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| Guidance positive on Nilekani's book |
| Ashish Sinha / New Delhi Nov 24, 2008, 00:22 IST |
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BOOK: Large orders have been placed for Infosys co-chairman’s maiden venture.
Nandan Nilekani’s 380-page book, Imagining India: Ideas for the New Century, is all set to become a bestseller even before its official release on November 24. By the looks of it, the co-founder, former chief executive officer and co-chairman of Infosys Technologies will soon become a successful author as well.
Positioned as one of the biggest and most-awaited books to be released in recent times by its publisher, Penguin India, orders for 4,000 to 5,000 copies have already been placed with the company by booksellers, according to sources in the publishing industry.
Orders are pouring in on the net too. Indiaplaza.com, the website on which online orders for the book can be placed, is said to have received 1,000-1,200 bookings so far. The website has offered the book at a 30 per cent discount to its cover price of Rs 699.
All told, this Allen Lane imprint by Penguin India is expected to get an initial print-run of about 40,000 copies, the largest in recent times. “We cannot disclose numbers as a matter of policy. But it may very well be the largest book to have come out in recent times in terms of its demand and its print-run,” said a Penguin India executive.
“I know for sure that all the large bookshops in Delhi and Mumbai have placed big orders. Also, several educational institutions have also placed a large order with Penguin,” said an executive of Crossroads, a leading bookshop chain.
To put the numbers in perspective, any business book which sells over 3,000 copies is a good bet for the publisher. Non-fiction as a genre sells less than fiction — Harry Potter books sell in hundreds of thousands and even Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies (also published by Penguin) has sold over 32,000 so far. Some non-fiction books like ex-President APJ Abdul Kalam’s Ignited Minds too sold in similar numbers, but such examples are not mare than a handful.
The buzz in the market place is that Nilekani has done a good job with the book. “I am told he has worked very hard for the book. And it is a well-researched, well-written book that should strike a chord with the 16-60 age-group,” says a senior executive of a rival publishing house.
An alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Nilekani started his career with Patni Computer Systems in 1978. One of his colleagues in the company was NR Narayana Murthy. In 1981, Nilekani and six others, led by Narayana Murthy, set up Infosys. It soon grew to become one of India’s largest providers of information technology services.
From 2002 to 2007, Nilekani served as the company’s CEO. Since then, he has focused on client relationships and transformational initiatives, besides being a brand ambassador for the company. Time has counted him as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Thomas Friedman’s bestseller, The World is Flat, drew heavily from his conversations with Nilekani.
In his book, readers will get a flavour of the central ideas that helped shape modern India. The book will also offer original perspective on India’s past, present and future. Nilekani will be on a six-city tour starting from Delhi and will also travel to the United States between January and March 2009 to promote his book.
For Penguin, it is sure to get good profits and establish the Allen lane imprint in India. Imprints are genre-based classifications for books published by large publishers. While Allen Lane imprint represent books based on ‘ideas’ (like the forthcoming books of Gurcharan Das and Meghnad Desai), Penguin Profile is another such imprint on books dealing with management and business category.
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