Popular's experience shows that books need not be sold only through bookstores. When Popular Prakashan signed on renowned chef Sanjeev Kapoor for a series of cook books in 1999, it probably thought the deal would be a cakewalk. Instead, the Mumbai-based publishing house almost ended up with egg on its face. A cursory glance at Khazana of Indian Recipes will immediately tell you why: some of the recipes are accompanied by glossy photographs "" of the wrong dishes.
Despite the printer's devil, the book sold over 1 lakh copies "" the average print run for cook books is roughly a third of that. Which is why the 80-year-old company "" known more for its social sciences, medical and engineering textbooks "" has not made mid-course corrections to the book, even with the reprints. Popular Prakashan Publisher Harsha Bhatkal explains it as being a "bit superstitious since the book was a runaway success".
Not rushing to correct errors wasn't the only break with tradition for Popular. Its first foray into mass market publications differed in other ways, too "" whether it was in marketing, where Popular initiated promotions across the country, or in distribution where it opted for direct sales.
The efforts seem to have worked. At present, 80 per cent of Popular's book sales occur outside bookstores "" five years ago this was negligible. And Bhatkal claims that the company has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 60 per cent in the same period.
In 1999, when the company published only social sciences and academic books, Popular sold less than 2 lakh books a year. This year the company claims it will sell 30 lakh books, up from 10 lakh last year.
Popular is under the spotlight because, as an industry expert quips, "the publisher as marketer is an oxymoron". And till the late 1990s, even Popular Prakashan believed that just publishing good content was enough to find readers. But the complacent approach was not enough to encourage growth.
Popular's biggest customers were universities and libraries. And as funding from the University Grants Commission stayed static, this market started shrinking. "The grant money was more likely to be spent on salaries, not books," points out Bhatkal.
By 1999, Popular decided to move out of its niche segments of educational and socially relevant books and attack the mass market. At present, academic tomes account for less than 10 per cent of total sales.
Cook books seemed a good way to debut in the mass market, but persuading customers to pay for a compilation of recipes, when they could get them just as easily on television or the Internet, seemed a tough task. Moreover, selling through just bookstores had its limitations.
As Bhatkal points out, 80 per cent of book sales in the country happen through 100-odd bookstores. And these bookstores are located in the top 10 cities. But book buyers are spread through the country.
So Popular decided to market the book in the same way as any consumer product. It tied up with credit card and insurance companies and airlines to offer the book at preferential rates. And to attract its main audience "" housewives "" the publishing house looked at the meeting point for food and housewives.
Chains such as Oxford Book Store and Crossword were ruled out, even though they have attached coffee and tea bars. Even the Magna Book Gallery in south Mumbai (owned by Magna Publishers) "" which has an in-house health and nutrition centre that sells organic foods "" didn't really fit the bill, since it would be sticking once again to familiar surroundings.
Instead, Popular struck deals with food retail chains such as Apna Bazar, Foodland and D-Mart to sell the cook book. To ensure the books got the display and visibility they needed, Popular provided the stores with close to 250 specially-designed racks. The food stores now contribute between 5 and 7 per cent to Popular's sales.
Still, food malls weren't likely to provide the kind of readership (read: sales volumes) Popular required. So in April 2003 the company decided to target housewives at the next best point of contact "" their homes. But Popular wasn't about to venture into direct marketing on its own: "We always get the experts to do the job," says Bhatkal.
One of the experts it chose was Mumbai-based direct marketing company Swadeshi, which has 400 shops across the country that retail Indian-made, fast moving consumer goods. Swadeshi had a membership base of 15 lakh (18 lakh at present) who purchased goods from the stores at discounts of 10 to 25 per cent and then sold them door-to-door.
Popular offered Swadeshi members four of its cook book titles through this channel at a 20 per cent discount and a 10 per cent commission on further sales. Swadeshi has sold more than 5 lakh copies of Popular's four cook books so far.
Bhatkal claims that direct marketing sales (through four agreements) now account for 60 per cent of Popular's sales.
Of course, it helps that Popular hasn't restricted itself to cook books. Activity and colouring books for children have also proved "" well, popular. For these, the publishing house has entered into agreements with companies such as Encyclopaedia Britannica and television channels Star Plus and Discovery.
Under Popular's deal with Britannica and Discovery Channel, it adapts information from these two sources into quiz and general knowledge books. The association with Star Plus is for a range of colouring and activity books based on Star's serials for children Son Pari and Shaka Laka Boom. "We tied up with partners who are strong in each segment," says Bhatkal.
That's true of Popular's distribution partners as well. Since 2002, Popular has worked in association with Delhi-based publishing house Scholastic, which has a strong distribution arm that targets 1,500 schools across the country every quarter, through book fairs and book-club newsletters.
In Popular's deal with Scholastic, for the first four-six months of a new title launch, the book is made available exclusively through the Scholastic channel. And children who buy books through the Scholastic network get concessions of 15 to 20 per cent (for imported books, discounts can be high as 60 per cent). The Scholastic network has helped sell 2.5 lakh Discovery books since May 2004.
Popular, though, is also looking beyond books. The interest generated by the cook books led it to launch a website, where 6,000 members log on for cooking tips and recipes. Bhatkal says the paid site (annual fees: Rs 1,000) already accounts for 1 per cent of Popular's revenues.
Is Bhatkal adding another ingredient to his recipe for success?
