David Davidar: Aleph books will be competitively priced

Peter Griffin/Forbes India

David Davidar, co-founder of Aleph Book Company, tells Peter Griffin that his company hopes to fix the dearth of great books in history, science, politics, sociology and travel

David Davidar
Age: 53
Profile: Co-Founder and MD, Aleph Book Company
Career: Over 25 years as a publishing professional. Founder-publisher of Penguin India at age 26; was then variously CEO & Publisher, Penguin India; MD, Dorling Kindersley India; CEO, Pearson India; Publisher, Penguin Canada; president & publisher, Penguin Canada; CEO, Penguin International
Education: BSc, Madras University; Diploma in Publishing, Harvard University
Interests: Tennis, swimming, music, movies, books

Q: Worldwide, publishing is shrinking. What chances do you have with a new brand?

English language publishing elsewhere in the world is not really growing. However, in India, the aggregate growth appears to be 10-12% a year, which is fantastic. This is why I decided to launch Aleph Book Company here.

Q: You’re aiming at a more sophisticated reader. How will you make sure that Aleph’s books reach them and appeal to them?

In our view, there are many areas that have not been exploited in any significant way. While we have world class novelists, we have too few great books of history, science, politics, sociology, travel, narrative non-fiction and biography. You might have books with first rate scholarship, but largely unreadable by lay readers; and books available to general readers are sometimes readable, but singularly lacking in depth or nuance.

Q: From your years in the West, what tricks will you be bringing to the still-young Indian market?

We have very little to learn from the West in terms of editing, design or production; today we have at least a few world-class publishing companies. We want our books to be exquisite and benchmarked against the best in the world, but we also want to sell them in large quantities, which we are hoping to do through Rupa’s unrivalled sales and distribution infrastructure. There are certain marketing ideas that we intend to try that hopefully will be innovative enough to bring our books to the attention of readers. It isn’t always the smartest thing to try and duplicate things that work in one market in another.

Q: Will you be going the low volume/high price route?

We are pricing Aleph’s books to what the market will take. I think it is misleading to assume that price is the only determinant of high volume sales. We intend to try and make every Aleph book a bestseller in its category, so our books will be competitively priced.
 
Q: What is Aleph going to be doing in the digital space?

Every Aleph book will be an e-book within six months of print publication. At the moment, e-book sales in the Indian market are negligible. But I’m convinced that within a couple of years they could constitute as much as 15-20%. As the digital space grows in importance, we will be experimenting with standalone e-books, enhanced e-books and anything else that makes sense to us.

Q: We hear you’ve been talking to Private Equity players…

That is incorrect. Rupa’s backing of Aleph is more than sufficient.

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