How the launch of books starts to look like traffic jams

Copyright © HT Digital Streams Limit all rights reserved. The purpose of a book opportunity is to get people to buy the book, but most do not buy, and some only come for the free snacks. Consenting Getty Images Summary A panel of nine people to start a single book is a travestion that India’s publishing industry can afford to ask any writer, and it’s likely that they will admit that it takes a town to put out a book in the world. Start with the author, the process usually unfolds through a larger actors circle, most of which works behind the scenes, but each has a hand in the chain of events that transform words on a screen into pages, printed and bound, then displayed on the shelves, real or virtually. If the book happens to have a formal launch opportunity, it is when another ‘town’ gets a public broadcast. An example of this is an invitation I recently received to attend one such opportunity with not one, not two, but eight people on a panel to discuss a book – which eliminates the author. While this can be an extreme case of traffic jams on stage, it is usually equal to the course to have a four-five-person panel on such occasions. As someone whose career has been around the publishing industry for almost 20 years in some capacity, I was part of many book discussions, whether as hearing or participant. Until the middle of the 2000s, a certain novelty and anticipation would inform these meetings. Readers will wait a lot for the chance to meet and communicate writers. At the boom of the Jaipur Literature Festival, snake ropes after sessions were a common sight -and not just to get signed copies of “celebrity” writers. I can remember that I stood for an hour, one year to meet the author Geoff Dyer, who until then accepted that I had a niche fan in India at best. Then social media showed up and writers turned into ‘brands’, which became too accessible and sometimes too disappointingly transparent. The pandemic and the closure only made things worse. Although online promotional opportunities emerged from the cracks of the Internet, it has brought problems with associated problems: economic downturn, closures of bookstores, shift shifts, lower progress and royalties for writers. Booksloods somehow survived the crisis. For influencers, there is a logic for these opportunities as they can provide great attendance and major sales. Fewer mortals would be happy if the cost of the Chai and Samosas served to the guests was recovered from book sales. And then you have a Travestie half a dozen or more panelists on stage to get their 5-10 minute talk time during an hour-long occasion. It assumes that everyone is just as good in the time management as the moderator. Sometimes the moderator has to channel the aggression of prime-time news anchors to limit the alphas in the group. Therefore, my rule of thumb is to agree to only one-on-one conversations moderate or at most with two other people. But I wasn’t always happy. From a business perspective, the outcome of a launch is to get as many people as possible to buy the book. But most participants do not buy. Some come for the free snacks. Installing an entourage on stage, creating a cacophony of views, is even less likely to persuade the participants to buy the book. Reading is meant to be a private pleasure, not a competitive sport, which opens your superior tabs in your brain to detect what is being said. India bookstores across the country have begun to organize indie bookstores across the country that compiles a writer with an interrogator to ensure a more focused and intimate conversation. Ticket -book events also arrest. Paying to attend a launch is likely to bring in interested readers – and the organizers place on the organizers to put the event well. Some would call it gate. I praise it as strategic business skills. Catch all the business news, market news, news reports and latest news updates on Live Mint. Download the Mint News app to get daily market updates. More Topics #Features Read Next Story