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Hachette sales soar in India

Book publisher Hachette India has surpassed its own expectations to become the country's second largest trade publisher by value

While the publishing firm overtook both HarperCollins and Random House on its way to second place, it still falls a long way short of the top spot. Penguin remains the country's leading publishing house, with a turnover of more than double that of Hachette India's.

During 2009, Hachette India's turnover came to 270 million rupees (£3.6 million).

The publisher's success will come as a surprise to many given the fact that it was the firm's first full year in the Indian market.

Indeed, Thomas Abraham, managing director of Hachette India, admitted that even he had not anticipated the success the company has enjoyed.

He said: "We didn’t expect to be number two after our first full year. We thought we would have a good year, but we expected [achieving second place] to be three years away.

"It will take a long time for anyone else to catch up [with Penguin], but we will get there."

He went on to reveal that the year's success had come about as a result of both international and domestic achievements.

While a significant range of books were said to have elevated the publisher to second place, there were special mentions for books that made a particularly useful contribution.

My Friend Sancho by Amit Varma and the Children's Infopedia & Yearbook were the two standout performers from domestic creators. Seeds of Terror by Gretchen Peters and Quntum by Manjit Kumar were also unanticipated hits for the publisher.

According to the Bookseller, the most significant international contribution came from what Mr Abraham has termed "a nice little bit of luck" – Stephenie Meyer.

As they have done the world over, Ms Meyer's Twilight novels have proven to be enormously successful in India. The released volumes accounted for between 17 and 18 per cent of all Hachette sales last year, the news provider revealed.

While Hachette India is busy selling brand new copies of the latest hits, elsewhere on the subcontinent, fellow booklovers are busy saving old volumes from decay.

Conservationists at the University of Mumbai are nearing the end of a $55,000 project to restore a selection of very old, rare books to their former glory, according to the Associated Foreign Press.

Kirti Joshi, an assistant conservator, told the news provider: "Future generations should know what our history is. To do so we have to preserve it."

The project has also seen a number of these books digitised to UNESCO standards.

While approximately 300 books have so far been saved, conservationists are hoping to extend this figure to 500,000, the news service reports.