After two eventful and successful days of the 32nd International Publishers Congress, the final day witnessed sessions on some of the most important topics of the Indian and global publishing industry. Let’s go through the major highlights along with the key takeaways from Day 3.

Book Markets in India

This session was chaired by Mr. Asoke K. Ghosh with panel members Emma House, Andre Breedt, Himanshu Gupta and Vikas Gupta.

This session travelled into the Indian Book Market and its various publishing aspects. Emma House stressed on building a reading culture before building a retail culture. Andre Breedt came forward and shared a presentation showing few stats related to Indian book market. According to Nielsen’s book report, the vernacular market covers 45% of the total trade book market. The much talked about topic of NCERT VS Private Publishers was also discussed by Himanshu Gupta. Vikas Gupta brought in some power in the house by emphasising on the need for publishers to be a part of the ecosystem.

Strengthening Education Publishing Capacity

The session was chaired by Wilmar Diepgrond with panel members Jaume Vicens, Brian Wafawarowa, Professor Dinesh Singh, J.S. Rajput and Ratnesh Kumar Jha.

While the first session talked about the dominance of educational publishing in the Indian book market, this one moved ahead with industry experts sharing their views and opinions. Professor Dinesh Singh discussed the Delhi University case and how redefining pedagogy would lead to favourable outcomes in case of royalty. Improving quality of academic content and promoting engagement with teachers and students are some key factors to reinvent Indian publishing.

STM Publishing

Michiel Kolman chaired this session with panellists Narendra K. Mehra, Peter Wiley and Sanjiv Goswami.

Mr. Kolman talked about why STM has not been disrupted yet. Peter Wiley highlighted global warming as the ultimate disrupter. Sanjiv Goswami spoke about embracing disruption while addressing the pain points of publishers to serve the community better.

Collective Rights Management

The last session was led by Ana Maria Cabanellas with panel members Caroline Morgan, Sudhir Malhotra, Michiel Healy and Kevin Fitzgerald.

In this session, Michael Healy underlined that the licensing revenues were declining and vanishing. Rahul Kumar raised an interesting question as to why India can’t produce global brands like China. Caroline discussed about the disruption of educational publishing and new ways of sharing information.

As the last session came to an end, it was followed by a valedictory function and the closing ceremony. The members of FIP and IPA shared their experiences with the Congress. Towards the end, the destination for the 33rd International Publishers Congress was announced – Lillehammer in Norway. With this, the IPA Congress flag was handed over to Norway for its next chapter with best wishes.