How long does the book made of paper have?

I don’t think it matters in the long run how much time paper has left. As long as content remains alive, we’re okay, says Urvashi Butalia

The one thing that can be said with certainty about the state of the publishing industry in India is that nothing can be said with any certainty. After 1972, when the government commissioned the National Centre for Applied Economic Research to do a survey of book publishing in India, there has been no systematic study, so we have no reliable stats at all.

Some people in publishing say the industry in India is valued at Rs 5,000 crore; others say Rs 7,000 crore (these are the figures most widely bandied about).

Just as no one really knows the size of the industry, no one really knows much about growth figures. Everything is based on impressions, assumptions and speculations, with some facts lying at the bottom. The general wisdom is that in trade publishing (books targeted at the mass market), growth is somewhere between 20-30 percent annually. About other sectors not much is known, although some estimates can be made for the educational sector by computing growth in education and institutes.

Growth will not stop in the near future. India is one of the few markets in the world that is not yet saturated and that still has a very low per capita book consumption. As education grows, as literacy improves, as urbanisation spreads, as incomes increase, as the media spreads, growth in books will also accompany these, although the form of the book may well change.

Read more: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/features/how-long-doesbook-madepaper-have_804153.html