Jaipur – 17 January 2014 — “I find that the passion for reading in India is growing. I see a vibrant atmosphere for authors. Every year we find so many new authors and many young new generation readers. Successful authors are getting much more money than what anyone could have dreamt of even a few years ago,” says Shobha De, the iconic brand ambassador of popular English language fiction in India.
Publishers have to live with the digital challenge and it is only helping us get more readers and acceptance. The multiplicity of platforms for books is always beneficial for the writer and it is a challenge that the publishing industry will have to contend with and adjust to. Though publishers, distributors and retailers are in awe of the digital era, we found at the JLF 2014 that authors are thrilled with the advent of digital and online media.
Young Ankit Chadha was in his element at the interactive session — The Bear that Wasn’t – bringing together his skills of story telling and regaling the enthusiastic crowd with a session based on the book by Frank Tashlin. “Authors must learn to market and spend time with readers on social media and I love doing it,” he says, admitting that he had to spend a great deal of time to learn the tricks of the trade when he started doing this himself. Along with illustrator and writer Nina Sabnani, the author of The Kavad Tradition of Rajasthan published by Niyogi Books, Chadha is writing an illustrated version of the message of Mahatma Gandhi to be released shortly.
He is the new generation kid writer in his twenties who has brought Dastangoi presentations on Amir Khusrau and Kabir to his fans — avid and very young and readers who enthusiastically besieged him after the session at the Ford Samvad.
The author feedback on digital media received a further bump on the morning of day two at the Front Lawns of JLF 2014 when Jhumpa Lahiri, Jonathan Franzen, Jim Crace, Maaza Mengiste and Xiaolu Guo discussed the emergence of The Global Novemoderated by Chandrahas Choudhury. With many segments of the publishing industry still reeling and trying to cope with the advent of digital media, and with publishers falling by the way side or merging to cut costs, this galaxy of celebrated authors discussed how globalization and the move to digital platforms could affect the future of the novel, the novelist and the publishing industry.
