“A BOOK IN EVERY CHILD’S HAND”

1. Pratham Books “A BOOK IN EVERY CHILD’S HAND”

2. Mission: Pratham Books is a not-for-profit children's book publisher with a societal mission to see “a book in every child's hand "and democratize the joy of reading.

3. Genesis of Pratham Books: A nation-wide campaign READ INDIA launched in 2003 to enable children to read Ongoing campaign targets millions of children across the country BUT – once children learn to read there is no access to books to build a reading habit Pratham Books set up in 2004 to fill this gap A network of libraries created to build and sustain a reading habit among children BUT there is shortage of quality, low-cost children’s books for these libraries

4. Objectives: • Create high quality, affordable books for children • Publish books in multiple Indian languages • Create an open platform for authors, illustrators, and book publishers to collaborate and build a reading country. • Create a new paradigm in publishing and catalyze existing publishers to explore a new market at lower price points A book in every child’s hand!

5. Bright colorful enjoyable books Good quality printing and paper Strong credibility among NGOs and Government Pratham Books Mix: Child centric approach Affordable pricing Open Content policy Available in multiple Indian languages

6. Current Status: • 250 + original titles/1600 books created across genres for children aged 3 to 14 • Books published in 11 Indian languages • Over 10 million books sold • Over 8 million story cards sold • Readership of ~ 15 million • Hybrid funding model – philanthropic capital + sales revenue

7. Innovations at Pratham Books:

8. Product Innovation: • Books – from Rs. 10 – Rs. 90 • Bilinguals from Rs. 25 • Story cards at Rs. 2 • 'Library in a classroom' packages starting at Rs. 13 per child per month • Language diversity • Books available in sachet form

9. Product Innovation:

10. Distribution Innovation: • Books sold through non-traditional channels like railways • Reached 2000 villages through a unique tie-up with Post Offices

11. Open Content Policy: • Open content policy creates multiplier effect • 50+ titles, 200+ books available for free access • Books available on digital platforms such as Android, Apple, Blackberry etc. for downloads • Attano • MeMeTales • Naavica Systems • Fliplog

12. Old Content – New Books! • Innovative contests like “Retell, Rejoice, Remix” have given birth to over 75+ new stories with existing illustrations – that's 75 new stories at zero cost! • Click hereto view the remixed books • Click here to download images and make your own story! • Click here to download our books for free

13. Brand Impact: Pratham Books:

14. The Impact so far: • 200000+ plus schools reached across 21 states • Reaching to 18,000+ libraries thruogh Pratham, Room to Read, Unicef, Akshara etc • Impacted the lives of children in rural Bihar, Punjab, Uttarkhand, Karnataka, Assam etc • Books used by country's elite schools and used as supplementary readers

15. The Impact so far: • 250 titles • 200000 schools • 21 states • 10 million books • 8 million story cards • 200+ champions / volunteers 15 Million children

16. Indian Demographic Stats • 1.21 billion population • Country with 72% Rural and 28% Urban population • 363 million children between 0-14 ages • Literacy rate 65% (Urban-80% Vs Rural-58%) • Estimated 100 million children in the top of pyramid in terms accessibility/affordability

17. Schools Stats in the Country.. • Almost 2.4 million primary/secondary schools in the country • 1.37 million Govt primary and secondary schools • 1.3 million pre-primary schools • More than half a million private schools • Govt spends roughly of about $12 billion every year on education in India

18. Publishing Stats for Country • $ 4.5 billion print/publishing industry • $ 2 billion for education and non-educational books • Remaining for Newspaper/Magazines etc. • Almost hundred thousand plus books published every year • 40% of books published are for academics • Close to 20000 publishers • Books published in up to 28 languages • Almost 30% books produced are for children

19. Publishing Stats for Country • Prominent languages in order of print runs Hindi English Tamil Bengali Marathi • Telegu Malayalam Gujarati Urdu • Hindi contributes to 25% and English to 20% • Average Print runs for new books starts from 1100 copies to 10000 copies in top languages • Children bestsellers print/reprints go up to half a million copies as well.

20. Children Publishing Trends… • Estimated 42% children like reading non-fiction • Others , into reading fantasy, comics and classics which are the three most preferred genres of fiction • Growing readership, thanks to RTE as well • In last 8 years 4000 new publishers came in business with almost 70% for children books • Children Books getting more affordable because of competition within segment • Diversity of content available • 50% revenue of orgs like NBT comes from children books • Challenge still remains to capture the multilingual children publishing

21. Original Content and Rights • Majorly all original content is sourced from English and taken to regional languages • Lack of regional flavor in content is still missing • Lot more children publishers have started taking rights from other countries to produce books • Rights for children books are majorly coming from countries UK, Scandanavia, France, Iran, Germany etc.

22. E-publishing • Growing at a pace of 35% per annum • Total market size of $ 1.30 million • No great contribution in children segment in e-publishing except for textbook market • Very few publishers with available digital content for children • More companies to digitize content in country • Digital books available through publisher directly • Some publishers opting for Google books option • Publishers like Pratham Books used creative commons to optimize digital use of content for children • Projects such as OLPC use lot of digital content for reading pleasure of children

23. Marketing Children Books… • Major sales through traditional trade models • No great promotion tools used for promoting books, except for Reading events/activities etc • More publishers/distributors jumping into the school book fair model at various metro/sub-metros • Even in Rural India distributors such as Bharathi Puskakalayam, Akshardhara , NHM conduct fairs at community/schools all around the year

24. New Trends and Prospects…. • Publishers like Pratham Books, CBT, NBT, Eklavya etc work on low price, high quality children books • Non –Traditional channels of distribution opted by publishers like Pratham Books through Railway agencies, Post offices, 3 tier retailers etc. • Lot of non-educational publishers now focus on volume sales through government projects • Publishing courses from NBT and IBP becoming more popular

25. Children Publishers • Pratham Books • Tulika Books • Katha Books • Children Book Trust • National Book Trust • Eklavya • Navneet • Tara Books • Rupa & Co • Amar ChitraKatha • Orient Blackswan

26. LET’S SPREAD THE JOY OF READING TO EVERY CHILD IN INDIA! blog.prathambooks.org www.prathambooks.org