Everybodys Business

The business book in India is no longer that tome gathering dust on the bookshelf,only to be brought down occasionally by that smart cousin studying at a B-school. Neither are they international titles written mostly by Americans. The first thing that struck me was that the market was undiscovered from the perspective of Indian authors writing business books. With the kind of explosive growth that the Indian economy had enjoyed over the last two decades,there are a number of great stories that are waiting to be told, says Anish Chandy,business editor,Penguin India. I think Indian readers are seeking something closer to their roots and international readers have realised the shortcomings of business principles that are restricted to western ideas, says Devdutt Pattnaik,author of Business Sutra: A Very Indian Approach to Management (Aleph 2013),which is trending on the bestseller list.

A glance at the business books section at leading bookstore chains such as Oxford Bookstores or Crossword reveals that more people are interested in reading about Indian success stories and books that understand the way business works in the country. From Porus Munshis Making Breakthrough Innovation Happen: How 11 Indians Pulled Off The Impossible (HarperCollins India 2009,55,000 copies sold) to Subroto Bagchis The Professional (Penguin India 2011,over 1 lakh copies) to Dhandha: How Gujaratis Do Business by Shobha Bondre (Random House India 2013,20,000 copies),these titles are consistently on the Indian bestseller list.

Books that straddle self-help and the business genre also do better. Iyers titles belong to that category,The Habit of Winning has sold approximately 55,000 copies since its publication in 2012. The Secret of Leadership has sold approximately 20,000 copies. Within different industries,the mentorship aspect is growing and people want to share their experiences. Self-help is one way to go about it, says Dibakar Ghosh,business editor,Rupa Publications. In summer 2014,Rupa will launch Maven,an imprint dedicated to business books.

Literary agents,too,are seeking business titles. Literary fiction is becoming impossible to sell these days and business books are being lapped up. It is not enough to only be a subject expert. One needs to also write well. That is why it is important to brainstorm with agents and editors, says Urmila Dasgupta,who runs Purple Folio,a Mumbai-based literary agency. There is a change in content current trends,even how social media is affecting business,or how e-commerce works etc are the focus of some business books now, says Mita Kapur of Siyahi,a Jaipur-based literary agency.

For many years,the corporate memoir,where an expert has shared his observations and expertise,has been a safe bet for publishing houses. For the expert,the book adds credibility to his status. But sometimes an idea can trump the reputation card. For instance,Faster: 100 Ways to Improve Your Digital Life (Penguin India,2013) by Ankit Fadia has sold approximately 30,000 copies,in spite of outright scepticism about the author.

The other formula is to have the movers and shakers of the corporate world share their success stories in a collection,such as The Game Changers: 20 Extraordinary Success Stories of Entrepreneurs from IIT Kharagpur (Random House India,2012) by IIT-KGP undergraduate students Yuvnesh Modi,Rahul Kumar and IIT-KGP alumnus Alok Kothari. The book has sold about 30,000 copies and only time will tell if it will become as successful as the original B-school book Rashmi Bansals Stay Hungry,Stay Foolish (Westland),which is said to have sold over 3 lakh copies since its publication in 2008. Its simple: nothing succeeds like success.