Till about six years ago, literature festivals were an obscure or rather unknown phenomenon in India. One was more habitual to book fairs, those too in major cities, where one would go and perhaps buy books for a year?s worth of reading. The concept of a literature festival?deliberative, interaction-oriented and focused on the development of literature and the dialogue around it?as we now know, just didn?t exist. But today, India can very well boast of its own literature festival circuit, with more than 25 big and small such festivals being held annually. An interesting trend is the increasing number of tier-II and III towns entering the literature festival club. It?s not just Mumbai, Kolkata or Chennai hosting literature festivals, cities such as Agra, Kasauli, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Lucknow and Thiruvananthapuram are hosting them too, signifying an increasing market for publishers in these smaller cities. A combination of different factors and market forces have driven this trend forward.
The recently held three-day Taj Literature Festival in Agra exceeded the organisers? expectations in terms of the crowd response. ?We had seating arrangements for about 1,000 people and on all three days, the number of people who came in far exceeded the number of chairs we had. We had set up five book stalls at the venue and all of them were sold out by the end of the festival,? says Harvijay Singh Bahia, chairman of the organising committee for the festival, which saw an impressive line-up of authors and other personalities such as Amish Tripathi, Pawan K Verma, Raghu Rai, Muzaffar Ali, Prahlad Kakkar and Shobhaa De.
Bahia adds that such festivals help book lovers in small cities to interact with authors and develop a mature outlook towards reading and literature. ?Such festivals are extremely important for a small city like Agra. There are a lot of people interested in reading, but it?s not possible for everyone to visit the Delhi World Book Fair or the Jaipur Literature Festival. Such festivals serve that segment and help in developing reading habits,? he says.
?English literacy has progressively increased in India and these smaller cities are an extremely lucrative market for publishers. It?s going to be an increasingly important market for us in times to come. We took a conscious decision five years ago to enter tier-II and III cities by working on our distribution channels to further market penetration,? says Kapish Mehra, MD, Rupa Publications India. Ananth Padmanabhan, vice-president, sales, Penguin Books India, feels literature festivals and book fairs in smaller cities go a long way in bringing publishers closer to consumers, considering that many smaller cities in India do not have bookstores that can offer a wide range of titles. ?Over the past four years or so, these markets have shaped up well and are extremely lucrative. The reader profile is changing, more and more youth now are interested in good-quality English writing and one of our focus areas is to penetrate into these markets with a proper and solid supply chain,? he says. As far as Penguin?s turnover is concerned, while a major chunk, an almost 70%, comes from the top 25 cities in the country, smaller towns contribute around 30% share, which too is substantial, considering that a few years ago this number was negligible.
While major book retailers have been cringing at the changing market dynamics due to an explosion of online retail in India, publishers see it as a boon as it has fuelled demand in smaller towns, and has created a robust supply channel. Industry estimates put Flipkart?s (the biggest player in the segment) reach alone at over three million. ?The lack of good bookstores in smaller cities is not that much of an impediment now. Online retail has facilitated and supplemented the growth in these markets and now is a very important aspect of the distribution process,? says Pramod Kapoor, founder of Roli Books. VK Karthika, chief editor and publisher, HarperCollins India, agrees. ?The advent of online retail in books is really opening up newer segments of the market where the publishing industry in general faced logistical hassles. It has provided another distribution platform and that’s good for the sector,? she says.
But it?s not all about economics as the returns from these festivals and fairs don?t always meet the cost a publisher has to bear to participate in them. They are increasingly looking at these festivals as marketing initiatives and towards developing a literary culture in newer markets, which is a long-term process. ?The impact of these festivals and other such activities will be visible in the medium to long run. We don?t go into it expecting high or immediate returns. It?s about developing and nurturing new geographies as markets,? says Padmanabhan of Penguin. For publishers, who have for long focused most of their energy, resources and time on big cities, these festivals provide a great opportunity to interact directly with readers and consumers in smaller cities. On the other hand, readers get to interact with authors, publishers, develop tastes and actually experience a much wider range of books, which they would hardly ever get to do at local bookstores. ?These festivals and fairs in smaller cities are, for the time being, a tool to develop reading habits and bringing these markets into the mainstream. It?s about generating interest, the rest will automatically follow,? says Kapoor of Roli Books. However, he adds that going forward, it will be interesting to see how many of these festivals can prove to be sustainable. This view is also shared by Mehra of Rupa. ?The rate at which literature festivals are sprouting everywhere, one should expect a shake-up in the next few years. In due course of time, we will know which festivals survive and which fall off the curve. We might even see smaller festivals and fairs merging into larger ones,? he says.