After IT park, food park, aero park, textile park, now here’s a proposal for a book park.
Book publishers in Mysore have mooted a ‘book park’ project and have sought a suitable piece of land in Mysore from the Karnataka government.
Initially proposed to be a Rs 1 crore project, the ‘book park’ is aimed at providing all Kannada books published in the state under one roof for improving their sales and improving reading habits among the public.
As a prelude to the project, they have organised a two-day seminar on ‘Kannada Book Industry: Today’s challenges here on October 10 and 11, inviting publishers from across the state. The seminar is being held as a joint collaboration of the Kannada Book Authority of the state government and the ‘Samvahana’ Literary - Cultural Trust of Mysore.
Approximately 2,000 titles are published in Kannada by publishers and individual writers annually on a variety of subjects. But a large number of them do not catch the attention of the interested reading public and consequently remain unsold in the go-downs. Making them available under one roof would improve their sales and turnover of the large number of publishers in the state, trust vice-president Rame Gowda, a Kannada research scholar and writer, told Business Standard today.
“With the quality of printing improving to a large extent over the last five years because of technology, it is time for the Kannada book industry to accept the global challenges in this competitive world and root itself firmly in the book market,” he said.
“Though books can be accessed freely on some websites, the Kannada book readership has not suffered. It continues to be good, particularly with regards to reference books, creative works, research and novels. However, the readership was not growing despite the rising number of titles that have been possible because of the advanced printing technology. Consequently, the publishers’ margin has taken a beating,” Rame Gowda said.
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Trust president and publisher D N Lokappa said readers were not finding books under one roof, unlike in Kerala where co-operatives served readers, writers and publishers, the three segments of the book industry.
A member of the Kannada Book Authority, he said although the authority, having several schemes for promotion of Kannada book publication with a Rs 5 crore grant from the fovernment, had set up 10 shops for selling its publications in the state, their turnover was meagre and private book sellers did not get a margin.
As a result, most publications were lying in go-downs. Though the government bought 50 per cent of select titles for libraries under bulk purchase, the rest of the copies generally failed to reach the market or go unnoticed by interested readers.
The seminar would discuss these issues relating to the writers, publishers, sellers and readers, and after consolidating the opinion of the participating Kannada scholars and publishers, they would move in the direction of setting up the book park, Lokappa added.