2019: Boom year for book publishers

When price hikes and domestic issues shook the country,  2019 was a year that held positive signals for the book publishing industry.

Figures indicate that the young generation have turned their eyes from cyber world to book pages.   In addition to printed book sales registering an ascent,  e-books and voice tapes of books also made considerable gains.  However, the segment among books that claimed the major share of the growth was not creative works,  but other categories.

Managing Director of Rupa Alif,  prominent pubishing house,  Kapish Mehra said that works published by his house like Shashi Tharoor's 'The Hindu Way',  Subramanian Swami's 'Reset' and  Sunil Ambedkar's 'RSS for the Twenty-first Century' recorded impressive sales.

Harper Collins India,  which publishes serious works, also had robust sales, says company CEO Anant Padmanabhan.   That it was able to release 'The Far Field'   written by Madhuri Vijay which won major awards like the JCB Prize and the Tata Lit-Live Prize,  gave the publishers an edge, he added.

Publishers 'Hachette India' also made major gains last year, according to the company's publisher and Editor-in-Chief Pulomi Chatterjee.  Among the works that sold during the year well were autobiographies of India's chess champion Viswanathan Anand and blade runner Major DP Singh.