Publishers On Publishing

by Nitasha Devasar

  contribute higher revenues than the front list. Q:Taylor & Francis (T&F) is the largest social sciences publisher in the world. How do you promote and sell such a wide range of books, given that globally you publish more than 5,000 books each year? Pankaj: The mantra of handling such a wide range of publishing is that we see it as an opportunity rather than a challenge.Wider range offers scope for catering to an institution’s needs in its entirety. Of course, it requires meticulous working before approaching the customer. We believe in bespoke selling and put in great effort in researching customers’ needs to cull out the most relevant cluster of books to suit their teaching needs.A large backlist gives us the opportunity to scoop out topic-specific clusters and series-matching current academic trends. That enables us to bring them out at affordable prices for students. So, in a nutshell,‘Big is Best’.

  Q: Academic publishing is dependent on library grants and these are shrinking consistently, so what are the strategies being adopted to sustain growth?

  Pankaj: I agree that library grants are shrinking but institutions are still keen to invest in the books specific to their needs, and for this they have the capacity to provision special funds. In most cases, the funding agencies don’t in fact specify the library fund allocation to an institution; it is the prerogative of the Vice Chancellor and senior administration. Given that academic excellence is the foremost priority of a university, investment in good and relevant books for any library comes foremost. Hence, one just needs to pitch it right.

  Q: Selling academic books, especially in the HSS domain is a specialist skill, as a market often must be created.Would you agree? If so, please share some insights from your experience of selling these books? Pankaj: I think the biggest skill to be a successful academic-books sales professional is to possess the ability to sense the need of the customer and to work hard yet passionately to match the product basket as well as the offer to the needs and pocket of the customer.The advantage

  of academic-book selling is that it has a definite captive market in the

  pankaj bhardwaj 253 form of libraries that are growing in numbers, have constant need, and a perennial flow of funds to upgrade their content to cater to the diverse and emerging requirements of researchers.

  Q:What role do local authors and researchers play in this context? Pankaj: Authors and researchers are well placed as decision-makers for procurement of books in their respective institutions and play a vital role in creating opportunities and platforms for you to showcase the strength of your publishing. In the publishing profession, good author and researcher relationships are of prime importance. I have personal experience of maintaining long-term rapport with teachers and professors who eventually rose in the ranks in the academic world, paving the way for me to reach higher platforms to promote my products.

  Q: Can you tell us a bit about your key customers? What are their key requirements and how do you meet them?

  Pankaj: Our key customers comprise central universities, institutions of national importance, private universities, and government-funded and private research organizations.This customer base focuses on higher levels of learning with good affordability to invest in reference and research monographs which are the key strengths of our publishing.

  Q: How does T&F support the academic community of institutions, librarians, researchers and students?

  Pankaj: Each year T&F conducts a large number of editorial workshops, author talks, and orientation programmes on e-resource usage, open access publishing, publishing ethics, etc., for the benefit of librarians, the academic community, and budding scholars.T&F India’s South Asian reprint programme helps young scholars access world-class research in the forms of monographs, handbooks, and companions.

  Q:T&F is known to keep adding new imprints via acquisitions Tell us a bit about some recent acquisitions and your plans for them in

  the Indian market. Pankaj: T&F has a good eye for quality publishing and aspiration to grow as an academic publisher; hence it is continually investing in new imprints via acquisition.T&F has recently acquired reputed publishing brands such as Ashgate, Pearson Nickle,Westview Press Karnac Publishing, Greenleaf, Baywood, Leftcost Press, and Speechmark.We plan to reintroduce the books of these imprints into the South Asian market in market-friendly ways.

  Q: Are you reaching out to non-academic markets as well with your list?

  Pankaj: By virtue of a diverse publishing range and acumen to invest in new publishing verticals,T&F now has a wide variety of products suiting the non-library markets.We are offering customized content to our nonacademic customers, helping them prepare teaching material from across range of our globally acclaimed content.We have set up focused teams of sales and editorial professionals to understand and cater to the needs of these markets.

  Q:T&F is unusual in that it has built digital books sales alongside print. Could you tell us how that came about and has sustained, especially in markets like India?

  Pankaj: T&F is aware of the fact that despite rampant growth of demand for digital books the market share of print publishing sales still stands strong at 70 per cent of the global publishing market and our sales strategy is to balance the focus between both forms of products. India continues to be a large consumer of print books and hence T&F will try to remain a predominantly print publisher with a sharp eye on the opportunities to sell its digital content alongside.

  pankaj bhardwaj is General Manager, Sales Operations at Taylor & Francis India.A publishing professional with over 20 years of experience, he looks after the company’s HSS publishing business across the South Asia region, and has worked with leading international publishing houses in the past.

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  meDICIne

  “still predominantly print in India” Ajit Kohli

  Q: If you had to introduce the medical-publishing genre to the uninitiated, how would you describe it in a few words? Ajit: Medical publishing for a lay person is making available information and data produced through medical research, aiming at providing the best-possible treatment and care to patients. Medical publishing fills the gap between research and practice. By publishing the results of medical studies in a credible and trustworthy way, this vetted information can then be accessed by students and practitioners who turn to these publications for the most up-to-date, high-quality information when treating patients and to enhance their knowledge.

  Q: How has the landscape of medical publishing changed in India? Ajit: I joined publishing 10 years back—it was a quantum shift from the world of advertising to a relatively unorganized industry, the size of which was not known, an industry dominated by old players who worked for their own cause, an industry bitterly divided among booksellers, distributors, and publishers, and within publishers, Indian publishers and the so-called foreign publishers.Ten years later, the situation hasn’t changed much—the volumes may have increased but we are still as unorganized as we were 10 years back.

  Q: How is it different from the other professional publishing in your view?

  Ajit: Each publishing segment has characteristics which differentiate it from the others and medical publishing is no exception in this regard.

  The difference lies in the kind of people who are associated with this industry—the authors, the specialized distributors, the readers are all associated with healthcare and want to keep abreast of developments in medical science, research and other related scientific developments. The size of the medical publishing industry is, thus, limited to such people. However, with the rapid expansion of the pharmaceutical industry, healthcare, and medical education and research, the industry has tremendous potential for growth.That said, content creation from a publisher’s perspective is expensive and limits growth opportunities in a price-sensitive market like India, and so, any medical publisher’s growth plan here has to negotiate this challenge.

  Q:The medical market in India is considered very large and most global publishers plan print runs for this market.What is your take on India and how is
it different from international markets? Ajit: With a population of 1.32 billion, the market is large.The per capita amount spent on healthcare is US$267 per annum in India compared to the international average of over US$4000. India spends just 4 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on healthcare compared to an international average of 10 per cent; the government spend is only 30 per cent of the total, the remaining being done by private players.With the government aiming to improve the quality of healthcare in India, the investments in this sector and in medical education and research are steadily increasing. Global publishers have therefore started considering India as a high potential growth market and are increasing investment in India.The market, however, is volume driven as selling prices need to be kept at a level the market can afford. Global publishers, thus, either plan special low-priced editions for the Indian market or publish reprints in India in larger quantities and at lower prices. Being in a predominantly distributor-dominated market, high discounts play a role in driving sales.Thus publishers tend to mark up the list prices and offer higher discounts to distributors to push the sales of their products.The levels of returns are increasing and the credit cycle is high, with payments being made to publishers in an average of 180 to 210 days.The discounts are showing a tendency to rise under pressure from

  distributors and the margins for publishers are diminishing. Q:What are the challenges and specificities of medical publishing and selling in India?

  Ajit: Medical publishing in India, be it books or journals, is still predominantly print, despite the rapid spread of the internet, and the sale of digital products has not threatened the existence of books as it has in the American and European markets. Publishers are, therefore, to a very large extent dependent on print books and journals for the growth of their business.The print-book market comprises the student education segment and clinical reference.The student market is dominated by local Indian publishers selling low-priced books, the quality of which still has scope for improvement. Foreign publishers have now made an entry into this market with some degree of success but price sensitivity remains a major area of concern.The clinical reference market continues to be dominated by foreign publishers selling original editions and low-priced special reprints for the Indian subcontinent. Publishing quality content at reasonable prices and still making a profit remains a challenge in medical publishing in India.

  Q: Is the medical market still largely print? If so, why? Ajit: The Indian medical publishing market is still predominantly print. Even though publishers are gradually venturing into the digital and online markets, the demand for print books continues to grow.While e-products are growing, the investments in this space are still not high enough to make a dent in the print space.As a result, while the number of titles published each year has been rising in the last three to four years, the online space, though growing, is far below international growth rates. Print-versus-ebook is not yet a topic of debate in the book industry and publishers in India have realized that print and digital formats are likely to coexist for some time, and in the future, lead to a hybrid publishing model that taps the strengths of both.The primary reason of the predominance of the print book over online content in India is the inadequate infrastructure for access to online and digital products in most parts of the country, as well as for the promotion of online and digital products. Digital India is still a distant dream. Internet penetration and average bandwidth availability in

  India are still one of the lowest in the world. Medical colleges, hospitals and educational institutions still lack basic infrastructure. Handheld devices and internet are still not widely affordable for the primary means of access for the average Indian customer/student/researcher. Pedagogy, especially medical pedagogy using digital tools, has still not caught on in India. Meanwhile, local Indian books are still available at affordable prices and are, thus, the preferred means of information and knowledge sharing.

  Q: Is online/e-books and medical content picking up, in India or globally? What about supplementary tools like videos and tutorials for practical work in hospitals?

  Ajit: Globally there has been a major shift of focus to online publishing in medical content. Publishing companies have invested heavily in the development of online content.The print- book market has shrunk rapidly in the last 4 to 5 years and some product lines are struggling for survival. Publishers who did not anticipate the market shift have lost out on their market share.The Indian scenario, however, is still print dominated. Supplementary tools like videos and phone apps are used only by a very small minority of institutions, not large enough to have a significant impact on the market.

  Q: Content originated in India: is it growing and does it have a global reach? What are the numbers and growth plans for this going forward? Do elaborate on this programme and how it competes with local players like Jaypee and CBS.

  Ajit: Establishing ‘Indian Originals’ in the Indian market has been a long and tough journey.The need for quality content, both in education and clinical reference, was recognized by Thieme right from the beginning. The decision to venture into this market was not without risks.The market was cluttered with local and regional publishers who had been in the business for over 30 years and reading their low-priced books had become a ‘part of life’ for the medical community. Dominant amongst these were Jaypee and CBS.With print runs of some titles of over 50,000–75,000 and low unit costs, competition with them was not so

  much on quality but on price.Thieme has been successful in making

  inroads in this market with quality and the reputation of its authors as its USP, but we still have a long way to go.

  ‘Indian Originals’ are primarily published for the Indian market and their reach in the international market is still limited. Q: How does the Indian market fit into the global strategy of Thieme? Ajit: The Indian operations of Thieme started in December 2007, thus we have completed 10 years of existence in India as an independent company. Starting with six employees in a 600 sq. ft business centre to over 70 employees, with office space of over 10,000 sq. ft, offices in Delhi and Mumbai, and sales representation in Kolkata, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Kochi, the operations have grown from a sales office into a full publishing services company having its own publishing programme.The journey has been a satisfying one.The Thieme brand is now recognized in India and known for its quality content in medical publishing.

  The Indian office of Thieme has been given the freedom to evolve its own publishing strategy, develop its own local publishing programme, and adopt a pricing strategy which suits the local market. The Indian company continues to sell the original books, journals and e-products of the group companies at Indian prices, publish locally commissioned books on education and clinical reference, and develop its own journals acquisitions programme.The Indian company also offers expansive editorial support services for journals and books for the group companies.The Indian operations are, thus, a significant part of the company’s global growth strategy.

  ajit kohli is Managing Director and CEO, India and South Asia,Thieme Medical and Scientific Publishers. He joined Thieme in 2007 and was responsible for setting up operations in the Indian subcontinent. He has an over 30 years of experience in managing start-ups, profit-centre operations, business expansion, foreign collaborations and equity dilutions. He has worked extensively in the

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  hIgher eDuCatIon

  “teaching and learning services underpinned by technology” Vikas Singh

  Q: Given the promising landscape for higher-education publishing in India, what is your current and ongoing strategy for growth? Vikas: India’s higher-education sector is the largest in the world, with 30.1 million students enrolled across 48,116 universities and colleges. The annual enrolments are estimated to be 21.5 million per year, making it the third largest higher-education sector in the world by annual enrolments. However, at present, India has a low GER (gross enrolment ratio) of 18 per cent in higher e
ducation when compared with China (26 per cent) and Brazil (36 per cent) and the Indian government aims to increase this to 30 per cent by 2020.This would mean an additional 14 million students to the higher-education space would be inducted.

  Given the potential the segment offers, as the world’s learning company, Pearson, we are devoted to preparing students to compete in an ever-changing, global economy by using technology more effectively and by making learning personal.We create a complete learning experience through textual pedagogy, digital learning solutions, CD and web-based supplements, and instructor support.

  We provide:

  • High-quality college textbooks, plus new digital interactive tools

  that work alongside existing materials;

  • Digital resources providing flexible access to online courses; and

  • Implementation and training for instructors at higher-education

  institutions;

  We also publish customized editions of academic book titles for

  universities and institutions, to cater even more specifically to the requirements of Indian students.Therefore, our strategy is to combine content and assessment, powered by services and technology, which will enable us to reach our goal of helping more learners learn more.

  Q:What levels and areas are you focused on? Is it print or online; technology or content?

  Vikas: We are focused on providing an engaging, interactive learning experience focused on academic achievement. Respected educators and practitioners author Pearson’s long-trusted course content in a variety of formats—digital and print—so students can access them however they like.

  We have launched a ground-breaking suite of new digital products that will change the way students learn and teachers teach, with rich content accessible online and offline in any environment.We have also introduced Pearson Digital Learning Solutions that are customized for teachers or colleges to provide low-cost programme solutions that meet the needs of both the students and faculty.