The Indian publishing landscape is undergoing a major transformation. While print books continue to exist, e-books are posing a threat. India has a huge number of print book readers but the e-book culture is gradually gathering momentum as there is greater access to online content. E-books are expected to be a predominant form of reading in the years to come, and major publishers like Oxford University Press, Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Picador, etc, are all gungho about adopting newer methods of offering content to their readers. Urvashi Butalia, co-founder of Kali For Women and founder of Zubaan Books, said in an interview with Forbes India, that in India print books will be around longer as electronic stuff is not so easily accessible or affordable. However, it is important to note that nothing is certain and trends may change. Let us look at the five major publishing houses in India.
1. Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) publishes more than 4500 books per year, and OUP in India aims to advance learning and education through its publications. Established in Mumbai in 1912, OUP’s publishing falls under the academic, general and school education areas. Recently, OUP started a higher education programme to cater to the growing requirements of Indian colleges and universities. OUP is considered to be a foremost English Language Teaching (ELT) publisher in the country and publishes bilingual dictionaries in Indian languages. If you wish to publish an academic textbook for school learners, then you need to mail OUP your proposal along with details regarding proposed title, brief description, intended readership and a copy of your CV.
2. Penguin Random House
Penguin India and Random House merged in October 2013, with the aim to take publishing to the next level. Penguin Random House publishes books of many acclaimed authors in hardcover, paperback, audio and digital editions. The publishing company has more than 70 Nobel Prize laureates to its credit. If you wish to publish your book, you can send them an e-mail or a snail mail. If you are interested in self-publishing, you can get in touch with Partridge, a professional service that is a Penguin imprint in partnership with Author Solutions. Their services include pre-publication, publication, marketing and publicity and international print and digital distribution.
3. Pan Macmillan
Pan Macmillan India is one of the fastest growing publishers in the country. Established in 1998 in India, Pan Macmillan’s list of authors include V.S Naipaul, Aravind Adiga, Jeffrey Archer, Pankaj Mishra, Ken Follett and many others. Pan Macmillan has been publishing under the Picador imprint and it has recently added Pan and Macmillan, two new imprints for its commercial fiction and non-fiction publishing. Macmillan is renowned for its excellent academic, fiction, educational, non-fiction and reference publishing.
4. Harper Collins
Harper Collins Publishers India Ltd. has seen phenomenal growth and publishes fiction, poetry and non-fiction. Their list of authors includes diverse writers like Jyotsna Milan, Indu Jain, Doris Lessing, Paulo Coelho, Amitav Ghosh, The Dalai Lama and many more. Harper Collins has started selling its books, audio books and e-books directly to its readers through its web site. This is to ensure that their books are immediately accessible to their readers. Fourth Estate, Harper Perennial and Harper Litmus are some of Harper Collins’ local publishing imprints in India. In its attempt to control digital piracy, Harper Collins is all set to use digital watermarks by using a new anti-piracy technology to embed an invisible watermark into e-books at the time of transaction. These watermarks enable publishers to trace the source of piracy and take necessary measures to curb it.
5. Pearson India
Pearson continues to have a remarkable presence in the Indian publishing industry, with books tailored to suit Indian syllabuses. The publishing firm offers services ranging from publishing textbooks to teacher training to over 10,000 top-notch schools in India. Pearson’s books offer valuable insights from famous authors. Pearson also provides a range of e-books known as “eTexts.”
Image credit: Michael Day on flickr and reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://writingtipsoasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Smitha-Abraham.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]I’m Smitha Abraham. I love traveling in my flights of imagination and use these flights to craft short stories and poetry. I am a budding writer from India. My passions are reading, creative writing, listening to music, learning new languages, meeting new people, getting acquainted with different cultures and traveling. Authors like Isabel Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, genres like magic realism, historical romance, and writing styles that are imaginative and flow effortlessly fascinate me. I love to unwind with a book curled up on a sofa or by gazing at the stars by the sea shore. I am a nature lover and spending time admiring the sunset and sunrise is relaxing for me.[/author_info] [/author]