India Perspectives: Why Publishers of all sizes should be thinking about the India market

Publishing can feel like a brutal game. In “home” markets such as the UK and US, sales growth is hard fought for, often barely keeping up with inflation and more a reflection of higher prices than higher volumes. For academic publishers, this combines with declining library budgets and a need to invest in the digital supply chain with alternative sales models such as rental and Demand Driven Acquisition. Meanwhile, input costs such as paper, ink, freight, salaries and taxes seem to have no such qualms at rising, whilst legislative challenges proliferate such as the EU’s €3 (now €5) charge on smaller (B2C) sales and PPWR/EPR requirements. At times it can seem a real slog to just stand still to just stand still.

Wouldn’t it be good to have another market to tap – one that is growing vigorously and has a hunger for good publishing content?

Well, one exists, and it just so happens to be the most populous nation on the earth with 18% of the global total, now larger than China and growing fast with a younger, increasingly educated population. India represents an significant opportunity for publishers to grow both the sales and impact of their content. With a rising literacy rate (currently 80%) and a huge cohort of English speakers (at 265m, India is now the second biggest English-speaking country in the world), India has a staggering 250m students in school and 45m in university.

The Educational & Academic Publishing Landscape

Unsurprisingly, this creates a huge appetite for educational and academic publishing. School book publishing revenues grew at a CAGR rate of 17.2% between 2023/4 and 2025/6 and comprises around 68% of the total book market; higher education and research publishing grew even faster (24.7% over the same period) though comprising a smaller 28% of the market. By contrast trade publishing, dominated by non-fiction sales, only comprises 3% of total revenues but even that is growing by 12.5% per year. All in all, the total market is projected to continue to grow by around 11% per annum up until the end of this decade (source: Times of India) when it should sit at a whopping £15.8 billion, so about 6 times the value of the UK domestic book market and with plenty of potential for future growth.

Market Opportunities

On top of the benefits of a rapidly growing market are others that make India really attractive to develop as a market for a publisher’s titles. First of all, unlike another large overseas market China where there is a content review process for books that can slow down or even halt the process of importation, the Indian market is generally far more open (though books can still be subject to customs checks). Secondly, the vast majority of titles sold in India are print (75-90%) which means publishers whose sales are still print dominated can flourish here. Thirdly, the market is dominated by backlist titles, offering publishers the opportunity to breathe new life into their existing IP. And lastly, there are good established supply chains to get books into India and sold to customers, including a vibrant print market capable of producing high-quality printed books.

There are also valid reasons to get involved in the Indian market outside of the sales potential itself, especially for academic publishers. India’s output of research papers is growing by 12% per annum, and is now at 6% of global output (source: STM association) – no surprise for a country of over 1200 universities – so having academic titles readily available in this market is important for authors who may increasingly be attending conferences in the region, or be collaborating with researchers there – indeed, publishers may well be interested in gaining authors in institutions in the region and so may be keen to raise their profile in the market.

Hold on, I hear you say. If it were all that easy, why aren’t all publishers already making efforts to build sales in India? To be fair, many larger international publishers, both academic and trade, are very active in the Indian market, but take-up in smaller to medium sized publishers has tended to be more modest. The reasons for this can vary, but at times can include a concern about piracy and the security of intellectual property (especially in the textbook market), customs issues (that can notably impact gratis/sample copies), import taxes (5.5% Basic Customs Duty and Social Welfare Surcharge), red tape that can make seemingly simple transactions quite complex, slow payment from customers, and dominant over all these the low price points typically charged in the Indian market.

To put that in perspective, a typical mass market trade title can retail at only 325-500 Rupees (£2.50-£3.90) but after discounting can fall to as little as 200 Rupees. Larger academic or specialist books can sell for more than double that, but compared to UK or US pricing, this is still very keen and means that margins on sales (especially when books are sourced from UK or US stock) can be very narrow indeed with effective discounts of up to 80% off the UK or US cover price.

Fortunately, exceptions to this do exist. Specialist books can sell for a lot more – into the thousands of Rupees – and even overseas bestseller trade fiction can cost significantly more (albeit with significantly reduced demand as a result). Also, some of the other issues historically associated with the market are improving: slow payment remains a problem but is not as bad as it was, and with piracy, publishers increasingly work together to identify and combat piracy and, for high value products such as premium textbooks, use variable data printing to place QR codes on books to reduce their pirated value or to trace the origins of pirated books.

Market Entry Operational Challenges

It is undeniable that operating in the Indian market has its challenges. Because of them, historically publishers (whether or not they have an Indian office in the territory) have worked with distributors or representatives to help get their books into the Indian market. Companies like Atlantic Books https://atlanticbooks.com/, Sterling https://www.sterlingbookhouse.com/, Overleaf http://www.overleaf.co.in/ for educational books and Manohar https://www.manoharbooks.com/Home for academic may either buy in bulk at high discount and hold stock, selling into retailers/wholesalers/libraries across the country, or import on a deal by deal basis with their customers.

These partners can be very effective in getting publishers titles in front of the thousands of institutions, booksellers and other customers in this vast market. But often, to get to the low prices needed to really get traction in the market, publishers may find themselves needing to print in volume locally. Many Indian printers are well placed to do that, often based in EPZ (Export Processing Zones) locations that allow them to avoid some of the taxes that would otherwise impact local production, but for smaller publishers without the time and resources to manage these relationships and the local printing, especially when done from afar, this can all be a bit daunting.

An alternative route into the Indian market is to do so under the wing of a larger publisher. Many larger publishers such as PRH India https://www.penguin.co.in/  Macmillan India https://www.panmacmillan.co.in/  or Taylor & Francis https://taylorandfrancis.com/ will represent other publishers in the Indian market. This can be highly effective, leveraging the sophisticated logistical backbone of that larger publisher to better serve the needs of the Indian market, but this opportunity is inevitably open to only a limited number of other publishers (often of a reasonable size themselves) or may be tied in with distribution arrangements that run wider than just the Indian market.

A Simpler Route into the Indian Market

There is another option for tackling this market that is much simpler for publishers of all sizes to engage with. This is working with local print partners who also sell in the region, generally via India’s booming e-Commerce options (such as Amazon.in, Flipkart.com, and Bookscape.com) or through your existing printer with established print relations in the region.

The beauty of such arrangements is the simplicity – the publisher provides the print files and the metadata including the proposed retail price, and the printer sells the books through the various sales channels, printing copies to demand (POD). There is no upfront risk of committing stock to uncertain sales and no worrying about getting books through customs. The printer handles Accounts Payable and local red tape, and the publisher simply receives a monthly royalty payment reflecting net sales less print costs.

This solution is not open to all book types (it’s not going to work for board books that are totally unsuited to Print On Demand, or for very low priced early-years educational titles) and net receipts per copy sold may be limited due to the low selling price outlined earlier, but if such sales are seen as incremental, they can be a good source of additional revenue without any additional costs. Also, this can be part of a phased introduction to the Indian market – there is nothing to stop a publisher also engaging with more traditional Indian distribution/representation partners if such a toe in the water proves fruitful.

Moreover, for smaller publishers first embarking on this journey, this sales option can be facilitated by existing partners with a UK presence. Ingrams can enrol titles in such arrangements via its Global Connect programme https://resources.ingramcontent.com/publishers/global-connect  (sold and fulfilled by Repro in India), whilst PrintOnDemand-Worldwide https://printondemand-worldwide.com/ works with both Repro and Bhavish so that users of its Bookvault services can benefit from as broad a series of print options in the market as possible.

In summary, India is an example of a market that publishers of all sizes should consider engaging with. Vibrant, fast-growing and with an increasing array of ways to engage with it, it may well be the market that any publisher seeking overseas growth should tackle first.