Publishing is an industry that survives on making its workmen the brand, namely, the authors. The publishing house is a brand derived from them
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igoriss
Last weekend I attended a series of meetings convened by the The Book Review Literary Trust to celebrate 50 years of its existence. The overall theme of the three sessions that comprised the meeting was ‘Indian Publishing Since Independence’.
The Trust brings out a monthly journal called The Book Review. The first issue came out in 1976 and since then it has been published without a break.
It has been run, against all odds, by two ladies. One of them is my sister. I am a member of its editorial advisory board. My wife is a trustee.
And, for good measure, I should add that I have written a novel that’s about publishing as it was in the 1970s. It is not very complimentary.
My first job, by the way, was in publishing. I spent five years in a large multinational publishing house.
After listening to the speakers it appears to me that nothing except printing technology and reader tastes have changed much since then.
The Book Review journal was the idea of former president KR Narayanan and others, like the historian S Gopal who was the son of another former president, S Radhakrishnan. They thought India needed something like The New York Review of Books or the Times Literary Supplement.
The idea was to give a platform to publishers to get their books reviewed and the readers a chance to acquaint themselves with new ideas. The journal has lived up to those expectations entirely because of the two ladies mentioned above, who edit it.
It could have grown into something very much bigger than it is. After all, it’s been around for half a century. But its paid circulation now is only around 15,000 including digital and libraries.
As usual, money has been a huge constraint. Paradoxically, advertising support from publishers, who are major beneficiaries, has been grudging and sporadic.
It is others with a proper sense of public purpose and duty, like Nandan Nilekani, who have been unwavering in their support. He funded the journal’s digitisation project. As a result, all back issues are now available digitally.
A subordinate theme of the roundtable was the role that reviews play. The publishers all agreed that they play an important role but only if it all amounted to free publicity.
Reviews, they felt, are the perfect substitute for advertising their wares. It’s such a flawed view because so few newspapers now carry book reviews.
And now AI writes reviews on demand. My colleague on this newspaper who co-manages the books page says there is now a flood of unsolicited reviews.
Publishing vs economics
Amazingly, in spite of the griping, the publishers felt that their industry was growing at a nice clip. But they kept complaining that it was faced with a very bleak future.
Reason: dwindling readers. And, they said, Covid had been utterly devastating because bookshops that had shut down never reopened.
The truth about the publishing industry, however, is that it defies all the canons of microeconomics. Thus, there are no entry and exit barriers and there is no capital requirement. Anyone can become a publisher so it’s perfectly competitive.
It’s also a multi-product industry, with knobs on. Not only is every single book distinct from every other one, every firm is producing books that compete with other books published by itself. That’s true of many other things, like soaps and shoes but none of them has the uniqueness feature of books.
It’s an industry that survives on making its workmen the brand, namely, the authors. The publishing house is a brand derived from them.
The idea of a ‘reputable’ publisher is therefore complete nonsense. What matters is sales. That’s natural in a high risk, low margin business.
That’s also the reason why big publishers offer such huge advances. It’s like a racetrack deriving its reputation from the horses that race on it.
Pricing is based on what the overall perception is of what the market can bear. That perception is usually three or four times what it actually can. That is why there is such a thriving market for second hand and discounted books.
The industry is also a major gambling den because no one really knows which book will succeed. Generally the ratio is one in 100,000. That’s the same as the probability of anyone winning a small lottery.
Then there is distribution. The wholesalers demand discounts of up to 50 per cent. And they reserve the right to return unsold copies. Just imagine this happening to, say, bananas. Both are highly perishable.
I am not saying this. One of the publishers said it. I have only added the banana bit.
Published on August 25, 2025