Add-ons in children books make them more attractive!

–shares Ved Chawla of Dreamland Publications in conversation with Varsha Verma. 

This month, All About Book Publishing (ABP) invited a veteran in publishing to their office in New Delhi. Meet Ved Chawla of Dreamland Publishing, who shares his opinion on the Indian children publishing segment. Excerpts.

Challenges before Indian publishers…

Ved Chawla

“The Indian publishers today face a lot of challenges, dearth of talented authors being one of them. Besides, the Indian market is so price-sensitive, it is difficult for publishers to deliver quality content at these prices. Indian customers are not much concerned with content and production quality, they decide to buy books on the basis of price. Though they are willing to pay more for the imported books, they are hesitant to pay the same price for Indian books,” shares Ved Chawla of Dreamland Publications. Talking about the textbooks, Ved opined that parents and teachers should first read the content of the book and then decide if it is suitable for their children. “They should not rely much on guide books, help books and internet,” he added.

On education publishing…

“The giant publishers are doing a good job but the mushroom publishers are bringing out low-quality books with low quality content and illustrations. This kind of publishing should be stopped. Talented teachers should check all the books thoroughly and recommend quality books for their school,” opined Ved. “The textbooks should be of such high standard that children should not feel the need for helpbooks, guidebooks or even private tuitions. Content should be easy to understand. Sometimes, authors use such words, for which a child has to refer a dictionary to understand its meaning. So, it is important to use the scripts in accordance to the age group of the child. If textbooks do not serve this purpose, it is a big question mark on the capability of the publisher,” he added.

Tips for improving content…

“Whenever a child picks up a book, he should feel that he has become a part of that fantasy world. Thus, in any children book, illustrations play an important role. Bright colours with attractive designing give a new dimension to the quality script. Dull and black colours are not good for children and they are not even attractive to them,” told Ved.

On exports…

So how can Indian publishers improve their exports? “On the basis of their production quality and using good quality paper stock, they can improve their exports. Besides, content should be meaningful and appropriate, services should be prompt and they should work on time-bound schedule,” replied Ved.

Coming to children books, Ved shared that books that give a toy like feeling are in great demand for exports. “Books which have add-ons like electronic add-ons like CDs, drawing/ stationery items are in vogue. In Europe and America, books are even sold with small toys, which becomes an additional feature of attraction to kids,” he added.

On imports…

Talking about the children books imported in India, he told that only branded books like Disney, Archies, Batman, etc are imported in India. “Otherwise, equally good quality books are produced in India that there is no need for importing them,” he told.