Delhi World Book Fair ‘Did Not Meet our Expectations’: Hindi Publishers on Sales

New Delhi: Exam season, poor positioning of stalls and bad network inside halls put a damper on the expectations of Hindi publishers who had hoped for the rising popularity of Hindi literature to translate into "better sales" at the just concluded New Delhi World Book Fair here.

Held at the redeveloped convention centre at Pragati Maidan, the nine-day NDWBF that ended on Sunday lost on its "biggest footfalls" -- the students -- due to the ongoing exam season, according to publishers.

"The students, be it from college or school, couldn't make it to the book fair this time because of the exams. So I think the timing of the fair this year was wrong. Like earlier, it should have been held in January.

"The response overall was good, but we were expecting more since this time it was taking place after 2-3 years," Ashok Maheshwari, managing director of Rajkamal Prakashan, told PTI.

Hindi literature has been claiming its spot in the global arena after author Geetanjali Shree won the International Booker Prize in 2022 for her Hindi novel, Ret Samadhi -- translated into English as Tomb of Sand -- and acclaimed Hindi writer Vinod Kumar Shukla bagged the 2023 PEN/Nabokov Award for achievement in international literature.

The NDWBF, returning to full physical form after a gap of two years due to COVID-19 pandemic, saw the participation of nearly 1,000 publishers and exhibitors.

Almost 10 lakh people visited the book fair this year, informed organiser National Book Trust (NBT).

To some publishers, the new layout of the renovated Pragati Maidan convention centre, which saw Hindi book stalls literally pushed to a corner -- located at one end of a hall -- added to the confusion of visitors, with many leaving the venue before even reaching their stalls.

"We are at one end of the row of the hall. To that extent it is true that if you are coming from gate number 4, our stall is the last stall for the language books. We were at a disadvantage in that regard," said Meera Johri from publishing house Rajpal and Sons.

In the previous editions of the book fair, Hindi book stalls were located at Hall number 12 in Pragati Maidan, which was the first stall that people coming via Metro would pass by.

This year, instead of multiple halls, the fair mainly took place in two halls.

The views of Hindi publishers were also echoed by Hindi authors, like Naveen Choudhary, who said the impact and the sales of books didn't match the expectation level of the publishers.

Chaudhary, author of bestselling books Janta Store and Dhaai Chal, said there was a surge in footfalls during weekends but that was not the case on weekdays.

"The interest for Hindi literature after the global recognition is there but I don't see that immediately translating into sales . . . So yes, the impact in terms of sales was less, and in my conversations with publishing houses, they admitted that the response was not what they were expecting," said Chaudhary.

Publishers also cited "poor internet connectivity" inside the halls for "slow sales" of books.

According to Aditi Maheshwari, director of Vani Prakashan group, the reader was not able to make any online payment due to the poor internet connectivity inside the halls.

"There were a lot of network-related connectivity issues. At least 10-12% of the online payments were declined, which of course hampered our sales.

"Also, students, who make for biggest footfalls, as well as libraries, didn't come due to the ongoing exam season," said Maheshwari, adding that "historical biographies and poetry books" were among the most sold genres at the fair.