Almost viewing bookstores as an essential service, Kerala was the first State to allow book stores to open for two days a week during the lockdown.
But with footfalls still at a low, publishers and stores are making major changes to their business model to reach out to the readers. From making available more e-books to home delivery through food delivery applications, they are leaving no stone unturned.
As soon as the lockdown began, DC Books, one of the largest publishers in Malayalam, made available all its e-books for free in its own mobile application for two days, on a trial basis. The two-day window witnessed around 70,000 e-book downloads, including titles of all popular Malayalam authors.
Later, the price of e-books were slashed and combo offers were given, with two or three titles for ₹100 or 150. The publisher, which had recently tied up with the Swedish audiobooks service Storytel, also provided a 30-day free trial of audiobooks.
“These are some of the business models that will work along with print. E-books will become mainstream, with all of the new titles becoming first available in that format. Our brick-and-mortar stores have certainly taken a hit. We experimented with Zomato for home delivery in Thrissur and Kochi. Soon, we will be launching the same in Thrissur and Kozhikode, while in Kannur, Swiggy will be the partner. Since there was no separate category for books in the app, they put it under groceries. Post the pandemic, we project the book sales from shops to come down to 50% of the existing figures,” says Ravi DeeCee, managing director of DC Books.
With supply chains coming to a standstill, book stores have been having a hard time even after getting permission to open.
“Usually after a global issue like this, there will be a boom for studies or books related to it. Books like Dean Koontz’s 1981 work The Eyes of Darkness, which had a virus named ‘Wuhan-400’, or Sylvia Browne’s 2008 work that predicted a pandemic like this were much talked about. But, these have not reached the book stores. Now, sales coming down by 30-40%. On the positive side, this lockdown is a period when reading has shot up, which will hopefully help bookstores post the pandemic,” says N.E. Chitrasenan, manager of Modern Book Centre in Thiruvananthapuram.
Abdul Latheef, who runs the Blossoms book store in Ernakulam, popular for its second-hand books, says his store has tied up with a courier company, as their attempts at home delivery did not go as expected. “During this time, we have to take a lot of precautions for home delivery but a lot of readers are reaching out to us,” says Latheef.
For the small, independent publishers and bookstores, the pandemic has made survival even more difficult, as they don’t have the kind of profit margins of the big publishers to innovate and experiment.