Small indie publishers of Kannada books form association, aim to revive Bengaluru Book Festival
Small indie publishers of Kannada books have joined hands with booksellers and writers to form a new association, 'Karnataka Booksellers, Publishers and Writers Association,' aiming to revive the Bengaluru Book Festival and organise similar book festivals in other districts regularly.
The new association will be inaugurated on Wednesday. Noted independent publishers like Aharnishi, Pallava, Ruthumana, Akruthi, Jeerunde have already become members of the Association.
'Now, there are two such associations already. But both associations are dominated by big publishers and small indie publishers like us, neither has a say nor any space in those associations. Our issues and requirements are different. New and small publishers like ours need professional workshops, access to distribution networks, among others. The existing associations do not focus on these issues,' said N. Dhananjaya of Jeerunde Prakashana and Beetle Book Shop, Secretary of the new association.
'The two existing associations only have publishers and don't include booksellers and writers. We think we need to include the entire ecosystem to work effectively,' he said.
'We intend to organise workshops for publishers on professional aspects of publishing like printing, online sales, selling translation and adaptation rights for the books we publish, among other issues. As an association, we want to see whether we can also create a distribution network and make it available to our members. For instance, presently, no Kannada publishers go to book fairs across the country or abroad. We want to represent all our publishers at such fairs. This may help our books get picked up for translation,' said Guruprasad D.N., of Akruthi Books and President of the new association.
As part of their objective to provide a distribution network for publishers, the association wants to revive Bengaluru Book Festival, which was an annual feature earlier and has been not held since the pandemic.
'Book festivals are a very big source of revenue for book publishers and booksellers. Presently, the only such avenue is the Kannada Sahitya Sammelana. We want to hold talks with the government and revive the Bengaluru Book Festival this year, if possible. Many districts in the state do not have a single bookshop. Holding book exhibitions in districts will help us reach untapped readership,' Mr. Guruprasad said.
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