Book gifting catches on  

As India’s consumers open up to reading more books, many of them written by homegrown authors, festival gifting of books is gaining traction

NEW DELHI: A recent study of global media habits by The World Culture Score Index put India at the top for the number of hours spent daily on reading by individuals. That’s certainly translating to reading more books, say the booksellers, adding that book gifting is emerging as a hot opportunity.
“It may not be aggressive yet, but replacing conventional gifts with books, especially during the festival season, is a trend set to grow,” said Anil Goteti, director, digital, Flipkart.com.
Flipkart will, in fact, specifically push book gifting during the upcoming festival season through a special ‘books gifting page’ that will display the range of books that have been exclusively handpicked for the purpose. “From children’s books to classics, we are releasing a range for gifting, as we have found that books are emerging as a promising new gifting category,” Goteti said.
Brick and mortar bookstores are also witnessing an increase in book gifting. “We have seen a huge rise in book sales and gift vouchers during the festive season. We have planned a gifting fest on books this year,” said Kinjal Shah, COO, Crossword Bookstores.
Book sales are growing overall. A very important reason is easy availability. Goteti explained: “A decade ago, readers were dependent on libraries and select shops for picking up books. Today, the mini stalls at metro stations, the delivery of books at your doorstep and the easy availability of e-books, have all made reading much more convenient.”

“A whole generation of youth, coming up from the BPOs, who are starting to read in English, are creating lot of new demand in the market for English language books,” said Jayant Kishore, founder, Bookstorez, a Delhi-based bookstore chain. “India is the only country where the English language books market is growing in double digits. Other markets are seeing flat or negative growth.”
The emergence of homegrown writers is also attracting more readers. According to the weekly top 250 bestseller list for India compiled by Nielsen, Indian authors account for over 50% of the titles. The categories of fiction, especially commercial fiction; business and self-help; and mind, body and spirit are now seeing the highest growth in Indian authorship.
“Earlier, most publishers were happy if an Indian author’s initial print run sold 2,000-3,000 copies. Today, at least a couple of authors are breaching the one million mark and several whose sales exceed 50,000-one lakh copies per title,” said Gautam Padmanabhan, CEO, Westland, the Tata Groupowned publishing house.
While globally, e-books are the next big promise, in India they are a small phenomenon, though Amazon.in is aggressively pushing the e-reader, Kindle. “Today, the e-books market in India is an addition to the physical books market, not an
NAME- RAJ GAURAV
    PGDM 1 SEM