Riding on the political turmoil between the two countries and his controversial remarks on the US and Indian prime ministers, distributors of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's memoirs In the Line of Fire are expecting to sell over 15,000 copies in the first month, despite its stiff Rs 950 price tag. |
The book has all the ingredients of a pot boiler, from how the US coerced Pakistan to join the war against terror by threatening to bomb them back to the Stone Age to why the Agra talks with India failed. |
The good news is the book's Indian distributors, which include IBD, Westland and Dolphin Publishers, are expecting the Hindi translation, which will hit stores in a week, to sell over 5,000 copies in the first print run. And at Rs 395 it is, of course, cheaper. |
Simon & Schuster, the book's New York-based publishers, have sold the worldwide Hindi translation rights to Delhi-based Rave Media and are in talks with publishers for Marathi and Bengali versions. |
"We are bringing in 8,000 copies (in English) initially, all of which are reserved, and another 4,000 by next week. We have a conservative estimate of 15,000 for the first month as the price for the Indian market is slightly steep," said Rahul Srivastava, regional sales manager, Simon & Schuster. |
The English paperback version, priced at Rs 695, would be out in six months, said Srivastava. |
The autobiography of the General, who in 1999 led his army in the Kargil war against India and later to a bloodless coup, is the latest in a series of political biographies that have drummed up brisk sales, making the genre an extremely viable proposition for publishers. |
Jaswant Singh's A Call to Honour is believed to have sold 30,000 copies "" anything above 10,000 for a non-fiction book in India is phenomenal. PV Narasimha Rao's The Outsider, Bill Clinton's My Life and Living History by Hillary Clinton had also generated considerable interest and sales. |
"Any biography or autobiography of an eminent personality attracts attention and anything that does so is a good business proposition," said Kapish Mehra, publisher, Rupa & Co, which brought out Jaswant Singh's book. |
An industry expert comments that with a controversy surrounding a book, the publishers can go in for quick 2-3 print runs with very little expense on promotions, sell 15,000-20,000 copies and then go on to the next title when the sales curve flattens. |
"It depends... It is much tougher to promote a new author in fiction, while a political biography on an eminent personality markets and sells itself. But one pays much higher royalties to such personalities too," added Srivastava. |