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Children book publishing is a huge market with lot of scope of innovation and creativity. There’s lot of thinking, hard work and time involved to create a perfect children book, which can entice our little ones. What’s the status of our industry and what efforts are being taken to offer the best reading material for children, finds out Varsha Verma.
The statistics… The children book publishing market in India is very huge, progressive and growing steadfastly. It is reckoned among the top seven publishing nations of the world. “India ranks third after the US and UK in English language publishing,” tells Rajneesh Chowdhry, director, Goodwill Publishing House proudly. “And it is the 7th largest worldwide, when all languages are counted,” adds Mudit Mohini of Vishv Books.
But, there are no statistics available for the industry. There are guesses and all seem to say that the industry is huge and the market is growing. “It is very difficult to answer the size of book publishing market in India or children publishing. If the guesstimate, of having more than 20,000 Indian Publishers producing a 1,00,000 books or more each year in multiple Indian languages and generating a revenue of around USD 2.5 billion or so (includes academic/non-academic books) is to be believed then the children’s publishers market is around 30 percent of this number. Within the children publishing, the language split is around 50 percent for Eng/Hindi alone vs other 28 or more languages produced. But for sure there is no doubt that, India is one of the fastest growing publishing industry across globe, may it be printed books, digital books or STM’s, etc,” informs Himanshu Giri, CEO, Pratham Books.
While SK Ghai, managing director, Sterling Publishers, feels that the market is approximately Rs 750-1,000 crore. Sahil Gupta of V&S Publishers adds, “Given that half of India’s population is under the age of 25, it’s no wonder a large part of the book trade is dominated by academic and children’s books, which account for 40 percent and 30 percent of the market respectively. The remaining 30 percent constitutes trade publishing or other categories. Total value of books produced in India each year is roughly about Rs16, 000 crore.”
“I cannot be sure of how big the market is, but some estimates say that children's books account for 25 percent of the market, shares Anushka Ravishankar, a well known children author, who now runs Duckbill Publishing. While, Anurag Mehta of Nita Mehta Publications adds, “The children book market is one of the biggest book categories in India and the only one which is growing despite the advent of digital content.”
While, Radhika Menon of Tulika Books adds, “What we do know is that the market penetration of children’s books is very low at 3 percent. There are 300 million children in India and we produce three books for every 100 children compared to the UK which has six for every child.” So, there’s still a lot of scope in the children book publishing market.
Industry expands…
“Based on impressions, assumptions and some speculation we can say that the growth is somewhere between 20–30 percent annually. But in my personal opinion majority of this is based on contributions from the ever growing school books consumption at the primary level and supplementary material for children, but overall landscape is prefect for a robust growth barring the challenges of the recent economic downturn and reduced purchasing power. So because of increasing awareness, globalisation, stress upon education and literacy as also because of the increase in income, the future of children book publishing market seems quite bright,” adds Vineet Sharma, MD, Parragon Publishing.
So in this time when publishers are crying a slowdown in the industry, why are newer players like Duckbill Publishing coming in? “We were told by a few people that we were being foolish by starting this at a time like this! But on the one hand, people say publishing is slowing down, and on the other, there seems to be a great demand for children’s books from schools and educators, and we constantly read reports saying that children’s publishing is growing. But frankly, we didn’t think of any of these things when we decided to start Duckbill. What drove us was that we wanted to see a certain kind of children’s books in the market — contemporary, fresh, unusual, reflecting the realities of Indian children today. And we realised that the only way to get the books we wanted out there was by publishing them ourselves,” adds Anushka as a matter of fact.
While, Sayoni Basu of Duckbill adds, “We believe that there is no wrong time for good books! Children’s trade books in India, especially fiction, need diversity, vitality and excitement, and we are happy to contribute to that. Since we are small and independent, we are still relatively free of commercial pressure, so we can publish only what we want and when we want, and are not obliged to publish a certain number of books in a year. As a result of this, we have the luxury of publishing only what we truly believe in, and also we can give each book the time it needs to be become the best book it can become.”
Indian children books vs. Foreign counterparts…
Many a times, we find ourselves comparing Indian and foreign books. So, what do our publishers think about it. “The Indian parent often lament about the quality of children’s books published by Indian publishers, the poor paper quality, the insipid illustrations, and the moralistic nature of the content. They compare our books with beautiful picture books from France and the US and wonder when the industry will ‘come of age’. But often, what they don’t realise is that our situation, our stage and our needs as a culture, economy and industry are completely different. Contrary to popular belief that the reading habit in India is dying, children’s books in India are thriving and growing. The awareness is growing, the variety is growing and Indian parents are seeking much more than the ubiquitous nursery rhymes and fairy tales books. With this the publishing Industry is also changing and the publishing houses are striving hard to offer better quality books at affordable prices,” tells Vineet.
“We cannot compare our industry to international counterparts. Firstly, the emphasis on children reading have been huge internationally. In India reading is mostly limited to schoolbook reading. Internationally books have been written and rewritten. They have been researched. Their authors and illustrators have become seasoned over the years. Indian books have a long way to catch up with them. But given the resources some publishing houses are producing excellent books. Cost is another factor. We cannot expect indian publishers to produce same level of quality for one-tenth of the price the international publisher is selling,” shares Mudit.
“In terms of authors and illustrators, I would say India has tremendous talent offering quality similar to the west, having said that creativity neither can be compared nor is restricted by boundaries. All we need is platforms that connect this talent to publishers and facilitate content creation. As far as production quality is concerned I think there is a tremendous change and we can achieve the same quality as anywhere else in the world but certain aspects need to be worked upon such as sharpening the input material costs, delivery timelines and the QC processes,” adds Vineet as a matter of fact.
“We believe some of the books published are at par with Western counterparts, and some are not. The difference always lies in how much the publisher is willing to invest in creating the books. Indian children’s books are priced relatively low, which means that the publisher has less money to invest in illustrations and production. So it is simply a choice which each publisher makes in terms of quality. Some, like us, believe that impeccable quality is of paramount importance, and will spend the money required to attain that. Some believe, and it is a valid choice, that it is more important to have cheap books, and therefore are willing to settle for lesser quality if that means that they can sell the book cheaply. The industry needs both kinds of books, so both choices are equally sensible—though of course one would always wish one could have superlative quality at low prices,” comes a thoughtful reply from Sayoni.
Similar views were shared by Sahil, who adds, “We are way behind from publishers of advanced nations. The scale and size of market is not present. Literacy is low. Affordability is absent. Innovativeness is lacking. Presentation and paper quality leaves much to be desired. Uniqueness in ideas is poor. Foreign publishers have the capability to write the same story in an altogether fascinating manner. Moreover, India is not a homogeneous country but a heterogeneous one with people, to a large extent, preferring to buy publications in their mother tongue. This restricts an economically viable scale because of segmentation in the Indian market. Publishers are guided by the market demand. Meeting demands from different language segment imposes a huge limitation on size of print-runs. If the publisher doesn’t sell a title in large numbers, the earnings shrink. This puts paid to commissioning authors who could drive demand. Same limitation restricts usage of top illustrators, superior page usage, etc. However, with the growth in literacy, and disposable income in the hands of people, demand for books will grow; publishers then can visualize publishing books with large print-runs; catching up with the publishers of advanced nations.”
But, there have been steady improvements in the quality of production and content in children books published in India over the years. “We are at par with the foreign publishers or even better,” adds SK Ghai.
Production quality: “In terms of production quality, some international publishers use very high quality paper but that tends to increase the price of their books. Indian publishers, on the other hand, sometimes have to compromise on the quality of paper to keep the price at an affordable level,” shares Rajneesh.
But it is not easy to maintain the quality. As Radhika puts it, “Though the quality of our production is good, it is not something we can take for granted. Even good presses need a lot of close overseeing, especially with picture books.”
Content: Indian authors, illustrators and editors are as learned and qualified as their international counterparts. “They have excellence in their respective area of work,” shares Rajneesh. While, Himanshu feels that our country has very good authors although many of them need strong editorial support to write for a very heterogeneous readership. “Our illustrators and production quality shows much room for improvement. But there are a number of publishing houses that are doing a very good job of publishing some excellent books given the price sensitivity of the market and the low prevalence of book buying except for educational purposes,” adds Himanshu.
“We have some great authors and illustrators too, and the best of them are definitely comparable to the best in the world, but we don't have as many high-quality writers and illustrators as they have in the west. The reasons for this are mainly the lack of visibility and the lack of importance given to children's books in this country. Indian children's books are usually consigned to a corner of the bookshop. There aren't many awards, there are very few reviews that appear for children's books and children's book authors are not treated with the same respect that is given to authors of adult books. And the remuneration is not great either. So how will the best talent be attracted to the industry?” laments Anushka.
While, Anurag feels that the content writing is perhaps at par but as for the illustrators we still lag behind our western counterparts. While, Radhika has a different perspective to share, “Only about 25 percent of the books perhaps match the quality of good foreign books. There are, of course, a large poor quality produced foreign books as well, and these can be seen at any international book fair. In India, specialised children’s publishing started much later than other areas of publishing, and so it will take some time before we have the kind of talent in writing and illustrating that would make for really good books, which could vie with the best anywhere. To achieve this, we also need to produce a distinctive body of children’s literature, and not just churn out books which imitate the west in appearance and content.”
There’s another dimension to this discussion. Do we really need to measure our industry against them? “I think we need to get over this mind-set of always measuring ourselves against foreign counterparts as our trajectory has also been influenced by our history and we need to develop our own standards and idiom that reflect our realities,” adds Himanshu.
On languages…
English language publishing is a big market and therefore a very dominant section of publishing. Worldwide also English language publishing has a long history and tradition and India with its sizeable population that understands the language constitutes an important market. “However, it doesn't lessen the importance of Hindi and other Indian languages. Books written in Hindi, Urdu, Kannada, Tamil, Marathi, Punjabi, Bangla, Malyalam, and others have their own importance and are equally popular. We have almost 1500 titles covering a wide variety of subjects. Most of them are in English, while 8 to 10 titles are in Hindi,” tells Rajneesh.
While Anurag adds, “The big retail stores have more sales of English titles as compared to smaller stores. Right now we are only publishing children titles in the English language but we do publish a number of cookery titles in Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi and other regional languages. We have over 70 titles in children books.”
“Indian languages are lagging behind when it comes to children's publishing. Most literature that children are exposed to is in their text books and they are published in very large numbers. Books for the pleasure of reading are very few when you consider that the population of 0-14 year olds is about 300 million. We believe that with increasing numbers of children going to formal school, there is a most urgent need to democratize the joy of reading by having books for the reading pleasure of all children in all Indian languages. Pratham Books has 226 titles in English out of a total of 260 unique titles. But nearly all our books are in at least six languages and some in 14 languages,” adds Himanshu proudly.
While, Tulika Books has about 250 titles in English and about 175 titles in each of the other eight languages – Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Gujarati, Bangla. “So if you look at our entire list, more than 75 percent of our books are in the Indian languages. The sales percentage is along the same lines,” adds Radhika, which is in fact good news.
Similarly, Parragon Publishers has around 1000 titles in English and about 45 titles in other languages that includes Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, Kannada. “We also intend adding about 40 more titles in Gujrati and Hindi by this year end,” adds Vineet.
Promoting regional languages…
Pratham Books' mission is to see a book in every child's hand which is a big vision and it can be realized only if we publish in as many Indian languages as possible. “We like to call them Indian languages rather than regional languages. Given the number of children in the age group that should be interested in reading, it is clear that there is a market available there. What remains to be explored is the complexity of that market. How price sensitive it is? What are the distribution networks if they exist at all? What are the bottlenecks? How do we find authors who will write for children in languages where there is no tradition of books even though there may be a rich tradition of storytelling? We grapple with these questions in the course of our work and continue to publish books. Our focus has been towards early readers as the problem of poor reading skills among primary school children are a well documented fact now. In an effort to scale up our work we have adopted a number of innovative strategies that allow for the larger community to participate and contribute,” tells Himanshu.
Main attributes of a children book…
A book is a complete package, as Radhika says, “A well-written story, imaginative illustrations, good design and good production have to come together to make a good book that is a delight to read, to look at and to hold. Very often in children’s books there seems to be a focus on just one or two of these aspects.”
“The most important attribute is that it should not talk down to the child. It should also not preach or be didactic. Otherwise the attributes would be the same as those for any book - it should be well-written and of the highest quality that it can be. Children deserve the best and we should not give them lesser books just because they are shorter than us,” laughs Anushka.
While Himanshu adds, “That would depend on the genre of course but broadly, it should be attractive to look at and have a story that is engaging for a child. It should avoid overt messages and moralising and resist the urge to 'educate' the child as if she knows nothing. It should encourage reflection and introduce the possibilities of language.”
“Nita Mehta is the founder of our publishing house and because of her close interaction with women (she is India's No 1 Cookbook author and also heads many cooking institutes and restaurants) she understands that parents want their children to understand the Indian value system. Through our books, we try to educate and entertain children at the same time. Our company motto is 'Inculcating Values & Wisdom' and the company tag line is 'Enriching Young Minds,” adds Anurag. “Children books need to be entertaining, and should also have a subtle message which the child can relate to. It should be educative without the child knowing that he is being taught,” he adds.
While Rajneesh adds, “A children book should concentrate on easy and stress-free comprehension. Its language should be child-friendly, and it should be so designed as to readily attract a kid's attention towards itself. It should stay true to the fact 'learning in a stressless, fun way.' We serve our readers differently as we don't compromise on quality and strive to produce the best quality books consisting authentic and reliable information. We believe in the principle ‘Education for all’, and hence we provide our books at affordable prices,” adds Rajneesh.
While, Himanshu says, “We are a ‘not for profit’ publishing house and thus keep our ears close to the ground. We create attractive, well produced books for children at an affordable price in different Indian languages that we hope children will pick up on their own in their school or community libraries and enjoy the experience. If they do that, their reading skills will be strengthened and hopefully this will lead to a better shot at education. If the children become independent readers they can also become autonomous learners.”
While Sahil adds, “The content, the presentation and innovative thinking differentiates us from other publishers. Another out-of-the-box creation is our caricature style illustrations in our children’s books. That too in black and white, instead of the usual clamour for colour productions. We continue to create novel concept to draw attention of children as well as parents.”
It’s not just the story and illustrations that matter, font is important too. “The font size should be large enough to hold a child’s attention. Thereafter comes the utility part of the book. It should be meaningful, simple to read and understand. It should convey respect to Indian tradition and culture,” adds Sahil.
How to choose the right book…
Choosing the right book is very subjective. “The first step is for parents and teachers to keep themselves informed about the books on the market as more and more good publishers are emerging. This in itself is a difficult task as bookstores are no longer an option, as they are not interested in keeping good Indian books. Going online too is not an option for everyone,” tells Radhika. Schools can play a significant role in creating an awareness of what good books are available by building up their libraries, organizing book events, author readings and book fairs. Librarians have to be trained to select good books so that they become pivotal in creating this awareness. “The RTE act making school libraries mandatory and the CBSE and NCERT putting out recommended lists of books are welcome and much needed initiatives by the government in this direction. More than a hundred of Tulika’s titles are included in the recommended lists. These lists have become a starting point for schools to build up their libraries,” adds Radhika smilingly.
Rajneesh says that teachers and parents play a very crucial role in selecting the books for their kids. “They should ensure that their kids read authentic and carefully produced books inculcating in them not only knowledge but values also. They should develop in the kids good and healthy reading habits during the formative years to ensure a lifelong inclination towards reading,” he adds. Similar views were shared by Sahil, who adds, “Parents/teachers need to look for books that they believe carries wisdom and knowledge for children in an easy and simple language. The books should be such that children can read on their own and draw meaningful conclusions. The guardians should encourage children with activity books; drawing pictures and colouring them and other playful activities builds confidence in children and makes them extrovert. To help children in out-of-the-box thinking, give them something new and uniquely created in a novel way.”
“While choosing the book, the first and foremost thing is that it should be attractive for the child. A book of great information will not be of any value if it does not interest the child and attract to be read. Thus as publishers our responsibility is to package good content in child friendly attractive manner,” adds Anurag. While, Anushka elaborates, “Let the children choose. The best way to put children off reading is by forcing them to read things that don't interest them!”
Similar views were shared by Himanshu who says, “We'd like to request parents and teachers to listen to children better. Children should have the freedom to choose from the widest selection and can be trusted to choose the books that have genuine integrity of communication. Parents and teachers should resist the urge to 'teach' and educate their children through their selection as this is likely to put off children from reading altogether.”
Besides, Mudit also shares important points, “Choose books that reflect your child’s concerns, such as fear of the dark or some classmate. These books help children realize that their feelings are normal and that they’re not alone. These books also help your child learn how to handle their anxiety in a positive way. On repeated readings the book should offer fresh revelations or details that may not have been caught the first time through. And quite simply, not all ‘old’ books are classics! Just because we have loved them doesn't mean that they are still relevant.”
Age classification – is it really required?
Sometimes, it is difficult to classify the books according to age groups, for one book might interest a 4-year-old and also an 8-year-old. As Anushka puts it, “Our books are targeted at ages six to young adults, though we don't classify the books by age so much as by reading levels, because children's reading levels vary greatly even at the same age.”
Average print runs and pricing…
Prices vary from book to book and so do the print runs. But, all the publishers try to keep their pricing such that it reaches more number of children. “The print runs depend on a number of factors. There are no set rules. Print runs for fiction rarely exceed 1,000 copies. For well established writers, first print runs can go up to 5,000 and a bestseller is often a book that has sold only as many as 10,000 copies. As for pricing consideration, we know that Indian market is very price sensitive. We, therefore, price our books conservatively, keeping affordability of majority buyers in mind. Most of our books fall within the range of Rs.100-150. However, there are titles that cost more, depending on the subject matter,” tells Sahil.
“The English and Hindi print runs are 2,000 each and the print runs in the other languages vary from 250 to 500 copies. These are completely unviable numbers in publishing; but because we combine the print run of all languages, this works for us. We reprint according to orders in these languages. The strategy works for us. The average price of a book is Rs 80,” tells Radhika.
The average print run at Parragon Publishing is 10,000 copies and the retail prices for the books vary roughly between Rs 90 to Rs 595 as average.
Goodwill Publishing House publishes books on a wide variety of subjects including English Grammar, Essays, Vocabulary, Idioms & Phrases, Proverbs, Quotations, Religion, Astrology, Palmistry, Numerology, Management, Health, Sports & Games, Baby Care, Skill Building, Jokes & Riddles, Sudoku, Puzzles, IQ & Quiz, and many more. “Average print run for each of these is 2,000-5,000 copies per annum,” tells Rajneesh. “But, children books published under the imprint of Young Learner Publications are illustrated and child-friendly. All the books-Storybooks, Colouring books, Activity books, Nursery Rhymes, Moral Stories, Picture Dictionary, Cursive Writing, Encyclopaedia, and many more are designed and written by experienced authors as to make learning process enjoyable, fun and without any stress on tender minds. Average print run for each of these titles is 20,000-25,000 copies per annum.”
At Duckbill, the first print run is usually 3,000-5,000, and the price varies from Rs 125 to 275, depending on the number of pages and the print run. While, at Nita Mehta Publications, the average print run is 5,000 copies per title and the average price is from Rs 150 to 200.
The average first print run at Sterling Publishers is 3,000 copies and price range is from Rs 50-250. While, at Vishv Books, it varies from 500 to 10000 per print run. Price also varies from Rs 30 to Rs.200. “Some of our pop-up books are priced at Rs.400-Rs. 1000,” adds Mudit.
While, at Pratham the books are very affordable. “As a ‘not for profit,’ we also take risks that other publishing houses may not. If some of our cheapest books were Rs 10 we have gone a step ahead and created an even cheaper book-like product called a story card which will have a full story colour illustrations with lamination and can be made available at Rs 3. Similarly, we have put up a number of books for free download on a Creative Commons platform where anybody can use them in terms of translation, remixing the illustrations, even repricing them after giving an attribute to us. Our print runs vary between 6,000-12,000 copies and the average price is Rs 35,” tells Himanshu.
On exports…
A lot of children books are exported. At Nita Mehta Publications, since their content is mainly of Indian origin, they are exporting to countries which have Indian population like UK, USA, Canada, etc. While 30 percent of books at Parragon India are exported to countries like Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bhutan, Maldives, Myanmar and Bangladesh as well as the Middle- East markets including UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt and Bahrain.
“We export under the names of 'Goodwill Books International' and 'Chowdhry Export House'. Having been in the export trade for more than 40 years now, we export to countries in Africa, Middle East, South East Asia, Indian Subcontinent, Europe, and Latin America. About 40 percent of our total production is exported,” tells Rajneesh.
Ebooks – still in infancy
We know digitization is inevitable. It has invaded the advanced markets but India is far from it. “When many people can’t afford to buy printed books, purchasing digital books way below their disposable threshold limit. Moreover, one needs to have devices to read these digital books. Acceptability is creeping in the Indian market but it may still be a decade or more before impact on printed books could be felt,” tells Sahil.
“I don't think digital adoption is going to change drastically in the next year. We already do all our books as ebooks, so we will continue to do that. We haven't yet found that the sales of books are very high; the print books are definitely selling better than ebooks right now. We would like to do digital books that use the medium in exciting ways, but we'll only do that if we get conceptually interesting ideas/projects,” tells Anushka as a matter of fact.
Similar views were shared by Vineet, who says, “Digital children’s books will have their space in the complex content dissemination matrix and may not be that successful in the near future in India as it has done in the west. Eventually it will transform but currently it will stay to be a niche phenomenon!”
One thing is sure, ebooks are an important part of the business and publishers cannot shy away from it. As SK Ghai puts it, “In India, digital has started playing its role with the upper middle class, as the children have started playing games, colouring and learning on their iPads/Smart Phones. We are also gearing up to face the challenge.”
“There is no doubt that digital is the future. But it is still very unorganized and scattered. The technology is moving with such a fast pace that if one makes one style of digitalization in no time it becomes obsolete. But everyone is gearing up for the digital market and converting their printed versions to digitalized version. We too have books in digital format. Both story books as well as some of our academic books,” adds Mudit.
“I don’t think a clear business model has emerged for e-books in children’s publishing, and this is particularly true of picture books. This is so everywhere, not just in India. Despite that digital publishing for children is becoming a very crowded space, and it is easy to find free interactive ebooks - I am talking about picture books - for small children on the web. The challenge to publishers is how to make their books stand out in this crowded space. It means quite a lot of expenditure on interactive features, imaginative - even if limited - animation, good music and so forth. This becomes a long and expensive process, and yet it’s necessary to keep within the accepted price range whatever it costs. The recovery of costs can be a long haul. The only viable way is to put out an interactive ebook with standardized templates as quickly as possible. Spending the kind of time taken to publish a book is just not an option in the digital space. Far from being a space where distinctive and imaginative digital books stand out, such books are completely lost in the clutter of mediocrity that prevails on the net,” tells Radhika.
“We plan to grow our business margins by implementing an e-business solution and total automation of our whole business procedure to make operation smoother and robust. With a continual support from our whole family of workforce, we seek to scale greater heights in near future,” adds Rajneesh. But, there is more that ebooks can do, besides crossing geographical boundaries. “Hopefully, this will lead to more translations, more languages and many more uses of our books than what happens with a physical book,” shares Himanshu.
His views were echoed by Radhika, who adds, “We will continue exploring and experimenting in this space especially with books in different languages and bilingual books which offer great teaching/learning opportunities in classrooms. There is a huge need and a demand for good digital content in Indian languages as government and NGO run schools are equipped with computers, but do not have good content.”
Industry blooming…
To summarise it, we can say that the children book publishing industry in India is booming, despite all odds. Children books and authors/illustrators are now gradually getting the recognition they deserve. “The good news is that things are changing. There's much more interest in children's books now than there used to be, and we're seeing some wonderful new writing and illustration and hearing fresh voices,” concludes Anushka.
