Why is India’s book market struggling?

India’s book publishers are facing new challenges after the Covid pandemic because of the high cost of raw materials and soaring inflation.

Inflation, driven by high food and fuel prices, reached an 18-month high of 7.5% in April in India, according to a Reuters poll.

Publishers from across the country — for English and regional languages — say they have faced an acute shortage of paper and higher production costs for some months now. As a result, they are being forced to hike the prices of book

The average Indian spends less than $5 (€4.80) on a single book published in an Indian language. But there is a lack of data on the actual number of books published.

Dearth of data makes publishing trends difficult to discern

The British Council published a report in February called the “Indian Literature and Publishing Sector,” to make note of the challenges facing the Indian publishing world.

In the report, researchers noted that a 2007 study by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) found that half of the titles published in India were either in Hindi or English.

The FICCI report also said that around 90,000 titles were published every year. Researchers of the British Council report pointed to the “sporadic” tracking of the sector since there was no study undertaken on a regular basis.