Penguin is getting ready to launch digital content business in India.
With 500 digital titles and counting, John Makinson, CEO of Penguin, is convinced that the publishing house will have a good run delivering books over mobile phones and e-readers.
"India remains a tough market to do business as book prices are low. Besides, pirated editions are already selling at traffic signals before we place our copies at the book stores," Makinson says.
Lack of physical distribution in Tier 2 and 3 cities has also hit business - reasons that are strong enough for Makinson to turn books into applications with "online communities" for fans, live chat between readers and other multimedia effects.
The publishing house is also getting ready to tweak its marketing strategy in India. "Penguin book launches will now have an aggressive digital marketing team," says Makinson. Penguin aims to use social networking sites extensively.
"We will put out video interviews with authors on video streaming sites or release teasers of book on the web. For some book titles, we may create a website or have a Facebook page to promote the content," says the CEO.
The digital distribution is something Penguin had to do as the march of e-books -- Amazon's Kindle reader and Apple's iPad - can threaten the publishing world in the same way as the internet changed the dynamics of the music industry.
"For ebooks on the iPad, we are looking to embed audio, video and streaming, especially for the titles for children," he says, adding, "We have to face the fact that this is a generation that learns to swipe on touchscreens before the first steps are taken. And of course, you have to innovate to sell them books."
Translating the CEO's words into action, Penguin India is in talks with operators, mobile device makers and value added service providers to digitise its books for delivery over the mobile phone.
"With an explosive growth in mobile subscribers and 3G, smartphones will be the preferred medium for content distribution and we won't shy away," Makinson says.
The publishing house is also interested in collaborating with various media platforms like magazines and newspapers that can help Penguin to distribute physical books.
"I am confident that mobile books, if done right, can be a great revenue stream for us. If we can add some videos or voice capabilities, then consumers will pay for the features," he concurs.
For now, Penguin India has announced that it will work with author Shobhaa De for her own imprint -- Shobhaa De Books, the first of which will appear in early 2011.
De, Penguin's bestseller author, says, "We will print just five books to begin with on subjects like lifestyle, success stories of the celebrities, cinema among others, which appeal to the youth."
