each of the titles.When I realized very painfully that Macmillan was no longer interested, I moved the project to Oxford University Press (OUP) in 2001, where the writers, translators and I were welcomed.
Q: How was your experience of translating Dalit writing? Mini:I edited numerous translations from Malayalam and Tamil literature into English that primarily engage with the problem of caste and untouchability.A mega two-volume publication called The Oxford India Anthology of Modern Malayalam Literature could not be finalized without a healthy representation of Dalit writers and that happened after the Oxford Anthology of Malayalam Dalit Writing was published (OUP 2012). Secondly all Bama’s works in translation have been prescribed for study so, since academia is the last to change, I think we can tell ourselves that there is some hope.There was a general awakening of interest. People grasped the potential, the field suddenly opened up. By the time the Navayana list was launched in Oct 2003, I had published Outcaste (Marathi Dalit) and Stepchild
(Gujarati Dalit) through OUP. The Gujarati work was the first Dalit novel ever. It was published in 1965 but had found a translator only in 1998 when I was still with Macmillan. Sharan Kumar Limbale’s Akkarmashi (Outcaste) had gone into two editions at the time I commissioned the translation from Macmillan in 1999. I left Macmillan because when I published the translation of then unknown writer Bama’s autobiographical work, Karukku, the upper-caste management in the Madras Branch turned hostile to my proposed plans for Dalit writers.The only support I had was my Managing Director who agreed that if a list of Indian works was being planned, it would be incomplete without Dalit voices. Macmillan was not interested in promoting translations. By a fluke of history, a Branch Manager in Delhi submitted Karukku for the Crossword Awards and it won. Strange twist. It is an autobiography but it won a prize for fiction.
Publishers On Publishing Page 19