India may be the world?s third-largest market in English publications, but Andrew Philips, CEO & president, Penguin India, tells Ivinder Gill that the sector could be more organised and the books priced much higher

Andrew Philips has been in India less than two years as Penguin India?s CEO & president, running the company?s business in India, Africa and the Middle East. But the short time has been enough for him to learn the ropes of the local business, evident by the way he talks of authors and the Indian market.

He calls the Indian publishing market vibrant, alive and dynamic, letting us know that Penguin receives a large number of manuscripts from new writers, making up about 15% of the publishing house?s 250-odd books every year. ?Indians love to write,? he says.

But do Indians love to read as well? Considering that India has the third-largest English publishing market in the world, approximately 90,000 titles published each year in over 20 languages, and the industry growing at 30% year-on-year, the answer would have to be yes.

And what does India like to read, we ask him. He tries to go on the safe track, reeling off names like Amitav Ghosh and the ilk, but we steer him toward Chetan Bhagat and Amish Tripathi (both non-Penguin authors) and the popularity of, well, popular fiction. He concedes that yes, such books do sell well, saying that it?s also largely because of the lower pricing, naming Ravinder Singh?s Can Love Happen Twice? as Penguin?s answer to popular fiction.

But do market forces define much of the commissioning that is being done and if the reader is following or setting the trend? His answer is both yes and no. He points out that if a greater opportunity exists on the commercial end of the spectrum, why wouldn?t a publisher maximise on it. ?The volumes are better in mass books. At Penguin, we have imprints like Delhi Metro Reads, etc, for such books,? he says.

And, after all, he argues that it?s not as if publishers are stopping other books. ?All good stuff is still happening?non-fiction, literary stuff. These are trends, but the staples always remain. For instance, cookbooks suddenly got popular in the UK about ten years back and suddenly everyone was publishing cookbooks. I have just hired a lifestyle editor as well as a literary fiction editor,? he says.

And what about quality of publishing? He retorts that even if the book is priced lower, it is printed on the same paper as any other book and goes through the same stringent editorial and production process. Point taken.

He is also very excited about e-publishing, saying it will make books available in the remotest corner of the world. It will also make authors more global, he says. ?Right now, in every country, it is local authors who are the most popular, be it India, Africa or the Middle East, where Arab writers sell the most. With e-books, all these boundaries will be transcended. You will have Indian writers being read extensively in Canada and Canadian writers being read in New Zealand.?

Penguin India will also foray into e-books this month. It has also introduced a Penguin app that is available on BlackBerry and Android phones, besides tablets. The digital revolution will also help publishers reach small town India, which has emerged as an interesting market in recent years. For that, he tells us Penguin publishes lower priced versions of its popular books. Which brings us to regional writing, though Philips tells us Penguin is not doing very much right now in this space. ?But I can?t help thinking there is more opportunity here,? he says. But a start has been made, with a joint venture with Malayala Manorama to publish in Malayalam. Penguin is also translating its popular English books in Hindi, which include Ravinder Singh?s Can Love Happen Twice?, Amitav Ghosh?s The Glass Palace and River of Smoke; India after Gandhi by Ramachandra Guha and Prakash Iyer?s Habit of Winning. ?It?s time to look beyond English writing,? he says, though he rues that they can?t go the whole hog on this front as the volumes are not too big.

At this point, he mentions that the book market in Africa is better priced than in India, adding that books in India are quite cheap, and ?can be priced higher?. However, he hastens to add that there are a higher number of new writers in India.

Talking about publishing outsourcing, what with firms like Simon & Schuster outsourcing their technology support office to India, to name just one, Philips mentions Doris Kindersley?s operations in Noida, where around 300 people work in collaboration with the creative teams in the UK on the production of titles across the whole DK list. This team now produces more than 50% of the book origination in India.

And, has business been hit during the current economic environment?

He dismisses the theory of a slowdown in India, especially with regard to books. ?There is a value attached to a book.

They have a special place,? he says, adding that Penguin is doing fairly well and actually exceeded its targets last year.

?There may be a slowing down in India, but definitely no slowdown. Try living in Europe to know what a recession actually is,? he says.

We end the conversation asking him if he would ever write a book, following in his predecessor David Davidar?s footsteps. But Philips? answer is an emphatic no. ?Just as I won?t ever paint a picture, I won?t write a book. You will never see a book with my name on it,? he says.

We?ll see!