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

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.

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 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 Pratham Books set up in 2004 to fill this gap Genesis of Pratham Books:

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!

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

Current Status: 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

Innovations at Pratham Books:

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

Product Innovation:

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

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 Attano  MeMeTales MeMeTales  Naavica Systems Naavica Systems  Fliplog Fliplog

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 here to view the remixed books Click here Click here to download images and make your own story! Click here Click here to download our books for free Click here

Brand Impact: Pratham Books:

The Impact so far: 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

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

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

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

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 publishers Books published in up to 28 languages Almost 30% books produced are for children

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 copies in top languages Children bestsellers print/reprints go up to half a million copies as well.

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

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.

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

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

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

Children Publishers Pratham Books Tulika Books Katha Books Children Book Trust National Book Trust Eklavya Navneet Tara Books Rupa & Co Amar Chitra Katha Orient Blackswan

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