For illustrated books, the lockdown makes production difficult. But a digital future brings hope

Being a mid-sized, independent publishing house with enormous ambition, Roli Books has faced a few crises before. When no printer in India had colour presses we dared to print our books in Singapore. Before liberalisation, when the Reserve Bank of India made it extremely difficult to publish foreign language co-editions, we started a subsidiary in Holland. When there weren’t enough bookshelves to display our art and illustrated books, we opened our own shops. But today, during and after the lockdown, we are faced with adversity of a magnitude we’ve never witnessed before.

Illustrated books are considered a niche in the larger publishing industry. The print runs are conservative, prices high, and the typical time taken to publish one such book ranges from a minimum of a year-and-a–half to as many as five years for highly specialised projects. Space for such books is limited within existing bookshops, making it difficult for readers to discover the variety available in this genre. Yet, for forty-two years now Roli has stuck to its core competence of producing very high quality illustrated books.

At a moment when avenues for sale of print books are extremely limited, we face the same problems as all our peers in the book publishing industry.

Illustrated books combine aesthetics and scholarship – they offer a sense of escapism, they bring alive subjects and spark joy. If you are reading about an art form or an artist, wouldn’t you want to see their work reproduced meticulously to give you the next best experience to viewing it in real life? Readers understand the importance of this format and value it.

Perhaps that explains why over the last week we have started taking limited orders in Delhi, NCR and Bangalore. The first order comprised two lavishly illustrated cookbooks – The Mughal Feast: Recipes from the Kitchen of Emperor Shahjahan, by Salma Husain, and The Ultimate Army Cookbook: A Memsahib Cooks, by Kikky Sihota. The second was for Param Vir comics for children, and the third, a book on the Austrian symbolist painter Gustav Klimt. After nearly seven weeks of lockdown, people have started returning to books of any and all kinds.

The need to meet

Publishing, as an industry, thrives on face-to-face meetings, brainstorming and multiple rounds of discussions. A typical day at a publishing house is filled with a flurry of emails and calls between authors and editors, author meetings, editorial and production interactions, among other tasks. The best of ideas emerge out of discussions over lunch or coffee or a drink; solutions to pain points are found when a team sits together and brainstorms and every single page in an illustrated book shines with perfection because the editor, writer, designer and photographer have come together to debate minute details such as which font to use, the size of a photograph and the colour of the folio numbers.

The production team works hard with the printer to procure the right paper, negotiate the best enhancements for each book and oversee proofs with the art department. There is a constant energy sizzling in the room. A typical day at the Roli office is fairly unstructured – we are guided by the collective energies that our colleagues bring.

During the lockdown it’s this energy that is lost and cannot be replicated on a zoom call. We try, I admit, and I believe we have succeeded somewhat. In the past six weeks we have managed to bring enthusiasm and vigour to our twice daily zoom calls and from this has emerged Roli Pulse – our new digital initiative, as part of which we curate live sessions, author talks and panels to engage our readers and digital community. But I would be lying if I said that I don’t miss the office and meeting my colleagues IRL.

While the process of writing may be a solitary one, bringing a book to life via a publishing house is not. Digital technology has made many aspects of publishing a book – such as digital signatures to sign contracts, marking up soft copies of PDF files with edits, screen and cloud sharing between designers and photographers – easier; but this cannot replace old-fashioned interaction done in person. Photographs and illustrations form the backbone of illustrated books, and with photographers not being able to be in the field creating new work, our productivity is going to be affected greatly. Simply put, without the coming together of various people, each with their unique skills and sensibilities, an illustrated book cannot be born.

What lies ahead

The impact can be seen in two phases – during the lockdown, and after it. Unlike the UK and the US and many other countries, where readers are being allowed to buy books directly from e-commerce websites, it is still not entirely possible in India. As a result, apart from e-books, there have been no sales across the board for nearly 50 days – ringing a near death knell for an industry that depends on daily revenues to keep the wheels of business moving.

Additionally, the creative process has also been stalled. While we all continue to work from home on the books that were near completion, physical distancing makes it next to impossible to create a new illustrated book. Therefore the impact during the lockdown has been twofold for us – no new creation and no sales. We can only hope that this is a temporary phase.

Which brings us to the post-lockdown scenario. Initially I was not optimistic and feared that it would be a while before people considered buying discretionary items such as illustrated books. However, as time passes I am convinced of the opposite. The lockdown has created a huge pent-up demand.

During this time people have discovered new interests, passions and hobbies. A lot of time has been spent on social media, and publishers and booksellers have made sure to remind readers of the many books that await them once they are able to buy again. Also, as spending has been hugely limited during this time, we hope to see a jump in general consumption once things are normalised to some extent, and we hope books will also benefit from this. After months of lockdown it’s my belief people will gravitate towards what brings them comfort and what they missed – eat a meal together, drink together, travel, and discover new stories and new books. As Nicholas Berger wrote in the now widely shared essay “The Forgotten Art of Assembly”, “…we are social creatures and, in times of great loss, seek the comfort of humanity.”

The digital opportunity

So where does that leave us? With every challenge comes an opportunity. In the past few years, the lines between digital platforms have blurred. I have watched this phenomenon with great fascination. Finding ways to make an author’s voice, a story or an idea to reach readers and listeners beyond the book excites me immensely.

As I interacted with film producers and with makers of podcasts and documentaries for rights sales, I realised that the book is finally getting its due as the basis of good storytelling. With streaming platforms vying for a place in the growing Indian market, the need for stories has been never been so urgent.

In the past six months we met many consultants and experts to understand the best way for us to step into the digital world. The lockdown made us throw all our doubts out the window and dive straight in. We have learnt much these past few weeks. The programming offered by Roli Pulse is vibrant, relevant and intelligent.

After the lockdown we will continue to use the digital medium not only to promote our books and authors, but to also tell original stories. As I write this, we are producing our first original podcast with Jamun, a Delhi-based production house, and our beloved author Indrajit Hazra.

Jenny Housego’s endearing memoir, co-written with Maya Mirchandani, was set to be released in May, but because of the lockdown the printer could not deliver the physical copies to us – and in any case no bookshops have been functional. So, for the first time we published the e-book edition of a book before the print edition. For Roli Pulse the digital world is its oyster – we now have the confidence to rethink conventional strategy. Perhaps we produce a podcast first, publish the e-book second, and subsequently co-produce a web series and eventually publish the print edition? Who knows?

A welcome outcome of the lockdown is that it has sparked more conversations within the publishing industry. In the absence of a robust industry body to bring us together these interactions were infrequent and lacking. I am a part of at least two groups which have emerged during the lockdown to share ideas and discuss the various measures each of us is taking. We recently started a weekly show called Publishing Perspectives, which brings together professionals from around the world to discuss a single theme each time. It is evident that the publishing ecosystem will have to work together more closely.

My friend Malavika Banerjee, who runs the Kolkata Literary Meet, suggested in a recent article: “The next logical step will be for festivals to collaborate with publishers to have online book launches.This format can also be used to give a leg-up to books that might have been deemed too niche for a multicity launch even in normal times.” Wouldn’t that be something – if we could find more innovative ways to work together and carry these practices through to the good times that await us?

The fear and uncertainty of today is real and palpable, but it also promises new opportunities. If we can come out of this challenging period with introspection, greater clarity, and the flexibility and willingness to be able to adapt to a new vision, then I believe we will have emerged smarter, more efficient, and most importantly better equipped to reach wider audiences across formats and platforms.

Priya Kapoor is the editorial director of Roli Books.

This series of articles on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on publishing is curated by Kanishka Gupta.