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I’ve recently returned from chairing the Professional Publishing in Asia 2008 conference in New Delhi, which was held on the eve of the New Delhi World Book Fair.
Imagine the European Union (EU) announcing that it was going to adopt English as its preferred language. Imagine the publishing opportunities that would stem from half a billion people in 23 countries suddenly starting to buy English-language books.
In fact, there is an English-language market of that size in the process of developing. India is predominantly English-speaking (at least in business and education), comprises 22 states, has twice as many people as the EU, and is predicted to overtake the EU as an economic power by the middle of the century.
While there are no official figures, it is generally asserted that the Indian book industry produces around 80,000 new titles each year, in English and in the country’s 21 other official languages. Of these 80,000, between 7000 and 8000 are published in the areas of science, technology and medicine—what we know as the STM market. It’s in this market in particular where India is making great steps forward.
According to N K Mehra, managing director of educational publisher Narosa Publishing House, the growth of STM publishing in India is begin driven by a huge growth in the educational sector. India now has over 220 universities, 11,000 science colleges, about 1000 polytechnics (TAFEs), 1394 engineering colleges and 250 medical colleges. That’s quite market to sell to, but also an enormous source of graduates and post-graduates (12,000 PhD students enter the workforce each year). Vikas Gupta, managing director of John Wiley & Sons India, calculated that about 20% of all academic journal content is already sourced from Asia. With the Indian government set to double its investment in education as a proportion of GDP, that figure must surely rise.
In addition to information technology, in which India is already an acknowledged leader, other areas of growing expertise include space research, oceanography, medicine (India produces over 22,000 new doctors each year), oil and resources, biotechnology, nano-technology, life sciences and engineering. As it moves from being a follower to being a leader in these disciplines, so the demand internationally for Indian texts is growing, and will continue to grow. Previously, other developing countries such as China, Thailand and Russia have published Indian expertise, but as the number of Indian PhDs increases across the world, so Indian academic priorities are gaining a greater sway in Western academic publishing too.
As well as being a strong provider of STM and educational content, and a growing market in its own right (although book prices are still roughly a fifth of US prices), India is also a leading provider of publishing services. This covers not only prepress and printing services, but also data entry, web development, map-making, design, editorial services, typesetting, software development and programming.
The number of international publishing companies either outsourcing to India, or running their own publishing services there—Elsevier, Dorling Kindersley and BBC Learning, Butterworths and Cengage among them—is already impressive. According to Pradeep Gupta, chief executive officer of Cybermedia (a US publishing services company with operations in India), the US$30 billion outsourcing industry in India will double between now and 2010, as more and more companies focus on their core competencies and outsource everything else in an attempt to maintain their margins.
While web development is likely to drive growth in the STM market, which is particularly suited to online delivery channels with their global reach, more traditional services are also likely to grow. Satish Malhotra, chief executive officer of Swan Press, told the conference that job printing alone had grown by 62% between 2006 and 2007, as India’s 130,000 printers invested in more modern plant and equipment, spurred on by major tax incentives provided by the Indian Government.
‘India is one of the biggest markets outside the US for Wiley,’ asserted Vikas Gupta, who also let slip that Wiley’s Indian profits are among its highest too.
I came away from Professional Publishing in Asia 2008 with the sense that, notwithstanding issues of quality, copyright, and the endless SPAM we all seem to receive from Indian printers, India is moving inexorably towards being the workshop of the publishing world.
Whether it’s outsourcing an otherwise costly part of your production process, buying or selling rights, creating Indian editions of content, or setting up a new business in partnership with a local service provider, there are opportunities here to pursue.
HarperCollins India publisher Karthika V K told the conference that, after years of publishing in English only, the multinational was following Penguin India into the Hindi market. This would create another 15 million potential readers for HarperCollins’ books. Certainly, with the growth India anticipates, the sooner you get into India, the better.
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