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  • Goa, India

Publishing Next 2012

Dates: 14th September 2012 to 15th of September 2012
Venue: Krishnadas Shama State Central Library, Panaji, Goa – 403001. India.

Inaugural Address

Inaugural Speaker:

Panel Discussions
Getting Rookies On Board – the discovery and engagement of new authors: For new stories to be told and new ideas to be expressed, an infusion of new authors is often deemed necessary. This session will discuss how new authors can be encouraged to write and what must be the essential ingredients of an ecosystem that promotes new writing. Issues related to author and reader expectations will also be discussed.

Scope:

  • Methods to encourage creative/non-fiction writing
  • Managing publisher expectations
  • Making the process easier for authors to approach publishers and understand the demands of the industry
  • Promotion of new writers
  • Development of workshops, etc. that will encourage writing
  • Indian language writing
  • Understanding problems that writers face
  • Encouraging writers to experiment with writing/genres
  • Encouraging writers from the blogosphere to engage in the longer form

Panelists: Rakesh Khanna | Anil Menon | Annie Zaidi | Tanushree Hazarika | Vatsala Kaul-Banerjee | Vinutha Mallya

Expanding the Publishing Pie – Investment in the Publishing Sector: One constant refrain from those watching the publishing industry is that the same books are being written over and over again. This does not bode well for a culture steeped in learning and in storytelling. While new writers must be identified and encouraged to write, what are needed are also new publishing houses that will not hesitate to experiment with new writing forms or provide a platform for disparate voices. This session will discuss how new publishers can be developed and the publishing ecosystem expanded.

Scope:

  • Understanding why few new publishing houses are being set up
  • Making publishing a glamour job
  • Workshops, etc. to help publishers get started
  • Low cost funding for publishers
  • Mentorship for new publishers
  • Co-op methods for selling and distribution
  • Incentives to work with new genres
  • Digital-only imprints
  • Understanding other aspects of book publishing such as distribution and marketing. Do digital-only imprints make better sense?
  • Unique aspects of Indian language publishing

Panelists: Sunita Singh | K. Muralitharan | R. Sriram | Rajesh Jog | Subhromoni De | Sumit Bhattacharjee

The Bookseller’s Woe – Addressing demand-side issues: Despite significant improvements in infrastructure that aids transportation and communications, books haven’t been able to travel the last mile. This has resulted in a market that is starved of good books and in publishers who see the potential of their titles remain unrealized. This panel will seek to examine the issues related to distribution and sale of books and get a conversation started on how these issues could be tackled.

Scope:

  • Impact of online stores
  • Impact of lending libraries
  • Impact of technology on distribution (Has it been adopted and its potential realised?)
  • Reluctance of big-box retail to develop a strong online presence
  • Development of business intelligence
  • Addressing local demand (especially in case of Indian language books)
  • The impact of book reviews and marketing on book sales
  • Managing publisher expectations
  • Retail of digital books
  • Do we need online stores that sell only books? Is such a concept feasible?
  • Factors limiting growth of book distribution (Tied to growth of physical bookstores?)
  • Do publishers meet distributors’ requirements/expectations?
  • Are the marketing departments of publishing houses in sync with distribution issues?

Panelists: Ashish Goel | K. Vaitheeswaran | R. Sundar Rajan | Rahul Dixit | Vikrant Mathur

Marketing to a Young Audience – Getting children and adolescents to read: This session will discuss the third link in the chain that follows new authors and new publishers, namely new readers. With India increasingly becoming a young country, it becomes imperative upon publishers to attract young readers, especially when other media vie for their attention.

Scope:

  • Marketing tools employed for books for children/YA
  • Understanding reading habits among children (what attracts children to books)
  • Success stories where children have been drawn towards books
  • Books as educators, just not entertainers (development of “good” books)
  • Do we have to sacrifice substance over style to make books more appealing to children?
  • What are the competencies that publishers must build to develop books that children like to read?
  • What steps must be taken to develop good books in Indian languages?
  • Can TV extensions be better used to engage children?

Panelists: Sayoni Basu | Chandni Khanna | Shobha Viswanath | Suzanne Singh | Swati Roy

Academic Publishing – The way ahead: The prevalence of the Internet and the ease with which information can be searched for and stored for retrieval makes the academic publisher’s job a bit more challenging. With the advent of websites like Quora and Wikipedia (to name a few) and peer-to-peer collaboration becoming easy and convenient, academic publishers must rise to the challenge of making books, in its various forms, relevant and important to the academic community. This session will discuss how academic publishers can meet the various challenges facing it – challenges such as a) the digitization of content, b) the parsing of content i.e. the demand of academics to allow chapter-based access to textbooks, c) the need to incorporate cross media technologies and d)the need to engage with the academic community in knowledge creation and its documentation.

Scope:

  • How is value added to the traditional concept of a text-book so that they are kept relevant?
  • What should be the digital strategy of academic publishers?
  • Who should drive content creation (the call to commission/prescribe a book)
  • Is there scope for a chapter-based pricing model?
  • Academic publishers’ stand on DRM?
  • Is demand seasonal? Can any steps be taken to make it perennial?
  • Rights management
  • How should new blood be encouraged in academic publishing

Panelists: Vivek Mehra | K. Srinivas | Manoj Karthikeyan | Ranjan Kaul | Sanjiv Goswami

Language Publishing: Dead end or opportunities galore: On the one hand there is much happening in Indian language publishing, perhaps in no small measure due to Government and private initiatives. However, almost every discourse on Indian publishing tends to ignore Indian language publishing, much to the peril of the publishing industry. This panel will focus precisely on the opportunities in Indian language publishing and the challenges that must be negotiated by publishers when working in Indian languages.

Scope:

  • Understanding of the current language market through snapshots provided by a few publishers
  • Challenges faced in each market
    • Distribution
    • Author discovery
    • Publishing talent
    • Opportunity to add editorial value
    • Marketing outside one’s state
    • Impact of online stores on traditional retail outlets
  • Diaspora appeal
  • Perspectives on e-books

Panelists: K. Satyanarayan | Damodar Mauzo | Deepali Shukla | Subhadra De | Vikas L. Paranjape

Re-configuring the book – Leveraging digital technologies for effective story-telling: The manner in which digital technology has evolved, and that at an overwhelming pace, has allowed creative minds to enhance the process of story-telling through digital media. This technology has evolved both in its creation and its dissemination. This session will explore how publishers and content creators can collaborate to develop a rich story-telling experience.

Scope:

  • Selecting stories apt for digital technologies
  • Understanding technologies apt for digital development
  • Processes for conversion from text to image
  • Marketing of books
  • Usage of Indian fonts /motifs
  • Costs of development (ROI)

Panelists: Brij Singh | Dilip Kumar | Jai Zende | Jagdish Repaswal | Pratheek Thomas

Preservation of Oral Traditions: Much of ancient Indian literature was passed down generations through oral methods of communication. While India has been home to many ancient languages and scripts, many languages developed their scripts as recently as a couple of hundred years ago, so that their oral traditions could be recorded for posterity. Such an exercise poses several challenges including the need to be true to the original text. This session will examine various attempts to preserve oral traditions within the country and find ways to encourage and further develop such initiatives.

Scope:

  • Recording in original texts and in translation
  • Development of markets/marketing
  • Maintaining integrity of texts
  • Ensuring that languages are also preserved by publishing in them
  • Ensuring proper archival and preservation methods
  • Developing a strong translation support system
  • Developing scholarship in oral traditions
  • Making publishing of oral texts attractive to publishers

Panelists: Venetia Kotamraju | Arun Maheshwari | Desmond Kharmawphlang | Ganesh Devy | Nilima Sinha

Workshops
Self-publishing from an author’s perspective:

Conducted by: K E Priyamvada

Metadata for effective selling:

Conducted by: Murthyraju M R K

The Art and Science of Book Production:

Conducted by: Dinesh Ingawale | Suresh M Nair

Developing Graphic Books:

Conducted by: Aniruda Sen Gupta | Pratheek Thomas | Rakesh Khanna | Sayoni Basu

Developing an e-book version:

Conducted by: Shobha Viswanath

The Art and Science of Book Production (Printing Technologies):

Conducted by: Dinesh Ingawale | Suresh M Nair

Developing books for mobile devices:

Conducted by: Jibin Thomas

ROI on Digital Investments:

Conducted by: Brij Singh

Unconference:

Conducted by: Kiruba Shankar

Insight Talks
Insight Talks by R Sriram and Shobha Viswanath:

Conducted by: R Sriram | Shobha Viswanath

Insight Talks by R. Sundar Rajan:

Conducted by: R. Sundar Rajan

Insight Talks by Ashish Goel:

Conducted by: Ashish Goel

Insight Talks by Badri Seshadri and Ganesh Devy:

Conducted by: Badri Seshadri | Ganesh Devy