If you do not like this book, return it and you shall get your money back. That?s the promise publisher Hachette India is making with their latest release, Delhi Durbar, a political thriller by Kishan Partap Singh. While there is no information on just how many people returned the book, the ploy is a first for publishing in India.
If the reader will not come to the book stores or portals, then let us go in search of them, seems to be the credo. Penguin India?s Spring Fever, a nine-day open air festival of books, was held in Delhi?s India Habitat Centre. ?The idea was to reach out to the potential customer, which we did with the participatory nature of the event, especially the evening sessions where writers read and discussed with audiences,? says Hemali Sodhi, vice-president, marketing and corporate communications, Penguin India.
A brave new word
Think new books just half a decade ago, and the traditional promotion was a book launch, very occasionally extended to a book tour for authors deemed big enough to warrant it. ?A book launch is a waste of money,? confided a disgruntled prominent publisher footing the bill for such an event at a luxury hotel. Out-of-the-box promotion meant a seminar, and innovative meant quiz. Even when Advaita Kala?s bestselling Being Single was released in 2007, it was more word of mouth promotion, points out the author. Book promotions definitely did not mean food festivals, fancy merchandise, cross promotions, tent cards, viral marketing, excursions to? dare one mention it? tier-II towns such as Chandigarh, Jaipur or even Raipur. Add vampire parties and yes, return gifts, and it begins to resemble an after party in a fashion week. In high season now, read most of the year, especially in the new capital for publishing in India, Delhi, there?s hardly an evening without a book launch, and on occasion, even big ticket ones by rival publishers have overlapped.
But for an emerging category of writers, launches are almost pass?, an afterthought. Marketing today starts early for trade books (Sector insiders divide books into educational and trade, which includes all else, including fiction). ?In its true sense, marketing kicks in when the book is conceptualised, acquired or commissioned,? says Vivek Mehra, CEO, Sage India. ?The commissioning/acquisition team is ?marketing? the sales potential of the book to the very first stakeholder?the author. It is at this time that a book?s market is defined.? Today for books, marketing goes beyond the 4 Ps of marketing, says Lipika Bhushan, marketing head, HarperCollins India. ?Its goal is to develop a literary taste in a country where reading isn?t as common a habit as in the western countries.? Easier said than done in a country where spending Rs 200 on a book has proven to be harder than Rs 2,000 on a meal. She admits that unlike in many mature markets, marketing in India still can enter at different stages of a book. However, she says there has been a substantial increase in the awareness about how sales figures get affected by marketing due to its affect on visibility and word of mouth among other things. ?Though there is still no way to quantify the effectiveness, there is a visible difference in the figures of the books that are marketed and the books that aren?t.?
In publishing, marketing is largely a composite of ?publicity and promotions? and actual marketing the way one would see it in an FMCG environment is rare, though there are occasional spurts of these, and every year we see a bit more of these, explains Anurima Roy, publicity manager, Hachette India. ?This is largely because of the low-price-low margin, resulting in relatively low marketing budgets. The whole industry operates on a multi-product model, as we have thousands of new products as against 10-12 brands that can generate high marketing spends.? For its first book, My Friend Sancho, released in May 2009, the publisher notched up various firsts, including a design contest for cover, the use of live media, besides a poster campaign, author tour and full distribution point of sale.
Each book and genre one picks to push requires separate planning to achieve that differentiator, says Roy, admitting that given the extensive lists for most leading publishers, that is the ideal situation. A book launch still works well for a literary author, says V Karthika, editor-in-chief, HarperCollins India. ?For Nandan Nilekani?s book, Imagining India, we did do the traditional six-seven city tour, which worked well as people wanted to meet and hear him, but we also ran a website for him where people could ask questions as well as ran a contest with Caf? Coffee Day,? Sodhi points to the combination of the old and the new. ?We have to look at unconventional ways of marketing,? stresses Mita Kapur of Siyahi, also pointing out the need for individual treatment of authors while drawing up plans for promoting their books.
Market forces
A publicist is all that a publishing house would have had just a few years ago, whereas today an author often chooses a publishing house based on competing marketing plans, points out Amrita Talwar, senior publicist, Westland, indicating the journey Indian publishers have traversed. With the kind of competition that is there in the market in terms of volume and value and with an increasing number of publishers are setting up publishing cells in India, it is becoming all the more important to market books effectively to stand out and to grab reader?s attention, feels Bhushan, who says the marketing budget on an average has increased by 25- 30% in the last few years. There is a definite budget today, which depends upon the book, genre and even print run. Sivaraman Balakrishan, deputy manager-marketing, Crossword Bookstores, says the budget ranges between 2 and 2.5% of total sales, while Roy estimates it to be about 5% of sales turnover.
Publishers are seeking newer and better channels of distribution. ?Retail space for books is increasing, libraries are becoming selective in their buying and every type of buyer is now looking to get the biggest bang for every buck,? feels Mehra. ?I feel India will overtake Western levels given the size of the market we have. It is true that in terms of per capita spend on marketing and the value realised for this spend is low, it is a matter of time before markets and customers in India mature.? Gifting is a major potential area, feels Sivaraman, who also has had an encouraging response to pre-reading of books. He admits that save for the Harry Potter books, little has been done in India to promote books. Not all are as sanguine.
?Marketing can help build bestsellers, brands etc, but for us to reach western levels, it has to work from higher price points,? feels Roy. ?India is a low-price market, especially for mass market products, for us to think of comparisons to the West. There are just four or five titles a year?a few superbrand authors?that can command high-priced hardback sales. With the bulk of our products priced at below Rs 295 (irrespective of volumes), it?s going to take a long time to build average volume and margin up to get spends or sales or revenue values like the West,? he adds.
The recent downturn forced many publishers to think innovatively. More than one trade publisher resorted to highlighting their back lists, while some concentrated only on high-selling genres. There were even some unexpected returns, such as The Chills and Thrills Campaign by HarperCollins saw a jump of about an average of 160% in the sales of the selected titles when the market was slow. Merchandising is an option to build a brand, and Penguin India actually sold branded hammocks at about Rs 6,000 each at this year?s Jaipur Literature festival, besides a host of other collectibles. ?We never realised there were such ardent fans of the brand,? says an editor. Penguin globally does merchandise branded products, and this might be a possibility in India some time in the not too distant future too, admits Sodhi.
Retail rollover
Retail remains a major bottleneck in the publishing industry. ?Our network of trade bookshops is still not even 400 strong, pathetically low for a country the size of India,? says Roy, adding, ?We need many more different format stores in the small town segments, which is still a long way off.? Retail chains have taken off, but are still a largely metro phenomenon. They are active on the promotion front, but their activities are more often than not exclusive to books, and as such do little to further the reading habit, says an editor of a leading publishing house. ?Oxford Bookstore comes up with a mega promotional plan at the end of each financial year, during which month we offer more than 50% discount to our customer,? says a spokesperson.
Virtual gain
The biggest gain for publishers has been in the virtual world. Largely unable to afford television, or even print rates, viral marketing has been the answer for just about every marketing department. ?Viral marketing works well as people tend to pass the mails on,? points out Sodhi, who says Penguin India has got a person dedicated for online marketing in the past year.
Social networking sites are high on the agenda for most publishers. Just about every book launch has a group, and innovative publishers promote themselves too. Commonwealth Writer?s Prize 2010, New Delhi is a recent group on Facebook, as are The Japanese Wife, Lessons in Forgetting, Dork by Penguin, Can?t wait to read Om Puri?s Biography and Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival 2010 among many others.
From an era of mass-mailing, we are now firmly in world of targeted mailing and it is getting more difficult to find the right target, says Mehra. ?What is yet to be established is a feedback mechanism that helps publishers focus their efforts,? he adds.
?We are market -driven more by fashion than by need,? says Bhushan, adding, ?Innovation will be required for bringing reading back in fashion. We are already setting new standards for ourselves. Every new campaign has to be different from the last one and one will have to constantly innovate to grow.?
The stakes are being raised. Karan Bajaj?s Johnny Gone Down is releasing with a print run of 50,000 copies, unprecedented in India where 5,000 copies sold was deemed a best seller less than five years ago. Bajaj feels that an author has to be proactive in reaching out to build awareness of the book as print runs are still low. ?The level of involvement in buying a book is higher, not just because of the price, but because of the time and energy you spend on the purchase after you?ve made it,? he says, adding, ?Readers like to be convinced that their patience in going through a fat book would be rewarded and hence, rely more on referrals than advertisements.? Marketing in Indian publishing is becoming more and more about big returns through big investments. The potential is immense, but just how large the dividends will be remains to be seen.