The New Delhi World Book fair gaining more popularity among book lovers
Major publishing houses like Penguin India, Oxford University Press, Harper Collins and Rupa Publications have given the Delhi Book Fair a miss this year.
With the New Delhi World Book fair gaining more popularity among book lovers, it is giving its Delhi counterpart a tough competition as leading publishing houses have already started gearing up for the international fair scheduled for January next year.
"The World Book Fair is now running annually in Delhi with greater trade emphasis, so we have focused our presence as a publisher at that," Caroline Newbury, Marketing Head, Peguin India, said.
Penguin Hindi had put up their stall at the Delhi Book Fair last year with popular classics like "The Mahabharata" along with Hindi translations of widely read Indian authors like Amitav Ghosh's "Glass Palace" and RK Narayan's "Guide." This year, however, there is no direct participation by the publishing house, and the books are only available with a couple of local sellers at the fair.
"We obviously want to ensure that our books reach the widest possible number of readers and so we have worked with a local bookseller to see that our books are available at the fair," Newbury said.
The Oxford University Press, too appears to have followed suit with the publishing house's books being available with different sellers but a stall of their own is clearly not to be seen at the fair.
Harper Collins too sees the World Book Fair as a more promising trade platform than the Delhi book Fair.
"The World Book fair is a bigger and an all-year-round affair. We did participate last year in the Delhi book fair but this year we chose to concentrate more on the international fair," Iti Khurana, Marking Manager, Harper Collins said.