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A new chapter

Book publishing is enthusiasm-driven, says Simon Littlewood of Random House, who recently launched the publishing house's India wing. SANGEETA BAROOAH PISHAROTY reports

"Book publishing is not like any other business, it is a business of passion. It is enthusiasm-driven surely," says Simon Littlewood, International Director of Random House. He is in the country to launch Manju Kapur's third work of fiction, "Home". Incidentally, the launch marks the opening of the publishing house's India wing

Quick to respond to the congratulations about Random House pocketing the respected Activair Award for Book Exporting at the London Book Fair, an award received in succession for two years, Littlewood is all smiles.

"The award says that somewhere we are doing something right. Mind you, this award is significant because it is decided by the customers."

Book exporting, he says, is now a fledging business worldwide as people have begun to be more aware about the latest good book or the newest sensation of an author.

"The media has played a big role in it though the most important role here is being played by the Internet," he feels. Random House's bestseller, Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" is an example he puts forth. "Also, the sooner a book is formally exported, the better it is to put a cap on piracy," he believes. On May 19, coinciding with the release of Columbia Pictures' film based on Brown's book, Random House will launch the India edition of "The Da Vinci Code", a book that has long been available in India thanks to pirating.

Very clear about what he expects the India wing to hunt for at present, Littlewood though looks at exporting of Indian books as "a natural fallout" of publishing Indian authors here.

Recently, the UK division of Random House bought the rights of Chetan Bhagat's "A Night @ The Call Center" from Rupa, and so in a way, the book exporting business has already begun from India.

Littlewood says, "We want the India division to publish primarily Indian stories by Indian authors and that need not be just fiction. It could be about the history of an institution too, but something that has a good story to narrate. We are not looking at going by the quantity of books we need to publish in a particular time span. The stress will be on quality. It is simple, if we don't get a good book, we don't publish any."

Though the India operations started in July last year, "about the same time as the South Africa division", Littlewood says, unlike South Africa, the number of books sold in India besides academic books, "is as big as the sale size of New Zealand with just four million people."

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