The last session: Managing the Translation Market

The last session of the conference dealt with “Managing the Translation Market”. With a panel of six members and moderator Arshia Sattar, this session tackled different aspects of translation in the publishing industry. The moderator emphasized on the value of translation, saying it “provides a whole new text for an audience to enjoy, even though a few things are lost in the process.” Arunava Sinha touched upon the market reasons for translation in India.

A representative of the National Translation Mission, Winston Cruz explained the vision and strategy of the organisation in his presentation. Rubin D’cruz took this opportunity to point out that languages in translation should not be referred to as central or regional as all are important and main languages. He also stressed on how important the National Book Trust and Sahitya Academy were in national enterprise building.

K. Satyanarayan, a Tamil publisher in his own right, discussed options for funding translations as well as the challenges involved in it. Other members of the panel included Neeta Gupta of Yatra Books who initiated the subject of tri-lingual dictionaries required in the industry, and Judith Oriol, the Book Attachee at the French embassy in India. “French publishers cannot ignore the Indian market anymore”, Ms. Oriol said.

A majority of the panel concluded from the discussion that there is a need for training and infrastructure to support translation in India today.

Session 6: Copyrights in Publishing

The important issue of “Copyrights in Publishing” was addressed in Session Six of the Conference on Day 2.Panelist G. R. Raghavender,Registrar of Copyrights, elaborated in detail on the Copyright Law and it’s Amendments till date.

Pranesh Prakash in his presentation put forth a very interesting thought. “Each one of us is a criminal for violating the copyright law”, he said. He pointed out that the problem with this law is that it brings very different activities under one banner.

Mandira Sen presented a PowerPoint briefly explaining Section 2(m) of the Copyright Law 2010. Kannan Sundaram gave a satirical viewpoint of Tamil publishing industry. Vinutha Mallya chaired the session on “copyright issues in publishing

Workshop 2: Social Media Marketing

Workshop on Social Media Marketing

This workshop was handled by two social media strategists, Maya Hemant and Maegan Chadwick-Dobson from Pratham Books and Tara Books respectively.

The use of common social media tools like blogs, twitter and facebook alongwith not-so-frequently used SoundCloud, Slideshare, Youtube and so on were dealt with. The audience was advised to devise their own unique social media strategy according to the personality of their distinctive companies. Problems and pitfalls were also discussed and videos were shown for better understanding of the topic.

Session 5: The Impact of Alternative Publishing

 The session on “The Impact of Alternative Publishing” witnessed active audience participation. One of the panellists, Michael Bhaskar stated that alternative publishing involves different forms or formats of publishing. Maitreyi Kandoi, added that alternative publishing included alternative content too. Another form of alternate publishing is “multi-lingualism which is the key to international exchanges”, said Elin Jones, Wales.

Chetna, founder of an ezine called Bubble Wrapped supported online media as being more convenient to start and reach out to people. Peter Griffin chaired this session and made it a very interactive one. 

Session 4: Publishing houses of the Future.

Session Four

Seven panelists from diverse backgrounds took the stage for the session on “Publishing Houses of the Future”.

Nilanjana Roy, a Delhi-based literary columnist and critic chaired this session and also addressed a previous discussion on whether print books would die, saying it is instinctive for us to turn back to paper in publishing. Atiya Zaidi, a publisher, said that publishing has a bright future especially in the education sector due to the need for textbooks in schools. Payal Kumar of SAGE Publications India, pointed out that all mechanisms in publishing houses are computerized, making work easier. Tremendous change has been observed. According to her, Publishers should catch up with technological advancements while taking stakeholders along. Sunil Patki, a Strategy and Business planning consultant felt the need for alot of training and understanding in terms of content published. Ulhas Latkar of Ameya Prakashan, Pune shared his experiences in independently publishing in regional languages. Trisha Gupta spoke from the perspective of a reader and put forth her views to the audience. Ramu Ramanathan, editor of PrintWeek India shared his opinions on the publishing scene while being a staunchly pro-books individual.

The session concluded with questions from the audience.

Technologies of the future-Indian and UK entrepreneurs

Presentations by UK and Indian entrepreneurs were organised on the topic of “Future technologies that bridge the divide: Making good in the absence of a supply chain.” The first presenter was Gavin Summers a Digital Services Manager from the UK. He suggested an innovative digital strategy called ‘Dynamic Learning’ and ‘Practise Every Question’ to improve on the print text book. The future of this technology, he said was to ensure accessibility of the book from anywhere, enable collaboration and keep the pace of change in tune with the market.

‘Valobox’ another novel idea was presented by Oliver Brooks from the UK. He discussed with the audience the idea of web-friendly books that have the characteristics of pay-as-you-go, peer-2-peer, premium content layer and revenue for publishers.

Titash Neogi discussed “Themeefy” an online book reading format which also serves as a platform for curated content. His presentation emphasized on the rethinking of fundamental business and personal values.

The next speaker was awarded the British Council’s Young Entrepreneur award in the current year. Ganesh Ram KR spoke about Mobileveda and eMahatva.

Learning from the music Industry's experience-Anish Trivedi

An unexpected but much welcomed session by Anish Trivedi ,  this veteran of the music industry came up and shared  his experiences with the changing music industry scenario over the last fifteen years.

With the onset of piracy , Torrent’s, itunes  and so on, the  industry attempted to protect themselves from the internet but eventually realised that there is no real way to do it. You cannot stop people from downloading free pirated tracks. The way out was to collaborate with online  mediums to make it easier and more convienent  for music to reach the people.

He drew parallels in this respect with the publishing industry, which had all authors and publishers present nodding their heads in agreement. The paradigm has changed he concluded.

Session 3: Book Marketing in the Age of Social Media

Session 3

Book marketing in age of social media received dynamic participation  from the audience.

The aim of the session was to cipher strategies to reach a reader via social media marketing.

Preeti   Vyas, a big believer in social media platform stressed on a one-on-one connection with the audiences .

Social networking is about finding out your personality and that of your company” said .Maegan Chadwick Dobson of Tara books, Chennai. More than just a marketing strategy, Social media should be used to develop a connect with your audience even before  you start penning your book. Kiruba Shankar stated that it was more enjoyable to author a book when you collaborate with people online.

Blogs, Twitter and Facebook were established as potential platforms for book marketing.Lipika Bhushan from  Harper Collins and Nikhil Pahwa of mediaNama.com shared  their views and experiences. Nikhil Pahwa stated that since the time gap between a consumers impulse and purchase has reduced, demands need to be met more efficiency.

Session 2: The Future of Independent Publishing

Great attention was given to the minute aspects of this topic. The chairperson Ms. Indu Chandrashekhar introduced the panel members, all of whom had rich experience on the independent publishing front.
Ms. Amrita Akhil, the Director of Marketing IPDA, in her presentation, elaborated on independent publishing, the marketing system followed currently and so on.
Mr. Alvito Barreto shared his personal publishing experiences and discussed the problems faced by independent book stores.
Ms. Radhika Menon and Ms Mandira Sen also gave their valuable inputs.
A healthy audience –panel interaction was then carried on for around 45 minutes.

Workshop 1: The Art of Academic Writing

Payal Kumar, Vice President, Editorial and Publishing at Sage Publications India, conducted the workshop on "The Art of Academic Writing". Addressing various aspects of the art, she stated the need for refined writing that will eventually help increase the chances of a piece of work being published.

"The main reason why scholars manuscripts get rejected by journal is due to the fact that they do not keep in mind their readership audience when writing. Another factor would be the distinctive style sheet of a journal that isn't followed."

Mr. Kumar focused on the aim and scope of academic writing along with topics like plagiarism, citation and open source publishing.She has also laid emphasis on the need for turning authors into publishers.

"Poor referencing reflects poor report writing", she said in her presentation.

The workshop ended with queries from the audience.

Publishing Next commences, "Where are digital books headed?"

CinnamonTeal unveiled its first ever International Conference "Publishing Next"-the next chapter in publishing has just begun. With the inaugural ceremony beginning at 9.30 am, the conference has evoked a large turnout of participants.
The first panel discussion dealth with the subject of "where are digital books headed?". Four panel members, James Bridle, Kailsh Balani, Prathiba Sastry, Radhika Menon, along with the moderator, Ms. Jaya Bhattacharji Rose deliberated on the scope of e-books in the quickly evolving media scene. Ms. Radhika Menon presented her views on the i-pads and the i-phones dominating the markets today. Digital books for children should aim at fulfilling the market demands of providing overall educative experience.
"E-books provide a window into the reading process" said James Bridle, Director of Bookake, U.K as he encouraged the use of e-books among all spheres, since they are more sophisticated and the content can be enchanced. Pratibha Sastry, Kailash Balani also shared their distinguished views on the subject. The session ended with an audience-panel discussion.