NEW DELHI: Bloomsbury India has an impressive line-up of titles in the next few months including autobiographies of Sheila Dikshit and Yashwant Sinha, a book by retired Justice Markandey Katju and a memoir of Sunil Dutt by his daughter Priya.
Bloomsbury Publishing, which completed its fifth anniversary in India on September 21, will also bring out Mohammed Hanif's new novel "Red Birds" and Shiva Khera's "You Can Achieve More" next year. Rajiv Beri, managing director of Bloomsbury Publishing India, says that when the company was set up in 2012, one of the prerogatives was to bring up own content and also that certain percentage of sales comes through these books.
"We are now publishing about 150 new titles every year and we are profitable, one of the biggest targets we had set, i.e., to be profitable within five years," Beri told PTI in an interaction. Next year, Bloomsbury India will launch a comprehensive academic publishing programme, he says, adding exclusive children's publishing is also being planned.
"By the end of 2018, we will be in every area barring educational books – trade, professional, academic and children," he says. The publishing house will also focus on translations and next year, J K Rowling's latest "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" will be available in seven Indian languages.
On the business of Bloomsbury, Beri says, "We are a company with varied strengths. We are a significant trade publisher, we have a category where children's books also come and Harry Potter is our USP. We are also an academic and a professional books publisher." He goes on to add that last year Bloomsbury India's sales grew by 46 per cent and this year another 25 per cent rise is expected. Beri rues that the general readership in India is very limited. "Thousands of books are coming out but as far as readership is concerned, it is not that encouraging," he says, adding publishers have to work out
Beri rues that the general readership in India is very limited. "Thousands of books are coming out but as far as readership is concerned, it is not that encouraging," he says, adding publishers have to work out on some way or the other to device some mechanism so as to increase the reading habits.