Books world: The 'World Book Fair' to be held in the capital from next week may have been postponed due to Corona, but the magic of the elusive world of books will never end. Books have played a very positive role in these two years of the pandemic. The printed words have given people mental food and also peace. Arun Kumar Jaimini's investigation on the changes in books during this period-
Dr. Maheshwar Prasad Chaurasia of Delhi always wanted to write a novel. But the topic was not fixed. Then decided to write a book on Delhi's fight against the Corona pandemic that started in 2020. However, Chaurasia is not the only one who has decided to write something inspired by the pandemic. Corona: A Checkmate, Murder in the Time of Corona, Amar Deswa, Puddan Katha, and Maya Ne Ghumayo, some of the books published in the last months of 2021 show how the writing and reading work continued during this period.
Indians engaged in reading and writing in lockdown
People turned to different types of books to deal with the challenging times in the lockdown. According to a report, there has been a 50 percent increase in reading time, a 30 percent increase in new stories, and a 60 percent increase in writers during the last two years i.e. lockdown. Interestingly, the authors who wrote these books are doctors, IT professionals, teachers, who wrote something for the first time. So it can be said that the pandemic has changed the way we write and read. In the year 2020, from January to April, there was a 151 percent increase in the number of new stories written on Wattpad. In the same period, the number of new writers increased by 125 percent. In fact, there are many apps for reading and writing stories, where content is available on romance, science fiction, mystery, fantasy, and more.
Really changing the world of books
Confirming that the world of books has also changed in the changing times, Amod Maheshwari of Rajkamal Prakashan says, “The pandemic has completely changed the world of books. Now books are being printed keeping the readers in mind. The traditional market for books is not fully active in the situation arising out of the pandemic. It all depends on online sales and online readers only pick up books that they feel connected to or which arouse curiosity in their minds.
An interesting change in the pandemic is also seeing that publishers have reduced their dependence on big writers. The offbeat content from the new writers is being liked by the readers. Something similar is believed by Priyamvada Rastogi, chief editor, and publisher of 'Storytel'. He says that nowadays romance, crime, and children's content are quite popular. New topics are being liked a lot.
Will the era of audiobooks come?
Libraries, bookshops were all closed during the pandemic, but the mobile remained with everyone. That's why people's reading habits and free apps forced big and new publishers to put out e-books editions. According to a report, the prolonged non-availability of printed books due to the lockdown has increased the prevalence of e-books and audiobooks and the sale of e-books and the demand for audiobooks has doubled. In a survey conducted in July 2020, 64 percent of participants under the age of 34 admitted that they preferred to spend more time reading print books. While 34 percent of people above the age of 35 preferred e-books. On this, Arun Maheshwari, director of Vani Prakashan, says, 'Among all the negativity of the epidemic, there is a positive side that even those who did not know the technology learned it. This led to the creation of a new market. But the traditional method of bookselling was destroyed. This caused a loss to the bookseller, but the author and publisher have benefited. Apart from the novel, story, new content has got an expansion.
Anurag Vats, the editor of Binge, says, “Binge started during the pandemic, which revived the episodic novel genre. It became so popular at this time that today it has more than two lakh readers. Writers from the old generation to the new generation were read a lot on this. Since mobile is with everyone today, it has more reach. However, behind its success, they believe its easy-to-accessibility. But Shailesh Bharatwasi, editor of Hind Yog, does not agree with this. He believes that the depiction of the epidemic is happening in writing and during this time more writing has happened. The number of manuscripts increased. Well written, it's not like that. Overall, he doesn't think the pandemic has had a huge impact on the writing world.
From print to audio
The growth in portals like Audible, Suno India, Storytel, LibriVox, Scribd, Google Play Books, Apple Books, Overdrive shows how the demand for audiobooks has increased during the pandemic. Research data also shows that online ordering for printed books as well as audio content and podcasts has increased during the pandemic. This trend is reflected in the report, which states that the global audiobook market was estimated to be around $4 billion in 2020, which is projected to reach $20 billion by 2030.
