Supply at Your Risk
Achhe din are yet to come to the books trade which has been reeling under a tight money supply situation for a long time now. A big distributor, who also runs a retail chain in Kerala, has stopped paying publishers for the books sold to it. It has run credit of many lakhs with all major publishers. But the publishers cannot afford to stop sending books, as it holds the key to the Kerala market. Now, many publishers are in talks with the chain to negotiate the outstanding amount. Apparently it comes down to haggling for a few thousand rupees. With no blockbuster bestseller in the Indian market for a while, the books trade has hit a seller’s block.
Dance to a Book
Publishers tried it with blockbuster books like Amish’s Vayuputra—a trailer of the book, like of a film that were shown in theatres. Now even small books seem to be taking this route, though on YouTube. Sita’s Curse by Sreemoyee Piu Kundu has one tastefully done by Srinivas Bhashyam. As ads for new books are a rarity here and even book launches are exorbitant, this is a novel way to promote a book.
Chamber of Thrones
It is striking how Kalidasa’s early and relatively unsung work Malavikagnimitram (Penguin, translated by Srinivas Reddy), about a king and a dancer, attributed to early 5th century, could easily be a TV soap. It is full of love, lust, jealousy, betrayal, power games, scheming friends, mean relatives, good girls.... Human nature, after all, is just a game of thrones.
