The future of Indian Publishing Industry - Takeaways from EBC online discussion

I was recently invited to the Elegant Book Club's first online literary festival which they had organized on the occasion of the club's second anniversary. The panel comprised another fellow author Vikkas Arun Pareek alongside me, and couple of publishers, Dhrumin Chheda and Samyuktha Nair, and I can't emphasis enough about the learning experience I had from this session. All speakers along with the moderator, Falguni Jain, contributed so well on the topic, complementing each other's points while also ensuring they don't miss taking away some learnings. I instantly decided to write about it so more readers can read about it, and here we go.

Experience in the industry

The discussion started with talking about everyone's experience in the industry, and as one would expect, it differed for the authors and the publishers. While the authors wished to get more support and engagement with their publishers, Samyuktha clarified that the publishers are mandated to have email communications, which might seem transactional sometimes. We all agreed on the need to have frequent and transparent communications to come to a consensus since the book is what connects them.

Format of book publishing

The discussion further proceeded to how the book publishing format is evolving amid the technological advancements. Pandemic has changed things for good and now we have many new formats finding traction. E-books and audiobooks are on the rise and seeing unprecedented adoption among readers, and definitely help in growing the reach of any book. However, certain reader segments and genres still haven't found home in these upcoming formats. A new set of video content, through film adaptations are also on the rise, something which has been quite successful in UK and US. Moreover, there is a new evolving concept of interactive or AR e-book where the content changes based on your interaction with the book, but it's still at a very nascent stage. All said, these new formats are only helping uncover a new target segment and can't be called as replacing the classical paperback format.

How is AI changing the landscape

This section started with the rising trend of AI-generated content included in books, so much that sometimes the entire book is AI-generated. It's usually discouraged by the publishers, since copyright protection becomes difficult. AI-generated content is built using a model which is trained on multiple different sources, and hence there is a limitation to the number of sources to which copyright can be issued. Beyond content creation, industry is also finding AI adoption in supporting tasks such as creation of marketing collaterals or getting research information. It can be a good assistant in gauging the writing style, being a beta reader and critiquing the editing, however one has to be cautious of the data security in such cases since they'll need to share the entire manuscript with Gen AI tools. Overall, there is a need for better governance in managing AI usage within the industry.

Trends among readers with respect to content

We have all witnessed the growth of reader base towards non-fiction and mythology fiction, which are among the most successful ones in recent times. Another upcoming genres is books pertaining to armed forces, so much that even Penguin has an imprint for this. As also seen in our previous article, readers choose books primarily based on author, series, or whether it's converted to video format. New readers look for easy reads. Message oriented book.

Poetry used to be the most submitted genre, still trending. Fantasy romance among young adult readers is an untapped market in India. Foreign writers do well in this area. Books written for young adults cater to much younger audience. Books with Indian characters and settings are often sidelined, but probably because audience are exposed to that.

How will the publishing industry shape-up

With everyone in the ecosystem getting more connected, and therefore information availability being less of an issue, it will be beneficial to all parties in the ecosystem and facilitate a more informed decision making. Authors, publishers, agencies, etc. will have a better point of view owing to shared experiences. There is also an expectation that democratization of the industry will add more players at every layer, including creators, publishers, distributors, editors, marketers, designers, agencies, etc. This will not only lead to a better selection and therefore quality output, but also call for better collaboration among all these layers. These are exciting times for the publishing industry, and technological advancements are only going to add to the fun.

Overall, the discussion which was supposed to last for an hour ended after over 90 minutes, and all the speakers felt like it should've continued. There were some interesting perspectives shared, some useful information bits exchanged, and some nice anecdotes to add to the fun. Publishing industry is ripe for a transformation indeed, and we're glad to be at the center of that action.