Figures for Royalty
With both Bloomsbury and Simon & Schuster planning to enter the Indian market, international books with Indian themes are becoming hot property. Earlier this month, BBC journalist Anita Anand’s proposed biography of Maharajah Duleep Singh’s daughter, Sophia, was snapped up by Bloomsbury UK and US, after beating seven publishers. The advance was a “large six-figure” sum, what in trade lingo is called a “good deal”—anywhere between $100,000 to $250,000. Anand accidentally discovered the story of the suffragist princess, god-daughter to Queen Victoria. The book, featuring among others Gandhi, Nehru, Queen Victoria and Churchill, apart from the princess who grew up in Britain at Hampton Court Palace, will be Bloomsbury’s launching title in India in 2013.
Bird’s Eye Empire
While Penguin is busy shedding its mid-listers, it’s going all out to woo the few remaining A-list authors with rival publishers. Amit Chaudhuri, a long-time Picador author, has moved with his entire backlist to Penguin. His new title with them will be Calcutta, slotted as one of Penguin India’s lead non-fiction titles of 2013. With nearly every major fiction and non-fiction Indian author in their stable, it’s going to be hard for them to pick their leading title.
Out-Scribbled
It’s the same problem of plenty that Penguin faces at its ongoing Spring Festival. Although the open-air festival is spread over two weeks, it can only accommodate a minuscule fraction of its authors, giving rise to a multitude of bruised authorly egos!
