In the league of extraordinary writers

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This is the company that published Jane Austen, Chares Darwin, Lord Byron and Flaubert, says Anurima Roy, publicity manager at Hachette India.
Hachette, one of the largest publishing groups in UK, burst upon the Indian scene in 2008. Anurima says the challenge then was to make up for being a late entrant in the market. With publishers like Penguin, HarperCollins and Random House that had been established players, it was important to build Hachette as a brand at the earliest possible. However, given the kind of names Hachette has under its banner, it wasn’t too difficult, she says. “We have a huge stable of names so our pedigree is high… but here we were new and went with a choice of new writing to begin with,” she says.
With its nine different companies straddling trade and education across literary and commercial genres, Hachette operates in every segment.
“This is what we bring to India too,” Anurima explains, “We began with a slight emphasis on commercial fiction but we are also going after literary and narrative non-fiction in a big way.”
On the subject of established writers vs new, Anurima, who has seen both editorial and marketing sides of the industry, says she personally, enjoys the challenge of working with new writers. “Working with established writers is also a pleasure since there is no pressure of having to establish names. Having said so, there is always the struggle to go steps higher with each book by an established writer and that’s exciting too,” she adds.
Stickler for quality, Anurima says Hachette books are good enough to be up on any international shelf. “The production flow is essentially planning the look and feel of a book that the editors, production department and our MD do at Hachette. We take the images we have and roll with them for our marketing campaigns.”
So did the “giant venture” tag save Hachette India from the trouble of convincing distributors? Anurima admits that with the top management having long years in publishing, and with an available depth and range of lists, it was easier. “But equally our local publishing began from a scratch and we had the challenge of building new names,” she says.
Anurima, who joined Hachette in 2008 as a part of its founding team, describes her journey so far as exciting. Publishing is a passion and one should get into it only if one loves books and the challenges that come with it, she says.
As a person who enjoys working with authors, Anurima reminiscences her first tour with debutant author Alice Albinia, as one of her most memorable moments.
With no ambitions of being a writer herself, Anurima believes it’s best if authors are guided by their instinct, “the only advice one can give is to write as you feel like; and for those in search of non-fiction or commercial genres look at the trends, and see what you can write that will interest readers.”
Publishing is a creative business but it is essentially also numbers’ business, she explains.
Each publishing house has a fixed brief in terms of how much it can publish, and what slots it needs, she adds. “So rejections may have nothing to do with the quality of a manuscript but merely a function of a submission not fitting a particular programme,” says Anurima.
About the publishing scenario, Anurima says that though the number of readers has increased over the years but a big percentage is reading cheap commercial rather than quality fiction: “People like to read stuff that is racy and easy rather than heavy literature that was the dominant trend earlier.” India is still in nascent stages of publishing, she says. The industry is beginning to grow, and grow fast, though currently threatened by a proposed amendment to the Copyright Act, says Anurima. She feels the industry is also bogged down by primitive marketing methods and the tedious cycle from supply chain to payment realisation. Though Pakistani writing is the new flavour and is catching up fast, she believes, India remains a non-fiction readers’ market and each publisher needs to have a healthy non-fiction list that could be a steady-backlist.
Anurima says she dreamt of being in publishing since school days and never wanted any other career. For those who wish to make a career in the industry, she says, passion for books is the key, money being secondary. It is one industry where you see most creative minds working at most innovative products.