I thought a visit to the book fair will make me richer with my book collections, richer in knowledge with exposure to a variety of authors and topics, richer in enthusiasm with the added knowledge on the improvements over the year and the resulting opportunities. I had reasons to entertain these thoughts, as these have been happening since 1977 when I started visiting this annual event. But, the experiences seemed to be different this year for the Chennai Book Fair, 2013
In fact I started counting the chickens from way back in Oct'13, when the social networks opened up pages to dwell on book fair. I carefully chose a day and time when you are not likely to be hampered by the jostling crowd and they all fell into their places as planned. Being aware of the need to invest with prudence and also being reminded constantly by the books of previous years of fair visit, I had conservatively budgeted for the purchase of books. But, the book fair made me appear like a pauper.
The prices of almost all the books were sky high for a common man, except for few a handful of publications which kept them at moderate and affordable levels. Every book I touched bordered on a minimum of Rupees 200 and forced me to drop the book and the idea immediately. Even common Tamil fiction novels have been divided into multiple parts, each costing Rs 150 to 200 ! In my opinion, a normal reading enthusiast cannot but shell less than two thousand rupees, if he/she were to reasonably cover the ambitions carefully accumulated over a year !
It may appear that I am complaining though the books are in the range of Rs 200. But, my plight was I had planned and desired for many books and am sure am not alone in this! Work out the cost please.
There was a discussion in popular TV channel that the sales in book fair is falling and that not many are inclined to buy books. This is no surprise after this year's price range. I am well aware of or at least read about the increasing cost of making a book but despite all these, I am afraid, the anxiety of the visitors will fizzle out in the years to come, unless the publishers think completely different to tackle the issue.
For instance, a 150 page book hard bound and colored beautifully was priced at Rs 300, while a soft bound copy of the autobiography of Gandhi was priced at Rs 54/- !! Where is the need to have attractive hard bound editions which could obviously involve more costs? Perhaps they will be preferred by libraries for longevity but other than them, who will prefer or preserve such hard bound editions. These are the days, when people have little time to read, leave alone a second read and so the question of preserving should not cloud the pricing vision.
I saw D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's lover at Rs 200+, whereas an advertisement in Internet offers it for a legal download FREE of cost !! Can you still spot a buyer for such books?
Most of Sujatha's books have also been priced above Rs 200/- where eBook of the the same is being sold officially for USD 3 which roughly works to Rs 180/-. I leave the advantages or otherwise of the eBook version over the hard copy to the readers !!
Sadly, the publishers are not aware of the happening around or not gauging the pulse and needs of the readers properly. I also happened to read some interesting links on the social networking sites:
http://danariely.com/2012/11/03/how-to-stop-illegal-downloads/ - says that the author found 20000 copies of his book being downloaded illegally as soft copies within days of his releasing the book and the sad part is his not getting a single paise out of this.
Yes, every book is made available on the web in no time after its official release and readers download them for different interesting reasons. One had the cheek to say that he used to "download soft copies just to find out whether it is worth spending the money on the hard copy" !!
Whatever be the reason, it has come to stay and it is difficult to ward it off. Everyone is well aware of the plunge the film industry has taken after the electronic invasion and the industry is still grappling for possible solutions. While all these efforts are on, the DVD of the latest movie is sold openly on main road of every place for a paltry forty rupees. I for one would never like to be in the shoes of that poor producer and I wish some solution satisfying every one's need is arrived at early, which seems to be a wishful thinking as of now.
The good or bad news is that more and more are taking to soft copy versions for various reasons such as mobility, portability, share-ability and other similar (dis)abilities.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremygreenfield/2014/01/16/more-americans-reading-ebooks-led-by-younger-and-wealthier/?utm_campaign=forbestwittersf&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social says more Americans have started resorting to reading ebooks ! Will the Indians lag behind?
So, what is the way out of this literary disaster waiting to happen? Its time for the stake holders to think differently and bring in some unimaginable but pleasant jolt to the readers. They have the unenviable task of satisfying the hard core book enthusiasts who will not be satisfied anything but a hard copy and those who would like to read somehow, but cannot afford this fancy price.
One idea will be to slash the price, say by 60%, and make it available only for the first two days. This will take care of the volume sales when people will hasten to beat the short deadline.
After it spends considerable time on the stands, bring the price to rock bottom and make the book available say for 20% of the original cost. I feel this is what is happening to the books like Gandhi's autobiography, which unfortunately is still looking for buyers at Rs 50 !!
Instead of the readers going in for illegal soft copies, the book makers can bring out their own version of eBooks - I guess they would soon be compelled to do this at least for the cash turnover.
Yesterday I happened to attend a lecture of a leading and respected cardiologist of Chennai. His book on taking care of your heart is very popular but unfortunately it was not easily available. At the end of the lecture, he announced that the eVersion of his book was available for Rs 100/- against the paper back price of Rs 180 and it is no wonder the DVDs too vanished in no time.
It does pay to move with the time. Authors and book publishers who will be focusing on bringing out books should entrust the market research and innovative methods to the identified professionals, so that you are not left behind, despite the release of a good book. I am reminded of the saying "Ships are safer in harbor but they are not built to be there". Modifying it a bit, "Books are supposed to be in the hands of book lovers and not in the publisher stands"
Unless some such drastic steps are taken to woe the book lovers, I am afraid, there will be foot falls at the book fairs but they will be more for window shopping. The ones who would do more business from such fairs will be the fringe players like parking licensees and food stalls. After all, there is still a joy in browsing through the books without buying it, as we used to do in the 70s, just to kill time.
I feel this book business is moving towards ICU and badly in need of emergency measures to resuscitate lest it will lose itself into a slumber accompanying Rip Van Winkle.
In fact I started counting the chickens from way back in Oct'13, when the social networks opened up pages to dwell on book fair. I carefully chose a day and time when you are not likely to be hampered by the jostling crowd and they all fell into their places as planned. Being aware of the need to invest with prudence and also being reminded constantly by the books of previous years of fair visit, I had conservatively budgeted for the purchase of books. But, the book fair made me appear like a pauper.
The prices of almost all the books were sky high for a common man, except for few a handful of publications which kept them at moderate and affordable levels. Every book I touched bordered on a minimum of Rupees 200 and forced me to drop the book and the idea immediately. Even common Tamil fiction novels have been divided into multiple parts, each costing Rs 150 to 200 ! In my opinion, a normal reading enthusiast cannot but shell less than two thousand rupees, if he/she were to reasonably cover the ambitions carefully accumulated over a year !
It may appear that I am complaining though the books are in the range of Rs 200. But, my plight was I had planned and desired for many books and am sure am not alone in this! Work out the cost please.
There was a discussion in popular TV channel that the sales in book fair is falling and that not many are inclined to buy books. This is no surprise after this year's price range. I am well aware of or at least read about the increasing cost of making a book but despite all these, I am afraid, the anxiety of the visitors will fizzle out in the years to come, unless the publishers think completely different to tackle the issue.
For instance, a 150 page book hard bound and colored beautifully was priced at Rs 300, while a soft bound copy of the autobiography of Gandhi was priced at Rs 54/- !! Where is the need to have attractive hard bound editions which could obviously involve more costs? Perhaps they will be preferred by libraries for longevity but other than them, who will prefer or preserve such hard bound editions. These are the days, when people have little time to read, leave alone a second read and so the question of preserving should not cloud the pricing vision.
I saw D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's lover at Rs 200+, whereas an advertisement in Internet offers it for a legal download FREE of cost !! Can you still spot a buyer for such books?
Most of Sujatha's books have also been priced above Rs 200/- where eBook of the the same is being sold officially for USD 3 which roughly works to Rs 180/-. I leave the advantages or otherwise of the eBook version over the hard copy to the readers !!
Sadly, the publishers are not aware of the happening around or not gauging the pulse and needs of the readers properly. I also happened to read some interesting links on the social networking sites:
http://danariely.com/2012/11/03/how-to-stop-illegal-downloads/ - says that the author found 20000 copies of his book being downloaded illegally as soft copies within days of his releasing the book and the sad part is his not getting a single paise out of this.
Yes, every book is made available on the web in no time after its official release and readers download them for different interesting reasons. One had the cheek to say that he used to "download soft copies just to find out whether it is worth spending the money on the hard copy" !!
Whatever be the reason, it has come to stay and it is difficult to ward it off. Everyone is well aware of the plunge the film industry has taken after the electronic invasion and the industry is still grappling for possible solutions. While all these efforts are on, the DVD of the latest movie is sold openly on main road of every place for a paltry forty rupees. I for one would never like to be in the shoes of that poor producer and I wish some solution satisfying every one's need is arrived at early, which seems to be a wishful thinking as of now.
The good or bad news is that more and more are taking to soft copy versions for various reasons such as mobility, portability, share-ability and other similar (dis)abilities.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremygreenfield/2014/01/16/more-americans-reading-ebooks-led-by-younger-and-wealthier/?utm_campaign=forbestwittersf&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social says more Americans have started resorting to reading ebooks ! Will the Indians lag behind?
So, what is the way out of this literary disaster waiting to happen? Its time for the stake holders to think differently and bring in some unimaginable but pleasant jolt to the readers. They have the unenviable task of satisfying the hard core book enthusiasts who will not be satisfied anything but a hard copy and those who would like to read somehow, but cannot afford this fancy price.
One idea will be to slash the price, say by 60%, and make it available only for the first two days. This will take care of the volume sales when people will hasten to beat the short deadline.
After it spends considerable time on the stands, bring the price to rock bottom and make the book available say for 20% of the original cost. I feel this is what is happening to the books like Gandhi's autobiography, which unfortunately is still looking for buyers at Rs 50 !!
Instead of the readers going in for illegal soft copies, the book makers can bring out their own version of eBooks - I guess they would soon be compelled to do this at least for the cash turnover.
Yesterday I happened to attend a lecture of a leading and respected cardiologist of Chennai. His book on taking care of your heart is very popular but unfortunately it was not easily available. At the end of the lecture, he announced that the eVersion of his book was available for Rs 100/- against the paper back price of Rs 180 and it is no wonder the DVDs too vanished in no time.
It does pay to move with the time. Authors and book publishers who will be focusing on bringing out books should entrust the market research and innovative methods to the identified professionals, so that you are not left behind, despite the release of a good book. I am reminded of the saying "Ships are safer in harbor but they are not built to be there". Modifying it a bit, "Books are supposed to be in the hands of book lovers and not in the publisher stands"
Unless some such drastic steps are taken to woe the book lovers, I am afraid, there will be foot falls at the book fairs but they will be more for window shopping. The ones who would do more business from such fairs will be the fringe players like parking licensees and food stalls. After all, there is still a joy in browsing through the books without buying it, as we used to do in the 70s, just to kill time.
I feel this book business is moving towards ICU and badly in need of emergency measures to resuscitate lest it will lose itself into a slumber accompanying Rip Van Winkle.
