How to publish my book ? 

Firstly, I am going to cover the entire aspects of the Indian book market and give you insights regarding the global book sales, top genres by countries, and also top publishers in the Industry. Since I will be detailing this article in a structured manner it will be easy for readers to navigate to the desired section easily. So, let us begin.

Do not have time? CLICK on the section below to jump directly into it. 

Book Publishing Market Outlook

How big is the book publishing market in India? 

• In 2020, according to the Association of Publishers in India (API),  the Indian book market is said to reach INR 739 billion (10billionUSD).
• Estimates show that over 90% of India’s book sales come from paperback and hardcover books. Only a marginal amount of book sales happens through Ebook and Audiobooks. Since, the lockdown situation, the Ebook and audiobook market in India has seen a boom.
• Every year according to the International Standard Book Number (ISBN), India since 2019, has been publishing over 1,00,000 books every year. Interestingly, this figure does not include the Ebooks published on Amazon and other E-commerce platforms since these books do not need an ISBN. They have their own unique number for the book.
• Traditional Publishing is by far the biggest contribution to the books coming out in India. Predominantly, the books published belong to educational, religious, Research and novels. Penguin India, Harper Collins, Pearson, Pirates, Rupa, Westland, Jaico, Aleph are amongst the biggest names in the Traditional Market.
• Self-Publishing accounts for about 4000-5000 books published in India annually. The number of self-published authors has grown consistently over the years due to the ease and quickness of publishing through a self-published company.
• India loves its mythical fiction, Children’s books, Business learning, romance, and mysteries. There has been considerate interest in Indian readers in these genres of books.

How big is the Global Book Market?

• USA holds the biggest share of book sales in the world with over 30% of the revenue, accounting for close to 30billion USD, followed by China, Germany, UK, Japan, France, and India.
• Though Americans prefer paperbacks and hardcovers over the years, there has been a steady shift to ebooks and audiobooks, both, these digital reading and listening platforms account for over 20% of the revenue in recent years.
• While the Americans love their romance & mysteries and autobiographies the Europeans love Lifestyle and fashion.
• The global book market is dominated by Penguin random house, Hachette Livre, Harper Collins, Macmillan, and Simon, and Schuster

What are the types of Book Publishing available?

There are primarily 4 types of book Publishing available across the world. We shall highlight the most important aspect of these types of publishing below.

How to approach a Traditional Book Publishing  Agency

• To approach a traditional Publisher, is a daunting task, primarily, for a first-time author. Most traditional publishers do not accept unsolicited works. They require you to approach them through a literary agent,
• A literary agent requests three things initially to gauge the marketability of the manuscript. Firstly, the author’s bio. The Author has to have built the required credibility and presence to be considered for moving to the next level of evaluation, which is, 1000 word synopsis of the manuscript. At this stage, the Literary agent evaluates the quality of the written word. Finally, the two-three chapters of your manuscript. Please ensure the content is edited properly and you have created a good amount of social mileage to get the attention of the traditional publishers.
• Through a  traditional contract, an author is most likely to receive 8-15% royalty for their book. if the MRP of your book is 200Rs, you may get around 20Rs. Alternatively, This does mean that the remaining 180 rs goes to the publisher. Note that there is printing, distribution, marketing, and shipping charges also incurred in the book.
• Click the below image for a list of traditional publishers in India

List of Traditional Book Publishers 

How to approach a Self-publishing Company

• A self-publishing company is fairly accessible to the writers, In this approach, you will be paying an upfront publishing cost to get your book out there in the market. This is called a publishing package.
• A self Publishing package in India ranges from 12000Rs – 35000Rs. This does not include book promotion and marketing.
• The only criteria for a self-publishing company to publish your book are that the content should not be plagiarised, This means there is no strict evaluation on content quality, and hence leads to some average books being out in the market. This is not true for most self-published books as there are some truly amazing books.

List of Self-Publishing Companies

E-book Publishing through Amazon KDP

• Ebooks is a free publishing service that can be availed through companies like Amazon KDP, Nook, Kobo, Apple Books, and google books.
• The limitation is that in India and even developed book markets like the USA, UK, etc, the penetration of the ebook market is limited to 10-15%. People still prefer paperbacks and hardcover books

Audio-book Publishing in India

• Audiobooks are a recent addition to the book publishing market. Companies like Audible, Storytel, Storyshots, etc are amongst the biggest audiobook publishers.
• The rapid speed of internet penetration across the world has given a strong push to listening to books through audiobooks. It falls somewhere between reading and watching a movie.
• The USA market has seen for the first time where audiobooks have captured a bigger market share compared to Ebooks.

List of Audiobook Publishing Companies

How to Publish a Book?

The Book publishing process in India has 8-9 steps. This includes cover page design, inner page design, ISBN, Barcode and copyrights application, Book printing, book listing, and also royalty payouts. Watch the below video which will take you through in detail the process. Alternatively, check this blog on the cost of book publishing in India ranges from 12000 Rs to 35000 Rs through Self Publishing. To get detailed knowledge about Book Publishing Process in India, click the below image.

Book Editing 

The process of fine-tuning the grammar, punctuation, and spelling mistakes in the manuscript along with plot suggestions is called editing.

Book Cover Design

Creating an appealing book cover is the most important aspect of book sales. The book cover is the sales agent for your book. Make sure to design the right book cover for your book. Click the below article for detailed design suggestions for your book cover. 

Book Type-setting 

Designing the inner pages of the book is called type-setting. This includes the font, font size, spacing, margins, paragraphing, capitalization, etc.

Apply for ISBN & Barcode 

International Standard Book Number and Barcode becomes the unique identifier for your book for easy identification and listing purposes across various physical and digital book stores in the world. You can apply for ISBN at the isbn.gov.in website using the title Verso page. Once you receive the 13 digit ISBN number you may generate the associated Bar code as well

Book Printing 

Book printing happens in two types across the world. One, Digital printing, ideally done by self-publishers during the Print on Demand model. It is expensive and can print one book at a time. Second, offset printing, this method is effective while printing books in bulk, normally done by traditional publishers. 

Copyrights Application

Copyrights can be applied through any legal consultant for your book. this is an essential step to claim authority over the book. Do Not Skip this stage.

Book Listing on Amazon, etc

Once all the above stages are done, the book has to be listed on various eCommerce platforms from where readers can buy the book. The most prominent platforms are amazon, Google books, Apple books, Boko, barns & noble, and traditional book stores like crossword, oxford, etc

Cost of book Publishing 

Common Mistakes Authors Make during book Publishing and Promotion in India

Book Publishing and Promotion is not an easy task. Based on our extensive discussions with various Authors and Publishers we are listing the common mistakes an Author does during book publishing and promotion in India 

How many books does an Amazon Best Seller sell in India?

It is the most loosely used word in the publishing industry. Everyone claims to be an Amazon bestseller. The Term best seller is given to someone who sells 10,000 Copies of their book annually. The numbers could vary based on the type of Genre in the book and the country of Origin. The Amazon Best-seller is an estimate by Amazon for a 4-7 day period. This means the Author has sold the maximum number of copies within a subcategory of Amazon Books in that week. Amazon has over 10000 categories under books. Even if you sell 5-10 copies under a certain category you may end up getting the best seller tag. The best way to validate this is by checking the number of Ratings & Reviews the book has received. Under the Books category, a rule of thumb is that 10% of the buyers drop a book rating on Amazon. Meaning, if a book has 10 reviews it means the book must have sold around 100 copies.  

How many books should I write before I become a best seller? 

Every Author expects their book to sell well. It is important to notice that estimates show, over 98% of Authors on Amazon who are best sellers have written more than 3 books. So give yourself time to understand how the book market works and how to sell your books.

How much money should I spend on publishing my first book?

Authors make this very common mistake of spending a lot of money on their first book. Like, explained in the above section one book wonder is a rare phenomenon. So just test the waters first. Just spend little money on your first book and understand your writing and the book market better. 

Book Editing is very crucial, get a professional editor in place. 

Many first-time Authors, do not wish to spend the money in editing and end up with a poorly written book. Understand, that you are not writing books for family and friends. The ones with a reading habit expect good quality editing. Try and get sample edited work from editors before finalizing one. 

Social Media for Book Promotion

Which is the most effective social media platform for book promotion? This is a very common question we receive from Authors from across the world.  Our Answer is it varies according to the countries and type of book you are writing. Follow some best practices below for social media book promotions. 

The common social media platforms for book promotions.

1. Facebook Groups / Facebook Page Book Marketing
2. Instagram Book promotions
3. Twitter Marketing for books
4. Pinterest for books
5. Author Websites & Blogs
6. Guest Blogging 
7. Youtube 
8. Quora 
9. Reddit
10. Goodreads
11. Amazon Author Central 

Note: Pick the platform most active in your country and also pick only 2 Platforms at a time. Try spending 6 months to one year on each platform before trying out a new platform. 

Author Earnings & Royalty 

An Author Earning sounds to be very lucrative to general people. But we always consider exceptions as examples. An author roughly makes about 8-15% Royalty on their book sale.

A first-time self Published author in India sells on an average 250-300 copies in a lifetime. This is true in most cases. There are some exceptions, where authors sell over 700-1000 copies. Even further so, a minute fraction of self-published authors sells 3000-5000 copies of their first book. considering a 200Rs MRP and above estimates, an author makes about 60,000 -1,00,000 Rs. in their first book.