Bibliofile
With Ravi Dayal's untimely demise, all eyes in the publishing industry are on his one-man imprint...
House Hunting, Anyone?
Seems like shopper's paradise in the industry just now. Another publishing house reportedly ready to sell is Konark. Its list may not be as classy as Ravi Dayal's but Konark has an impressive list of non-fiction bestsellers of the ilk of President A.P.J. Kalam, former CEC T.N. Seshan and PMO memoirist B.N. Tandon. Abroad, prospective bidders consult professional valuers who analyse the liabilities and assets of the publishing house on sale but here a publisher mostly follows his own nose for the books on the list. Starting bids can be anywhere from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 crore or more.
Getting Chiki
Talk of blood ties cutting across rival houses: Random House's newly appointed editor-in-chief Chiki Sarkar, now with Bloomsbury, is the daughter of Penguin proprietor Aveek Sarkar. "Now we're related by blood," is how a Penguin editor greeted her rival in Random House.