This July, Penguin will begin distributin books published by Perseus International to India. The Perseus Group’s imprints include Avalon Travel, Basic Books, Basic Civitas, Da Capo Press, Da Capo Lifelong Books, PublicAffairs, Running Press, Seal Press, and Westview Press.
Penguin has been operating out of India since 1985 and is hoping to capitalize on the growing digital trend by bringing a number of hot titles, such as Tom Rath’s StrengthsFinder 2.0, Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad, Deepak Chopra’s The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Shakti Gawain’s Creative Visualization, and Kishore Mahbubani’s The New Asian Hemisphere.
Perseus is a large group that has long had print distribution in India by exporting their titles to various national distributors. This move to work with Penguin India, will allow them to consolidate their stock holding and supply the market through their distribution network. This new distribution agreement with Penguin will broaden out the title count, become part of Penguin’s local supply chain and, as their client in India, take advantage of their sales/marketing/publicity capabilities.
Digital will work separately. Perseus has a global digital solution for participating independent publishers called Constellation and provides this service for our own imprints and those of over 300 client publishers. Therefore, in India, Perseus will handle digital distribution directly with eligible vendors.
Chitra Bopardikar the Vice President, International Sales & Business Development at Perseus told me that ““While the majority of our print distribution will be handled by Penguin India, Perseus will handle ebook distribution directly with Indian vendors via Constellation – our branded global digital solution for independent publishers”.
Penguin India’s CEO and president Andrew Phillips said, “Penguin India is delighted to be working with Perseus, and we look forward to expanding the range of books available in India and introducing great new authors to Indian readers.”
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
