Telescoped History
The first significant commercial outlets of Nepali publishing were started in the north Indian city of Benaras in the second half of the 19th century. By the turn of the 20th century, tens of thousands copies of many Nepali-language books had been published from Benaras by unscrupulous publishers, not all of whom were Nepali nationals. These were consumed by variously exiled and educated Nepalis, Gurkha soldiers and migrant workers in India, and a small section of the educated class inside Nepal (The best description in English of the Banaras-led publishing scene is available in the 2003 PhD dissertation of historian Rhoderick Chalmers)
Fearing the subversive power of the printed word, the Rana rulers did not really allow independent commercial publishing ventures inside Nepal until well into the 1930s. However, even the few publishing houses that did operate in Nepal published compromised texts. The few magazines (such as Sharada) and books that were published often contained long passages of praise of Rana rulers. Given the small readership and limited political freedoms, commercial publishing did not really take off under the Ranas.
After the Ranas were ousted in 1951, for-profit printing rocketed, especially in the genres of textbooks and journalism. However, in a country where less than two percent of the population was literate in the early 1950s, and where there were virtually no road networks outside the Kathmandu Valley, this growth in printing activity did not mean that commercial publishers became overnight millionaires. Most published school or college textbooks as they were the least-risk products, and other items, if published, had a print-run of a few hundred at most.
The growth noticed during the 1950s was subjected to strict censorship laws and other means of control after the rise of the Panchayat system in the early 1960s. Only publishers who had earned plenty of money from textbooks ventured to publish some literary and social science works.
Prior censorship and confiscation of printing hardware were made illegal by the 1990 Constitution. This provided a boost to the publishing industry during the 1990s. The most successful publishers pushed their textbooks in the curricula of the ever increasing private schools, and to add some prestige to their publication portfolio, they also published a few works of other types. This aspect of the industry is most prominent in the publication list Ekta Books.
Other publishers focused on mostly social science publications in English. Notable here is Mandala Book Point whose publishing work became progressively more visible since it published Anthropology of Nepal edited by Michael Allen (2004). But Mandala has not used its income to upgrade to the next level. It barely uses copyediting, and peer review of the books it has published is mostly organized by the editors and authors themselves
In the last five years, some new commercial outlets – Publication Nepa-laya, Vajra Books (focusing mostly on new and reprints of books related to Buddhism), Fine Print (literature and social science), Orchid Books (literature) and many others – have pushed the terrain of the possible in academic and trade genres. In so doing, these for-profit outlets have begun to pay attention to good publishing protocols: some copyediting, pleasant layout, attractive cover design, excellent print quality, and some amount of publicity for their books.
Of late, there have been some modular innovations by the for-profit publishers, two of which are discussed here.
Publicity Blitz
First is the publicity blitz that a new publisher, Publication Nepa-laya (PN), carried out for its book, Palpasa Café (2005) written by journalist-writer Narayan Wagle. In July 2005, PN started its blitz with a soft launch in Patan where writer CK Lal commented on the book. News about it was said to have created such a demand that the publisher was forced to advance its launch in the market.
Massive ads of the book in the country’s most influential newspaper, Kantipur, were subsequently published. In a presentation at Martin Chautari in August 2007, PN’s promoter Kiran Shrestha claimed to have worked out a ‘deal’ with the then owners of Kantipur regarding the promotion of this book by the paper’s then editor Wagle. Details of the deal were not revealed on that occasion but it is clear that the manner in which Kantipur Publications subsidized the publicity campaign of this book cannot be matched by the budget of other publishers.
After the book was published, Wagle’s friends in the journalistic fraternity obliged with friendly reviews of his book. Its distributor, Anjan Shrestha of Educational Book House and Ajit Baral (now owner of Fine Prints) then organized at least one major public discussion on the book in Kathmandu (where Dr Sanjeev Uprety and I spoke along with author Wagle). Several book-signing events were organized at book fairs by Anjan, and when the book won the Madan Puraskar, its publisher rejigged the cover, a pattern that was replicated in Jagadigh Ghimire’s Antarmanko Yatra (2008). In 2008, PN came out with an English translation and a cheap student edition. All these marketing ventures – worthy of a detailed case study by some researcher – have resulted in the selling of more than 25,000 copies in four and half years.
PN followed this success with a different strategy when it came to promoting its subsequent book, A People War: Images of the Nepal Conflict 1996-2006 (2006), a photo collection, conceived and introduced by journalist Kunda Dixit. Here, PN promoted the book by organizing exhibitions of the photographs in the book in many locations in Nepal. This too, as far as I know, was a first with respect to any book published in Nepal.
Older for-profit publishers in Kathmandu grudgingly (and privately, I should add) acknowledge that PN has brought some corporate-style promotion with respect to the books it has published. However, PN’s list is still very short (less than half a dozen books) and it remains to be seen what kind of publicity model it will adopt with its future books.
Copyedit Plus Package
The second experiment that I would like to discuss here is the ‘copy-edit plus package’ deal that Ratna Pustak (RP) has made with a number of writers/editors. For instance, for some children’s books, RP made a deal with the writer Sashwat Parajuli and his team a number of years ago. RP’s Govinda Shrestha contracted out the creation of several children’s books to the Parajuli-led team in an effort to build his own list of interesting children’s books and to challenge other publishers to do the same.
The team had to come up with the text and images for these books, copy-edit both and deliver the camera-ready-copy to the publisher. This arrangement resulted in the publication of almost two dozen books. These included books such as Cuske ra Chuske, Danga Phuranga, Suriko Saikal, and Bicaro Bukhyaca by Parajuli (these are some of the most favorite Nepali books of my eight-year old son), and many others by several writers. This arrangement for children’s books came to a temporary halt when Parajuli migrated to greener pastures in the West.
But RP continued a similar arrangement when it decided to publish good books to celebrate its 60th year as a publisher some four years ago. Under this scheme, RP contracted out the ‘copy-edit plus package’ to several freelancing editors (whose names Shrestha did not want to reveal but it is easy to guess them). In the past four years, almost three dozen books have already been published under this model. These include the following that I have found interesting to read: Baigyanik Goretoma by the botanist Dayananda Bajracharya, Dasgajama Ubhiera by the singer musician Ganesh Rasik, and Atitka Pana by the historian of Nepali periodicals, Shiva Regmi.
The technical production quality of these books is great. Copyediting plus arrangement seems to have contributed to author development and resulted in a list of books that suits the profile of the oldest Nepali commercial publisher still in business, RP. It should be possible for other for-profit publishers to replicate this success. Maybe they are already doing this.
There are many remaining challenges that the for-profit publishers need to tackle. First, for the publisher-writer relationship to flourish, clear contractual arrangements might be necessary. This will avoid mutual blame games when it comes to sharing the profits of a successful book. Second, they need to invest in good peer reviews. Third, they need to recruit and retain commissioning and copy editors, either as in-house members of their staff or in freelance long-term arrangement. Fourth, they need to come together as a forum to publish a good periodic bulletin about developments in the industry.
It remains to be seen which among the for-profit publishers will take the next big leap and professionally wrestle with the above mentioned challenges. Are there any takers?
Onta is a historian of 20th century Nepal and is based at Martin Chautari.
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