Arup Bose
Born and brought up in Delhi, Arup’s association with books and publishing has been since childhood. After working as a Risk Consultant and Mitigation expert for a leading Insurer, he decided to hang up his boots and enter the world of publishing. The shift was but a logical extension of his background of both love for books and familial association with the industry. An MBA by education, he currently looks after the day-to-day operations at Srishti Publishers while driving the growth by diversifying into new genres and entering unexplored markets. Arup is a prolific speaker and has spoken at various colleges, Lit-fests and other events. He is a voracious reader and spends his free time reading books, listening to music and mentoring upcoming entrepreneurs as a Business Development Coach. He has successfully helped many entrepreneurs scale up their small and medium-scale business to the next level. He has been invited to many key industry conferences and has been the key-note speaker at many of them.
People these days are consuming content in a shorter format like stories, Reels, and shorts. Do you see this could have a long-term impact on how people read and eventually on the sale of books? If so, what measures and strategies are being taken by the publishers to address this challenge?
We are one of the few publishers who have a digital/eBook version of most of our print catalogue. Not just that, we also have an exclusive digital books imprint dedicated to eBooks called Quickies. This imprint started in 2015 comprises exclusive short-read content, meant for fast snackable consumption digitally and straddles genres as varied as romance, thrillers, finance and mental health. We are working at building up our repository for fresh, quality content for readers who prefer short content.
According to trends we observed across popular eBook platforms, the sale of eBooks almost doubled in the month of April, and stayed consistently flat in May and June the previous year as well as this year. This was mainly because due to the lockdown, most people were stuck at home and chose to buy digital books.
This was an indicator for the industry that the marginalised eBook had a lot of potential, especially during times of Lockdown. In India, eBooks usually contribute to a single digit to a low double-digit figure in the revenue pie of most publishers. This suddenly changed into the main revenue generator in this time of distress.
We saw bestsellers in genres as varied as Self-Help, Motivation, Romance, Children’s, etc., do well. Some of our Original e-singles and short reads have become wildly popular with whole series being spun off from the concept.
We are publishing almost 100 such new titles every year under our digital imprint Quickies, apart from a separate list of Print books.
However, with the rampant piracy of eBooks, both publishers and digital platforms had to fight by offering special prices and free subscriptions. The sale of eBooks was mainly driven by the discounts offered by the publishers and platforms. While this ensured that people bought more books, it made the model a bit unfeasible in the long term as it devalued the copyright content.
Also consumers are switching back to their tried and tested physical books and the sale of eBooks is slowly declining as the general medical situation is improving across the country. That being said, the new normal, in context to sale of eBooks, is still higher than what it was in the pre-pandemic times.
While eBooks were the White knight for the industry in its hour of greatest need, it remains to be seen if it can sustain itself over a longer period of time in competition with its older cousin – the paperback.
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How different is a growing publishing market like India compared to matured markets like the USA, United Kingdom, and China?
India remains to be one of the largest growth markets for English publishing internationally. This fact is underscored by the number of international authors like Jeffery Archer, Robin Sharma, to name a few, doing book launch tours in India ahead of other countries.
The demand for books in English is quite humongous in India. It just needs to be tapped properly, channelized and serviced in a planned manner.
How has the growth and spread of e-commerce sites, E-books, and Audiobooks changed the dynamics of the publishing industry globally and in India?
The only constant in life is change. We can always resist change and become obsolete or adapt and reap the benefits of positive changes. We as an industry are definitely not strangers to change in any way. In fact, the publishing industry, not just in India, but globally, has always led the way in innovation and accepted technological changes.
The three ‘change agents’ you mentioned in your question are at least half a decade old, if not more. E-commerce has been active in India since the late 2000s with home-grown brands like Flipkart and Infibeam leading the way. Amazon launched in India in 2014 and they all started with books as their first category of focus.
Similarly, eBooks have been around for a long time. 2011 is when Kindle started working with Indian publishers like us directly. We have been on the forefront of that interaction and have been selling eBooks for a long time.
Lastly we have been working with Audiobook giants like Audible since 2015 which culminated with their successful launch in India in 2018.
We at Srishti always look forward towards such change agents with anticipation and evolve positively to make the best of them.
We all know, a literary agent seeks an author bio, 1000 words synopsis, and 3 chapters of the manuscript. But, What are the things publishers looking for while selecting or rejecting a manuscript?
A publisher is mainly looking for a new story, an interesting theme and an intriguing storytelling technique.
Much has already been spoken and discussed about what goes into choosing a manuscript and while there are multiple permutation and combinations, it all boils down to these three things.
How important is Author branding in the publishing industry? What other aspects should an author focus on outside the manuscript to improve the book sales?
It is very important. For a reader, the author is the face of the book. You stop and ask any reader at a bookshop or book fair and they will be able to tell you the names of their top-10 preferred authors.
And that is the power of branding of the author. If an author is able to ensure he/ she is recognised by just their name by readers then he has been able to make a brand.
In today’s digital world, an author with good interactive Social media following automatically leads to a better brand recognition amongst readers.
Similarly, media coverage by prominent news outlets also help an author build a brand.
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With so many books getting adapted into a visual medium like movies or series on OTTs, How will this aspect impact the book publishing industry?
I think books have been source material for Bollywood for a long time. However, with the industry taking a more structured approach towards adaptation and the rise of OTTs have definitely helped the same.
We have, as a part of our 360 degree marketing for each and every book, been pitching our books in a planned manner to various leading production houses.
This has lead to many of our books being acquired, even during the times of pandemic, by these production houses and some of them are on the way to production currently.
The benefit of these adaptations is two-fold – it ensures the story reaches a larger untapped audience (who do not read books); and secondly, it acts as a boost in the brand building activity of the author.
Lastly, but equally importantly, books which have been successfully adapted usually see a sharp but time-bound jump in sales at the time of announcement and launch of the movie/ web series.
How can a first-time writer become a published author with Srishti Publishers and help them in promoting and marketing the book? What will be your advice to the young authors?
We have always believed that everyone has a story to tell, and we offer them the platform for it. All they need to do is write from their heart and share the publishing proposal with us (as per the submission guidelines given on www.srishtipublishers.com ). It comprises of a summary of the work, three sample chapters and a note on the author. We can take it from there.
Once shortlisted and signed up, Srishti provides assistance at all levels for the book to reach the readers in its best possible form. We have a robust social media network which engages thousands of readers through interesting and informative content. Our well-laid out distribution network makes the book available across the country, in the smallest of cities to ensure the book reaches more and more people.
As an advice to young authors, there’s just one thing we say – in writing a book, you have to bridge the gap between your thoughts and ideas with those of your readers. Write from your heart, tell your story the way you want, alongside making sure that it has something deeper that everyone who reads can connect with.
What is the range of Author Royalties achieved in a traditional contract? What all things could fetch a better royalty for an author? How many books do you need to sell to become a best seller in India?
We are traditionally publishers and have always worked on a royalty basis with authors. The standard industry royalty for debut authors ranges from 5-7.5% of the MRP. Already published authors tend to get between 7.5-10% of the MRP. Bestselling authors are usually offered something between 10-12.5% of the MRP.
Publishers usually make an offer basis of the sales viability, quality of writing, potential sales and existing brand value of the author.
We consider a book with more than 25,000 copies sold as a bestseller in India.
Please give a bit of a background about Srishti Publishers, its future plans in India, the Kind of books you are accepting these days to publish, popular authors published with Srishti Publishers, years of experience, etc.
Srishti stands for creation, and has been referred since time immemorial to the creation of the world by Brahma. Srishti Publishers was set up with the objective of creating a unique set of books that provide unmatched reading pleasure to people across the country. The core objective of our company is to provide a platform to first-time writers – young in age and at heart. In the last eighteen years, we have come a long way and have added myriad feathers to our cap.
The year 2006 proved to be a turning point for Indian reading experience as the publishing industry saw the dawn of popular fiction like never before, read and authored by people who had formerly shirked from books. Srishti now is a pioneer in quality production of such titles. It has not only given a platform to budding, debutant authors, but has also made quality books available at affordable prices across India. Some of the current crop of bestselling authors like Preeti Shenoy, Durjoy Dutta, Ravinder Singh, Novoneel Chakroborty, etc., published their first work of fiction with us that went on to become bestselling titles.
The next generation of bestselling authors from our banner includes Ajay K Pandey, Arpit Vageria, Arvind Parashar, Amaresh Ojha, Deesha Sangani, Disha, Sourabh Mukherjee and many more.
Today, Srishti has on board children, teens, women, youngsters and aged people, not just as readers, but authors too. With more than five hundred titles to boast of, the year 2021 will see Srishti’s burgeoning presence in genres as varied as romance, thrillers, true crimes, health & fitness to Historical non-fiction as well.
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At Sharing Stories, we have an ongoing campaign ‘Let’s Empower Our Kids’. Please suggest some books that you think every child should read before the age of 15 (mostly the character-defining age), teaching them life lessons. Things like empathy, sympathy, relationships, etc.
Some of my favourite books for children would be:-
- Magical Mythology by Stuti Gupta – it is a collection of more than 20 episodes from the Indian epics, rich in knowledge and entertaining too
- Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens – it shows how resolve and will to change your life can lead to exceptional ends.
- Panchatantra – these tales spun in the animal world hundreds of years ago still hold true if we wish to understand people and life better.
- The Good Wizard by Prasun Roy – a fictional tale set in Mughal India, this illustrated story tells us how we can be the change we want to see in the craziest of times
- The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling – Well, simply because sometimes in life, a little magic is all we need.
