The impact of the pandemic in 2020 on every aspect of English language publishing in India – from release of titles to marketing them, from...
The impact of the pandemic in 2020 on every aspect of English language publishing in India – from release of titles to marketing them, from selling in physical bookshops to selling online – is now known to industry insiders. What lessons can be extrapolated from these conclusions to the future, especially after the pandemic recedes? To find out, Scroll.in organised a roundtable with professionals representing every segment of the value chain – publishing, editing, marketing, sales, distribution, and bookselling.
The participants: Karthika VK, Publisher, Westland Publications; Udayan Mitra, Publisher, Literary, HarperCollins India; Radhika Timbadia, Founder, Champaca Bookstore, Bengaluru; Gaurav Sabharwal, Managing Director, Prakash Books; Vijay Sharma, Sales Director, Pan Macmillan India; Niti Kumar, senior vice-president, marketing, digital and communications, Penguin India, Kanishka Gupta, literary agent and literary journalism curator. Excerpts from the conversation, moderated by Scroll.in Books editor Arunava Sinha.
Arunava Sinha: Now that we know what nine months of Covid-19 has done to every aspect of the publishing chain, we’re hoping to understand what might happen in a post-Covid world, and what steps each of you might take on behalf of the position you occupy in that chain. I’m going to start by asking each of you to give me a short prediction...
