‘Publishing industry booming in India’

While the international publishing industry has almost peaked, book publishing in India is booming at a compound annual growth rate of 30 per cent. India is the world’s seventh largest book publishing country and there are over 16,000 publishers in India, the huge majority of them small players and family-owned units.

But, the recent rightwing tactics to get books withdrawn or the contents altered have shocked publishers and readers alike. DC Books, the largest Malayalam book publisher, and one of the top ten literary book publishers in the country, faced the fundamentalist wrath when it published the script of an interview with Gail Tredwell, a former Australian aide to Mata Amritanandamayi. Tredwell’s book Holy Hell , which exposes the underbelly of a spiritual empire, has been banned in India. The interview, aired by the Kairali TV channel following the ban, was published as a book by DC.

In an interview, Ravi Deecee, CEO of DC Books founded by DC (Dominic Chacko) Kizhakkemuri, considered the doyen of Malayalam book publishing, talks about the alarming trend of banning of books, the boom in India’s publishing industry and his marketing strategies.

Let’s start with the Tredwell affair …

She had approached us with the book project before, but we didn’t take it up. When the book (published by Wattletree Press, Hawaii) kicked up a controversy and (Kairali TV CEO) John Brittas interviewed her for his channel, we published the interview as a book. Following this, stones were thrown at my house and DC Books offices and some copies of the books were seized and burnt. When 10,000 copies were sold, the court passed an injunction order against its sale. I received several threat calls. Educational institutions run by Amritanandamayi Madom stopped purchasing from us. But, we are not going to budge. The moment the injunction is lifted, we will be back in the market with Brittas’s book. It is really sad that even multinational publishers in India are succumbing to rightwing pressures.

How did DC Books establish itself as an iconic brand?

My Appa set up DC Books 40 years ago when he was 60. The brand grew around his persona. His friendship with top writers and his keenness to pay writers well and on time helped DC to publish the best talents. Appa’s marketing was innovative. He was the father of the paperback revolution in India. The pre-publication sale of new books at high discount rates was a successful strategy. The ‘Home Library scheme’ he introduced helped Kerala families secure three DC titles every month. He focused on translations and hundreds of bestsellers and classics from other languages were published. For instance, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude came out in Malayalam three decades ago and we have translated most of Marquez’s works. These made Marquez extremely popular in Kerala. We are now publishing Paulo Coelho’s Adultery . Appa also recognised the potential of reference books and dictionaries and to this day our best seller is an English-English-Malayalam dictionary whose 25 lakh copies are now in print. He also set up a chain of shops under the Current Books brand. We now have 42 book shops, including two in Dubai.

How did you come into publishing?

Appa died of cancer on the Republic Day of 1999, a day after he won the Padmabhushan award for his contributions to India’s book publishing sector. I joined DC Books in 1991 at his request after I finished my management education in the US.

What changes have you brought in to build the brand?

DC Kizhakkemuri was the USP of DC Books. I changed this by focusing on the brand. We ventured into many genres of non-fiction – such as biographies, travel, self-help, personality development, academic and competitive examination books. We now have audio books and e-books with animation apps. We have ten imprints; for example ‘Mango’ for English-language books and ‘iRank’ for competitive exams. We also publish six periodicals.

What are your marketing strategies?

Our main marketing strategy is holding book festivals and fairs. We regularly hold three international book festivals at Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode which attract huge crowds. These are cultural events where literary seminars, lectures, and musical and theatrical performances are held. The last festival at Kochi, held for two weeks, drew around 1.5 lakh visitors.

How is India’s publishing industry doing?

In spite of the economic slowdown, the book publishing industry is growing pretty quickly. The middle-class aspirations have fuelled demand for knowledge books, educational books and self-help books. I am quite optimistic about the future of Indian publishing. Of course, escalation in cost of production, particularly of paper, is a big worry.

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