Chennai 40th Book Fair

Last week I had been to the Chennai book fair and it was a great experience. I used to read a lot of good things about this fair and I really wanted to see what is happening out there this time. This is my first visit to Chennai book fair and I just thought of sharing my thoughts about this.

- Lot of people especially on a weekday and on a hot afternoon.

- Many young people were there around all the book shops. I think we should stop complaining that the young people doesnt read anymore...

- Almost all the stalls has printed copies of "Ponniyin Selvan" and "Sivakamiyin Sabatham" in different rates, sizes, bundles, discounts, etc.

- Amazon had their own stall promoting Kindle and the fact that you can read Tamil books now. Went there, spent sometime, happy to see Pustaka books in some devices. A bunch of young guys were very enthusiastically explaining about Kindle and Tamil reading.

- In my view, some of the hot selling genres are self-improvement, astrology, children books, cooking, top-sellers (Kalki, Sujatha and so on).

- Most of the publishers are selling the books which they published and other popular books as well. If you are looking for some popular books, you can find it in many shops.

- Spoken to many people about the ebooks as a concept and their response is really encouraging.

- Met some key authors and they are keen and interested to publish their books as ebooks.

- When there is a lot of "food for thought" is inside the stalls, we cannot avoid "thought of food" in the cafetaria. There were many stalls related to organic food, miltes, etc. which were tasty.

- I hope the next year book fair will be much technology oriented with a lot of growth in e-books.

Pic courtesy: bapasi.com

- Dr. Rajesh Devadas, Ph.D., Director, Pustaka Digital Media Pvt. Ltd.,