2019 was satisfying for publishers, non-fiction titles dominate

New Delhi, Jan 5 (PTI) For publishers in India, 2019 was a satisfying year in terms of books y brought out and success y h in reaching out to reers and commercially as well.

year was also gratifying for many publishing houses as it brought national and international acclaim for a number of ir authors.

Summing up year, HarperCollins India (HCI) CEO Ananth Pmanabhan says, "We continued to buck trend and grow faster than market. Our new books, what we call front list, grew at a high double digit and our back list held its ground in a year when market saw a few troughs."

HCI also h two major publishing partnerships with Juggernaut Books and Harvard University Press to exclusive represent ir sales and distribution.

"HarperCollins is also uniquely positioned in India as a publisher in education under Collins Learning imprint and in 2019 our growth trajectory continued as we increased our reach into schools significantly and our textbooks are w being taught in over 5000 schools," Pmanabhan told PTI.

year saw many authors of HCI and ir books win awards across fiction, nfiction, business and children's - JCB, Atta Galatta, TATA Lit Live, Gaja Capital, Prabha Khaitan, Sushila Devi, BICW, IBBY Hours and Gourmand Cookbook Award.

"It has also been a year of extraordinary debuts across genres - several astonishing new voices, including, amongst m, Mhuri Vijay whose ' Far Field' was also most celebrated fiction of year, going on to win JCB prize and Tata Lit Live prize," HCI CEO says.

Milee Ashwarya, Publisher (Ebury Publishing and Vint Publishing), Penguin Random House India, says 2019 was a very eventful year in terms of politics, social issues, environment and young India finding its voice.

"This h a direct impact on our publishing list, and we published timely, topical and new voices in fiction and n-fiction. We h best election list, war/hero stories, lifestyle books and popular as well as literary fiction," she says.

"I would say we learnt to understand better what reers want to re and how we can get best books in formats y would like to re m be it audio, ebook or physical," she ds.

Rupa Publications MD Kapish Mehra says at Rupa Aleph, y h opportunity to publish many successful titles in n-fiction in 2019.

"Ranging from ' Hindu Way' by Shashi Tharoor (Aleph), 'Reset' by Subramanian Swamy (Rupa), 'RSS for 21st Century' (Rupa), 'Blue Lotus' (Aleph), it was a year that was dominated by n-fiction writing which was spre across spectrum ranging from politics to philosophy to religion to self help It was a well-rounded publishing programme," he says.

Publisher and Editor in Chief Hachette India Poulomi Chatterjee says house h a terrific year of wonderful books and great results across ults' and children's lists.

"In ult n-fiction segments we've h tremendous success with inspirational and standout autobiographies of Viswanathan Anand and India's first ble-runner Major D P Singh as well as two popular books on specific areas of India's history - Archana Garodia Gupta's ' Women Who Ruled India' and Subhra Sengupta's 'Mahal'," she says.

"We've kept abreast with analysis and commentary on hot-topic debates with Gautam Das's award-winning 'Jobomics' on India's unemployment crisis, Sanjoy Chakravorty's ' Truth about Us: Politics and Information from Manu to Modi' and Pavan Lall's incisive study of white-collar crime in 'Flawed', on rise and fall of India's diamond mogul Nirav Modi," she says.

Hachette's food narratives were in spotlight again - Saee Koranne-Khandekar's "Pangat" on Marathi culture and food (which also won CNT Excellence in Food Writing Award), Aothi Vishal's "Business on a Platter", an incisive look at restaurant business in India, and Saf Hussain's "Daastan-e-Dastarkhan" on Muslim cuisine from across country - received all-round praise, Chatterjee says.

"We've always been champions of debut fiction writers and this year has been different. In our selective and small fiction list we've h privilege to publish Dharini Bhaskar's very accomplished 'se, Our Bodies Possessed by Light' and Varun Maw's cutting political satire ' Black Dwarves of Good Little Bay'," she says.

According to Chatterjee, science fiction and fantasy is a genre Hachette has been focusing on building because re is such a massively talented pool of writers out re, and great stories for every reer to enjoy.

"We started 2019 with hugely acclaimed ' Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction' featuring kwn writers in genre and new voices as well, and followed that up with a stellar collection of fantasy stories by 14 women writers in 'Magical Women' and ar volume by Hugo and Nebula award-winner S B Divya titled 'Contingency Plans for Apocalypse'," she says.

Pan Macmillan MD Rajdeep Mukherjee says 2019 was a significant year during which it published some table nfiction and fiction in India and also globally.

story of Sunanda Pushkar, biography of Flipkart, Naguib Mahfouz's unpublished stories, Simon Taufel's professional guidance and "52 Red Pills" by Eika and Siddharth Banerjee were some of highlights of Pan Macmillan

On international front, it came out with Jeffrey Archer's "thing Ventured", "Moment of Lift" by Melinda Gates, "Permanent Record" by Edward Swden and Elton John's memoir "Me" among or books.

Juggernaut publisher Chiki Sarkar says it h a "range of big hits which included Rajat Gupta, 'Early Indians', and new book by bel Prize winners Abhijit Banerjee and Esr Dufflo. We are w at break even in print. On digital side we have a subscription number of 30,000 and our beta launch of Airtel books has been a success which we are ramping up in 2020".

Bloomsbury India says it saw significant growth in 2019.

"In tre books, we have grown 35 per cent and in acemic books we have grown 30 per cent from 2018. Our major tre titles were ' Anarchy' (William Dalrymple), 'City of Girls' (Elizabeth Gilbert) and 'Amit Shah and March of BJP' (Anirban Ganguly and Shiwanand Dwivedi)," says Yogesh Sharma, senior VP of Bloomsbury India.

"Bloomsbury India, in fact is only publisher which has reflected CAGR OF 25 per cent year on year. Our financial year is from March to February. Acemic segment showed growth of 54 per cent and digital touched 34 per cent. best selling segment has been drama and fashion," he says.

For Speaking Tiger, 2019 was a year of prizes and shortlists.

Writer-journalist Shanta Gokhale won TATA Lifetime Achievement Award for her memoir "One Foot on Ground: A Life Told Through Body", while Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar's vella "My Far's Garden" was shortlisted for JCB Prize and his children's book "Jwala Kumar and Gift of Fire" for Crossword Book Award shortlist, along with ar Talking Cub title - Bijal Vachirajani's "A Cloud Called Bhura", which talks about climate change.

"Prizes apart, we did some significant works in n-fiction, among most table were Purushottam Agrawal's 'Who is Bharat Mata? On History, Culture and Idea of India - Writings on and by Jawaharlal Nehru', and Nandita Haksar's 'Kuknalim: Naga Armed Resistance' - both works that dressed important issues facing country today," says Speaking Tiger Publisher Ravi Singh.

"Upamanyu Chatterjee h a new offering for his dedicated band of reers - his first collection of short stories, ' Assassination of Indira Gandhi - Collected Works' - and we also published ' Fate of Butterflies' by Nayantara Sahgal. And our surprise debut was classical vocalist Shubha Mudgal's first collection of short stories 'Looking for Miss Sargam'," he says.

Roli Books also said 2019 was ar interesting year as it published a number of books across varied subjects from current affairs, biography, cookbooks to true crime.

"Some standout successes were ' Mughal Feast - Recipes from Emperor Shah Jahan', which was called 'a rare documentation' and has been a super commercial success, and 'Black Warrant: Confessions of a Tihar Jailer' by Sunil Gupta and Sunetra Choudhury," says Priya Kapoor, editorial director at Roli Books.

"We also h some real success with selling subsidiary rights, tably AV rights for our books across front list and back list with 10 deals signed and a number ors under negotiation," she says.

Palimpsest CEO Bhaskar Roy says for publishing house, fiction occupied as much as n-fiction.

"re were compelling vels and equally assertive works by historians as well. Palimpsest was active on both fronts and came home with laurels. Feminist writer Selina Hossain's 'Charcoal Portrait' is about a war child, opted by a German couple at a medical camp after 1971 Banglesh Liberation War.

"We ended year with journalist Nirmalya Banerjee's ' Buddha and Borders', a well-researched account of long lama trail in eastern Himalayas. author traces footsteps of faith through places like Bhutan, Nepal, Sikkim, Kalimpong, Shillong and Tawang," he says.

2019 was full of optimism for Niyogi Books, says Trisha Niyogi.

"We brought out around 60 English and 10 Hindi books and also initiated a new project for publishing children's literature. A number of our books of perennial interest h to be reprinted. To cap it all, we sold rights of a few of our books in Japanese, Chinese and or langus," she says.

For Simon & Schuster India, 2019 was a mixed bag as n-fiction did well, as has been case past few years in subcontinent, says its Senior Commissioning Editor Sayantan Ghosh. One of top books it published was "Celestial Bodies" by Jokha Alharthi, first Omani vel to ever win Man Booker International Prize.