Bestselling Indian author Chetan Bhagat, Fatima Bhutto and Hardeep Singh Kohli are among the authors set to take part in the inaugural DSC South Asian Literature Festival.
Announced on 22nd September, more than 30 events are confirmed for the festival which will take place across the capital in venues including King's Place, the Free Word Centre, the British Library, British Museum and bookshops from 15-25th October and then at cities around the UK from 26th-31st October.
At the launch, the longlist for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature was also announced, with 16 titles in the running from publishers including Picador India, Faber, Bloomsbury and Constable & Robinson.
Co-directors Jon Slack and Bhavit Mehta of Amphora Arts said of the festival: "The thriving literary and publishing scene in South Asia was the impetus for us bringing a literary festival devoted to South Asian writing to the UK."
Full report here Bookseller
Showing posts with label bloomsbury. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bloomsbury. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Bloomsbury profits fall for 2008
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, the British publisher of the Harry Potter series, posted better than expected full year earnings on March 31 but warned that the outlook remained very tough, an AP report said.
Bloomsbury reported net profit of $11.2 million for the year to December 31 compared to 11.8 million pounds the previous year, when earnings were boosted by the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the last volume of JK Rowling's series.
Revenue for 2008, when the company published Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard and Khalid Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns, was down 33 per cent to 99.95 million pounds, down from 150.21 million pounds.
Chief Executive Nigel Newton said the business "continued to prosper even in the harshest economic conditions." Newton said that the company has an "excellent pipeline" of new titles due for release over the coming months across all genres.
"However, there are also a number of risks and areas of caution which have been heightened by the recession," he said. "Visibility has been decreased by the uncertainty of the global market place, though books have fared better than most."
Revenue from books for adults rose 17 per cent to 42.03 million pounds, while reference revenue increased 27 per cent to 19.59 million pounds. But the biggest impact was in the children's division, where sales dropped 158 per cent to 38.33 million pounds.
Bloomsbury shares were almost 10 per cent lower at 115 pence in midmorning trade on the London Stock Exchange.
In India, Bloomsbury has a distribution arrangement with Penguin.
Bloomsbury reported net profit of $11.2 million for the year to December 31 compared to 11.8 million pounds the previous year, when earnings were boosted by the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the last volume of JK Rowling's series.
Revenue for 2008, when the company published Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard and Khalid Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns, was down 33 per cent to 99.95 million pounds, down from 150.21 million pounds.
Chief Executive Nigel Newton said the business "continued to prosper even in the harshest economic conditions." Newton said that the company has an "excellent pipeline" of new titles due for release over the coming months across all genres.
"However, there are also a number of risks and areas of caution which have been heightened by the recession," he said. "Visibility has been decreased by the uncertainty of the global market place, though books have fared better than most."
Revenue from books for adults rose 17 per cent to 42.03 million pounds, while reference revenue increased 27 per cent to 19.59 million pounds. But the biggest impact was in the children's division, where sales dropped 158 per cent to 38.33 million pounds.
Bloomsbury shares were almost 10 per cent lower at 115 pence in midmorning trade on the London Stock Exchange.
In India, Bloomsbury has a distribution arrangement with Penguin.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
'Indian publishing has opportunities'
At a time when the world seems to be focusing solely on the financial crisis, there are regions where the talk is about using that very fact as an opportunity!
This also rather succinctly sums up the Publishers’ Round Table “Global:Local” held February 27, organised by the Frankfurt Book Fair and the German Book Office New Delhi. With the presence of arguably the local industry’s most significant publishers and other players, as well as international participation from Argentina, the UK, Germany, Switzerland, China and the Arab World, the one-day round table represented a hitherto seldom experienced platform on the Indian subcontinent.
“Global vs. local” was the theme that set the ball rolling by questioning the whole notion of publishing for a local market and the need to be thinking globally. Moderated by publisher Karthika VK of Harper Collins India, this particular session had speakers like Ajay Shukla talking about the success of STM publishing. He illustrated the global reach of a nation like India, where content is now being developed not only to cater to the indigenous market but also to global markets. Insights were also offered on local experiences in different parts of the world like China, Morocco and South America.
The second session focussed on publishing services. The key word for globalisation in the last decade has been outsourcing. With its huge knowledge base and skilled manpower, India has been tapping into this opportunity rather well. Similar trends in China and South America were observed, as well. Naresh Khanna, publisher of Indian Printer and Publisher, moderated the discussion and also presented his research on the huge and unexplored potential of the Indian market. The session was then steered into a rather animated discussion about the competence of outsourcing companies and service providers. Richard Charkin of Bloomsbury cited his own experience of printing in India, which was not such a profitable activity for his own publishing house.
The session after lunch dealt with the role of independent publishers in a global scenario. Urvashi Butalia moderated the discussion and pointed out the challenges and advantages of being an independent publisher, as opposed to a multinational publisher which is governed more by market forces, minimising risk and slow decision making processes. This view was immediately countered by Mike Bryan of Penguin who said that the reverse is true for them. Their passion and risk taking is sometimes much greater than that of the independents. Interestingly, it was later discussed that both these publishing houses have also found a harmonious way of co-publishing which is a good marriage of the global and local!
The last, highly anticipated session was about the global financial crisis and its impact on publishing. With input coming from every part of the world, the picture looks rather fuzzy. Richard Charkin established that the UK is witnessing a very bad slump, primarily due to the breakdown of retail. Ana Maria Cabanellas from Argentina pointed out that publishers in South America are already coping with the crisis by coming up with innovative models. Haissam Fadel remarked that the Arab World, when it comes to trade publishing, is rather new in the field and, hence, still hasn’t seen good days to be able to talk about bad ones. Stella Chou from China was very optimistic and considered this to be a very temporary phase. The opinion from India was on the one hand similar to the UK with a huge slump in retail but in the words of the major educational publisher Dhanesh Jain of Ratna Sagar, this is also clearly a time for opportunities: “If mobile telephony can reach 400 million people, then books or content of any sort has a huge potential.”
Positively associated with the Frankfurt Book Fair, the platform was well received by Indian publishers as an activity for bringing people together and creating an exchange. Prepared by the German Book Office New Delhi, the event, in the words of Richard Charkin, “is the very essence of publishing having a global consensus”.
The Frankfurt Book Fair is the largest book fair in the world – with more than 7,000 exhibitors from over 100 countries. It also organises the participation of German publishers at more than 25 international book fairs and is associated with the Cape Town Book Fair in South Africa and the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair. It maintains the most visited website worldwide for the publishing industry at http://www.book-fair.com/. The Frankfurt Book Fair is a subsidiary of the German Publishers & Booksellers Association.
This also rather succinctly sums up the Publishers’ Round Table “Global:Local” held February 27, organised by the Frankfurt Book Fair and the German Book Office New Delhi. With the presence of arguably the local industry’s most significant publishers and other players, as well as international participation from Argentina, the UK, Germany, Switzerland, China and the Arab World, the one-day round table represented a hitherto seldom experienced platform on the Indian subcontinent.
“Global vs. local” was the theme that set the ball rolling by questioning the whole notion of publishing for a local market and the need to be thinking globally. Moderated by publisher Karthika VK of Harper Collins India, this particular session had speakers like Ajay Shukla talking about the success of STM publishing. He illustrated the global reach of a nation like India, where content is now being developed not only to cater to the indigenous market but also to global markets. Insights were also offered on local experiences in different parts of the world like China, Morocco and South America.
The second session focussed on publishing services. The key word for globalisation in the last decade has been outsourcing. With its huge knowledge base and skilled manpower, India has been tapping into this opportunity rather well. Similar trends in China and South America were observed, as well. Naresh Khanna, publisher of Indian Printer and Publisher, moderated the discussion and also presented his research on the huge and unexplored potential of the Indian market. The session was then steered into a rather animated discussion about the competence of outsourcing companies and service providers. Richard Charkin of Bloomsbury cited his own experience of printing in India, which was not such a profitable activity for his own publishing house.
The session after lunch dealt with the role of independent publishers in a global scenario. Urvashi Butalia moderated the discussion and pointed out the challenges and advantages of being an independent publisher, as opposed to a multinational publisher which is governed more by market forces, minimising risk and slow decision making processes. This view was immediately countered by Mike Bryan of Penguin who said that the reverse is true for them. Their passion and risk taking is sometimes much greater than that of the independents. Interestingly, it was later discussed that both these publishing houses have also found a harmonious way of co-publishing which is a good marriage of the global and local!
The last, highly anticipated session was about the global financial crisis and its impact on publishing. With input coming from every part of the world, the picture looks rather fuzzy. Richard Charkin established that the UK is witnessing a very bad slump, primarily due to the breakdown of retail. Ana Maria Cabanellas from Argentina pointed out that publishers in South America are already coping with the crisis by coming up with innovative models. Haissam Fadel remarked that the Arab World, when it comes to trade publishing, is rather new in the field and, hence, still hasn’t seen good days to be able to talk about bad ones. Stella Chou from China was very optimistic and considered this to be a very temporary phase. The opinion from India was on the one hand similar to the UK with a huge slump in retail but in the words of the major educational publisher Dhanesh Jain of Ratna Sagar, this is also clearly a time for opportunities: “If mobile telephony can reach 400 million people, then books or content of any sort has a huge potential.”
Positively associated with the Frankfurt Book Fair, the platform was well received by Indian publishers as an activity for bringing people together and creating an exchange. Prepared by the German Book Office New Delhi, the event, in the words of Richard Charkin, “is the very essence of publishing having a global consensus”.
The Frankfurt Book Fair is the largest book fair in the world – with more than 7,000 exhibitors from over 100 countries. It also organises the participation of German publishers at more than 25 international book fairs and is associated with the Cape Town Book Fair in South Africa and the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair. It maintains the most visited website worldwide for the publishing industry at http://www.book-fair.com/. The Frankfurt Book Fair is a subsidiary of the German Publishers & Booksellers Association.
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