Hindi Publishers Move Towards Adopting Technology and New Strategies

Hindi language publishers are adapting – and how – by offering fresh content, launching mobile apps and aggressively marketing their books to resurrect the genre’s lost stature against the giant rise of literature in English.

“Readers want change and as a publication house if you fail to understand their requirements then your business model will fail. So it was very important for us to go digital and publish e-books. Now, we have even launched an app,” Rajkamal Prakashan managing director Ashok Maheshwari told IANS.

“Also, there was a big void in the Hindi publishing industry. Either we had pulp fiction or literary writings, so we decided to fill this gap and started publishing novels that are contemporary, which youngsters can relate to,” he added

Treading a different route altogether is Diamond Books, which has been in the industry for the past six decades and is known for its comic strips like “Chacha Chaudhry” and “Billoo”.

For Diamond, “aggressive marketing” is the route to reach out to India’s hinterland and Hindi translations of Chetan Bhagat’s “Half Girlfriend” and K. Natwar Singh’s “One Life is Not Enough” reinforce its stronghold in the Hindi belt.

“These authors, whose controversial or best-selling books we publish, they know our reach. So, they don’t hesitate to give their rights to us. We are not boasting but our marketing and network are extremely strong,” Narayan Sharma from Diamond Books’ marketing department told IANS.

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