READING THROUGH A DOZEN YEARS

On HT Mumbai’s 12th anniversary, author takes a look at some of the most important changes in the books and publishing industry over the past 12 years

Reading went mobile. But, hey, books were always mobile weren’t they? People just decided to strain their eyeballs a little more — they went from staring at paper to staring at dazzling backlit mobile screens. Many bookstore chains grew and then shut down, and re-invented themselves with the rise of online booksellers. Flipkart shone for a few bright moments like a shooting star until Planet Amazon arrived. According to documented reports, India became the sixth-largest book market in the world. The ‘Big Six’ (Macmillan, Harper Collins, Penguin, Random House, Simon & Shuster, and Hachette) of the world’s publishing industry finally realised that India was good enough to pitch their tents here. The industry grew rapidly and sales started trending upwards. The only thing that remained unchanged was the advance new authors received. Nielsen Book Scan made an appearance in India and publishers got a peg to hang their decisions on. Some publishers made irrational ones even with Nielsen staring them in the faces. But, generally, the playfield turned into a level and number-oriented one. Piracy flourished in India, and successful authors lost out big time while publishers wrung their hands. The spiel, “Only a best-selling author’s books sell on the street,” was the only consolation for the poor author being robbed of his royalties. Across the nation, Literary Festivals mushroomed in the fertile soil of the Indian writer’s sense of selfimportance. They became the new place to hang out for wannabe intellectuals and people who are ‘World Famous in India’, myself included. ‘Self-publishing’ stopped being known as ‘vanity publishing’. Publishers big and small, who earlier wouldn’t have given some budding authors the time of day, tripped over each other to woo the very same authors after they selfpublished and scored high sales. Publishers even launched their own selfpublishing imprints, the irony of which is lost on them, one would think. Commercial fiction boomed. Some authors became famous. With rock star-like fan followings, they started a trend of grand book launches that had musical performances and film star appearances. Their books began to look like clones of each other, but when last seen, the authors were still out hobnobbing with the glitterati. Youth-oriented, contemporary books began turning into films. In the gold rush, many books sold their film rights. Some actually got made into films, and a few of them even were hits at the box office. Some authors became producers. Well, at least one did.