http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/interviews/You-have-to-protect-your-imprint/articleshow/7728622.cms
'You have to protect your imprint'
Permanent Black is one of India's leading academic publishers and the publisher is Rukun Advani. He interacted via email with Deep K Datta-Ray:
How do you decide what to publish?
You define your publishing areas. In our case, broadly, scholarship on the history, politics and sociology of South Asia. Then you try to acquisition from the most respected people in your field. Second, once you've read quite a lot of the literature in your chosen areas, you develop an instinct for intellectual quality and writing of international calibre. Third, you gossip, develop intellectual networks, to discover new currents and scholars, then chase and pounce. Finally, you get academic feedback on what you've netted and offer a contract if the feedback favours publication. These are the acquisitioning and decision-making procedures of university presses in the West. We broadly follow them. People often offer publishers money in the form of a subsidy or buyback. This may be good for the bottomline, but if such offers are accepted indiscriminately, it dilutes an imprint. If you're in this business for the long haul, you have to protect your imprint. This means you have to decline to publish a lot and accept only what you're absolutely sure of.
How does academic work on India, and done here, compare with what is done in the West?
The best from Delhi and Kolkata is as good, if not better, than from the West. On average, Indian scholars who are strongly grounded in local debates and cultures and languages produce the best. They have some advantage over non-Indian scholars, whose research funding is bigger but who aren't really breathing in the air. On the other hand, western scholars usually have more fluent English, and their institutions pressurise them to publish or perish. These differences have been erased to an extent. Scholars now travel very frequently between India and the West. Globalisation has helped raise this field to an entirely international level.
What are the main failings of Indian manuscripts?
Manuscripts by Indians, on average, need more work before becoming publishable. But for an editor this can be the happiest part of the process. If your editorial and production standards are good, they create enduring relationships with authors. The main failings in Indian publishing pertain less to editorial and acquisitioning than to marketing and sales. India's academic books market is too dependent on state funding to libraries. The low quality and high corruption levels of the Indian library system are big problems, increasing the costs and lowering quality.
What is the market share for academic books? What academic fields are of interest to readers?
In relation to school and college textbooks, the academic books market is very tiny. It's a niche area where if you sell 1,000 copies you've done well. Because of the West's problems with Islam, South Asian studies has attracted relatively better funding, resulting in a higher share of revenue from exports. Currently, academic books in South Asian studies that sell 1,000+ are often about Islam, Kashmir, forests, Hindu nationalism, Dalits, and women's issues. A book studying a forgotten tribe of low-caste jihadi Muslim women operating out of the forests in Kashmir and targeting the RSS would be my Da Vinci Code.
Is there anything special you do to publicise and distribute books by Indians internationally?
We've been successful selling co-publication rights for markets outside South Asia to university presses at Princeton, Columbia, Berkeley, and many others. For sales within India, the publisher's distributor is crucial. Orient Blackswan is largely responsible for our success. They have made our books available locally and globally via indigenous booksellers as well as international websellers.
How do you decide what to publish?
You define your publishing areas. In our case, broadly, scholarship on the history, politics and sociology of South Asia. Then you try to acquisition from the most respected people in your field. Second, once you've read quite a lot of the literature in your chosen areas, you develop an instinct for intellectual quality and writing of international calibre. Third, you gossip, develop intellectual networks, to discover new currents and scholars, then chase and pounce. Finally, you get academic feedback on what you've netted and offer a contract if the feedback favours publication. These are the acquisitioning and decision-making procedures of university presses in the West. We broadly follow them. People often offer publishers money in the form of a subsidy or buyback. This may be good for the bottomline, but if such offers are accepted indiscriminately, it dilutes an imprint. If you're in this business for the long haul, you have to protect your imprint. This means you have to decline to publish a lot and accept only what you're absolutely sure of.
How does academic work on India, and done here, compare with what is done in the West?
The best from Delhi and Kolkata is as good, if not better, than from the West. On average, Indian scholars who are strongly grounded in local debates and cultures and languages produce the best. They have some advantage over non-Indian scholars, whose research funding is bigger but who aren't really breathing in the air. On the other hand, western scholars usually have more fluent English, and their institutions pressurise them to publish or perish. These differences have been erased to an extent. Scholars now travel very frequently between India and the West. Globalisation has helped raise this field to an entirely international level.
What are the main failings of Indian manuscripts?
Manuscripts by Indians, on average, need more work before becoming publishable. But for an editor this can be the happiest part of the process. If your editorial and production standards are good, they create enduring relationships with authors. The main failings in Indian publishing pertain less to editorial and acquisitioning than to marketing and sales. India's academic books market is too dependent on state funding to libraries. The low quality and high corruption levels of the Indian library system are big problems, increasing the costs and lowering quality.
What is the market share for academic books? What academic fields are of interest to readers?
In relation to school and college textbooks, the academic books market is very tiny. It's a niche area where if you sell 1,000 copies you've done well. Because of the West's problems with Islam, South Asian studies has attracted relatively better funding, resulting in a higher share of revenue from exports. Currently, academic books in South Asian studies that sell 1,000+ are often about Islam, Kashmir, forests, Hindu nationalism, Dalits, and women's issues. A book studying a forgotten tribe of low-caste jihadi Muslim women operating out of the forests in Kashmir and targeting the RSS would be my Da Vinci Code.
Is there anything special you do to publicise and distribute books by Indians internationally?
We've been successful selling co-publication rights for markets outside South Asia to university presses at Princeton, Columbia, Berkeley, and many others. For sales within India, the publisher's distributor is crucial. Orient Blackswan is largely responsible for our success. They have made our books available locally and globally via indigenous booksellers as well as international websellers.
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