‘Publishing books a social responsibility’

In addition to business and livelihoods, the coronavirus has also struck down cultural footfall around the city -- silencing some of our major book hubs including Nilkhet and New Market, and forcing some remarkable establishments such as Dhaka's Kobita Café and Dipanpur to shut down and Bengal Boi to relocate.

In the wake of this inactivity, the only upside has been the triggering of critical discussions on the virtual space, as Facebook Live sessions attempt to parse through important facets of sociocultural and political life.

Life online, these days, simulates life in the city as we knew it, making these conversations easily accessible to all.

One such discussion unfolded on August 23 at Rokomari's Career Café Live Facebook webinar with Mahrukh Mohiuddin of University Press Ltd (UPL) and Mahmudul Hasan of Adorsho Prokashoni. The event addressed some of the pressing difficulties of our local book trade, such the issues of breaking even, collecting revenues from booksellers, selecting writers and manuscripts, choosing print over digital books, and the underlying question of whether young aspirants should try to enter an industry that barely manages to stay afloat.

It is common practice for books to be published only in 300-500 copies in Bangladesh -- something that significantly hikes up per unit production costs for publishers -- while only a tiny fraction of them end up selling. Collecting the sales revenues from booksellers is often an additional hurdle. For a country of close to 170 million and counting, these figures for book sales indicates an almost negligible state of cultural and intellectual activity among the wider population.

For publishers, this means dire business circumstances. "Just the material and production costs account for 30-35 percent of our revenues," Mahmudul Hasan of Adorsho Prokashoni shared during the webinar. "Sales and promotions take up 10 percent, wholesale commissions account for up to 40 percent, and writers are owed around 10 percent royalty. Given the roughly 5 percent that remains, it's a miracle that we are even surviving."

"These costs are further spurred on by the local paper industries which often artificially inflate prices," added Mahrukh Mohiuddin of UPL. "A general practice for publishers in other countries is to add 5-7 percent mark-up on their cost price, but we can't even mark up to 3 percent."

A major reason for the latter is readers' opinions -- while other commodities like fast food or clothing have managed to build up a brand value which deters customers from expecting massive discounts on them, books are often thought to be unfairly expensive. The cost price of materials and binding, and the intangible yet crucial elements of editing, proofing, promotion and, most importantly, the author's intellectual input comprising months or years of writing and training, all of this goes unaccounted for.

For publishers like UPL, which mainly produce books on research and the social sciences, the readership is even more niche.

"Publishers are just one component of the ecosystem of our knowledge economy," Mahrukh explained. "How are the other components functioning? We have schools which produce young thinking minds, who then move on to universities and on into the job market or leadership positions. In most of these educational institutions, rote memorisation and a lack of critical thinking is nurtured. We are encouraged not to challenge teachers and leaders."

This vacuum of critical thinking deters the production and prioritisation of works of research. As a result, for their larger projects, publishers like UPL have to rely on institutional support.

"Publishing isn't just business, it's a social responsibility. Our primary duty is towards our readers, to add value to [intellectual work] and help it reach an audience. But how will I reach my reader? Where is that bridge? Is creating it only the publishers' duty? Our ecosystem also needs to offer its support."

Daily Star Books is published in The Daily Star every Thursday. Follow them at https://www.facebook.com/dailystarbooks/ or @thedailystarbooks on Instagram.