The Formerly a commercial printer, Virtuous Publications has been a publisher of school textbooks for over a decade. With 800 titles of its own, Virtuous operates its editorial and in-house printing and binding operation from Noida.
Vijay Gupta, director of Virtuous Publications, says the company is relocating to newer and larger premises at another location in Noida. Although Gupta did not divulge the reasons for capacity expansion, one can easily surmise that a long order book and healthy surplus are the most likely grounds for any business to undertake such expansion. Gupta admits that Virtuous will add one more Super Variant 4-color sheetfed machine to its existing Super Variant 4-color and 2-color offset presses.
He explains that before beginning to publish its own titles, the jobwork that Virtuous undertook as a commercial printer involved books and publications of government departments. The workload was big enough for the company to keep the presses running 24 x 7 and it was this hands-on experience that led them to start their own titles. Today Virtuous has a school book portfolio of over 800 titles in English and Hindi that are in demand from across the country. Most of the demand for its Hindi titles are from Southern India, including Tamil Nadu.
When asked for his opinion on the future of the school book market, Gupta sounded cautious while referring to Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance getting into school book and NCERT book publishing. He said that this will wipe out many smaller players from the market but also added that the market is large enough for both big and small players. Publishers with their own printing setup and emphasis on quality will do well. At the same time, eCommerce is opening up newer ways of reaching the consumer and although the numbers are not significant right now, they will be in future. The optimized last-mile delivery logistics of eCommerce can be a major source of growth for school book publishers.
