Lalmati (En. Red Soil) Publishers: Creating a Niche in a Crowded Market1

“I don’t consider any publisher as a competitor in particular. If we can come up with honest intentions and move on, then the outcome will be good for the entire market.”

Nimai GoraiProprietor, Lalmati Publishers

“E-books have advantages, they are easy to store, easy to carry and less expensive. But I feel they can never give the pleasure of reading a book on printed paper.”

Nimai GoraiProprietor, Lalmati Publishers

“My major issue is finance. I could have done with a lot of drawbacks at all levels of publishing had I been able to procure some investment.”

Nimai GoraiProprietor, Lalmati Publishers

On a December evening of 2013, in the city of Kolkata in eastern India, a meeting was taking place in the college street office of Lalmati Publishers. The founder and proprietor of the company, Mr. Nimai Gorai (Gorai) was discussing the challenges faced by his business with Subimal Roy (Roy) and Sunil Sen (Sen). Roy and Sen were freelance consultants who helped book businesses with innovative ideas on marketing and strategy. Gorai was telling them the story of Lalmati and how it started from a small publishing house with a different name and grew up to become a popular player in a niche segment of the INR2 500 crore Bengali book market. Starting from a few but unique books 1997, Lalmati had been able to establish its name in the niche of Bengali comic book market through some of its omnibus comic anthologies.However, all was not well for Gorai. Being a small publisher, he was having a severe fund shortage which was impeding his growth plans. The rising costs of printing and accessories was also pushing up the prices of books, thereby reducing demand. There also was an issue of consumer perceptions where high priced books in Bengali were less preferred to their English counterparts. Lastly, the electronic media and internet was slowly alienating consumers from books and engaging them into more interactive activities such as gaming and chatting. Till now, Gorai was trying to avoid obstacles through sheer determination, as the business was very close to his heart. The Kolkata Book Fair3 2014 was round the corner and Gorai had around a month to make preparations for the same. He needed a marketing plan which would create a buzz for his company at a minimal cost.

The Origin of LalmatiThe seed of a non-text book business was planted in the mind of Gorai since his college days in Kolkata. As he reminisced, “In those days, I used to spend a lot of time in College street, which was the heart of publication business in Kolkata. However By that time (mid 1990’s) there were already giants in publication such as Ananda, Dey’s and Deb Sahitya Kutir. I always wanted to be a part of this industry, not as an employee but as an entrepreneur.” Gorai had a very humble

1 Disclaimer: This case is written solely for educational purposes and is not intended to represent successful or unsuccessful managerial decision-making. The author/s may have disguised names and financial and other recognizable information to protect confidentiality.2 1 INR = 0.0153 USD according to information from the Reserve Bank of India as of 08/22/2013. (http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/referenceratearchive.aspx)3

family background and none of his family members were ever in publishing business. Coupled with this, his financial background could not support the requirements of the business.. Therefore, Gorai started with literature with expired royalty because they would cost less to produce. His first venture was named “Surya Publishers” (en. Sun), that introduced him to the Bengali non-text book market. He was careful about the small nitty-gritties of his company and that’s why he asked a renowned Bengali writer to design the logo of Surya Publishers (Exhibit I).The initial days were difficult as he recalls, “It has also happened that I had to pen some stories since I had to fill the allotted pages of a book, but did not have the money to pay a new author”.Gorai didn’t have the resources or support to rope in big authors or publish major anthologies. However, he knew that the Bengali book market had eternal demand for cookbooks and books on trivia and quizzes. Thus he launched a quiz book called ‘Latest quiz’. The major conceptualization including the cover was designed by Gorai himself which had flags of different nations. It was edited and prefaced by Swami Satyananda of Ramkrishna Mission, Rahara4. As a token of thanks, Gorai gifted copies of the book for the students Ramkrishna Mission. Interestingly, the same book was selling well since it was launched and was a flagship product of Gorai. However, from the beginning Gorai had a desire to work with major authors. Thus he kept on searching for the right opportunity which came in 1998. His first royalty owned book was a collection of horror stories by renowned author Sunil Gangopadhyay5 followed by another horror anthology by another renowned author Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay6. His next target was to publish a book that readers would treasure throughout their lives. From that perspective Rabindranath Tagore7’s work had to be tapped. As he recalled, “during that period, the copyrights of Tagore’s works had just expired and other publishers were also bringing such publications in the market”. But to create something different was the challenge, “It was obvious that if we must work on Tagore then that work had to reach such high standards that would make my book stand out.”Gorai’s research yielded results as he found that there was not a single publisher who had a complete collection of all short stories of Tagore in a single volume. However, to come up with such a volume, he would have required the entire content and an ace editor. Thus began an extensive search for all short stories of Tagore and to get an expert to edit the same. While on this mission, Gorai came across Prasanta Pal (Pal), a renowned Tagore researcher, who agreed to edit the volume. However, Pal was apprehensive as Gorai recalls, “He told me that I looked too young to work on such an important book. Moreover, he was of the opinion that such a book would require passion and not profit motive. However, I convinced him about my intentions and the work started.” Ironically, the book took three years to take shape and get published and by

4 5 Sunil Ganguly (7 September 1934–23 October 2012) authored more than 200 books and was a prolific writer who excelled in various genres. Some of his novels, such as Pratidwandi (The Adversary) and Aranyer Din-Raatri (The Days and Nights of the Forest) have been made into feature films by Satyajit Ray. His historical fiction Sei Somoy (Those Days) received the Indian Sahitya Akademi award in 1985.6 Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay (2 November 1935–) is one of the most prolific and popular contemporary Bengali writers. Many of his works have been adapted into movies, such as Patalghar (The Underground Chamber) in 2003. In 2010, his adult fiction Kaagojer Bou (The Paper Wife) was adapted for a movie of the same title. He is the recipient of prestigious awards such as the Vidyasagar Award, Ananda Puroshkar, and Sahitya Akademi.7 Rabindranath Tagore (7 May 1861—7 August 1941) was a literary genius from Bengal, India. He was the first non-European Nobel Laureate (Literature). The pioneer of Bengal Renaissance, he has volumes of poetry, prose, songs, and other literary works to his credit. He is the only person to have composed the National Anthem of two countries, India (Jana Gana Mana) and Bangladesh (Amar Shonar Bangla).

that time the market had moved ahead. Even though Gorai had received positive reviews from critiques, the sales failed to meet the expectations’.

Lalmati is launchedThe first commercial success came from a cookbook by the name ‘Ranna Samagra’ (En. Complete Cookery), published when Gorai was participating in country fairs in the late 1990’s. He was inspired by cookbooks by other publishers and realized that cooking was an art as well as a profession. Moreover, in the late nineties the cable television had popularized cookery contests and readers were aware of international cuisines. Having decided on the topic, the question was who would be the expert contributors for the same? Gorai, recalls, “There was a chef by the name of Vincent Gomez, whose entire lineage had famous chefs whom I could persuade to be a contributor. In addition I contacted Bella Dey who used to host a popular cooking show on radio in the 1980’s. I got them to write the book and published in from Surya Publishers.” Based on the success of the book, Gorai published a book on Vegetarian Healthy Cooking which was jointly authored by three renowned vegetarian chefs and a traditional nutritionist. Interestingly the cover for both the books was designed by Gorai himself. As he recalled, “Both these were major success and sell even today. Later on I could come up with similar books based on the success of these two.”In 2002, Gorai decided to create a brand for his business. He decided to name it “Lalmati” as it would phonetically sound nice and would remind him of his roots8. Subsequently there was the need for a brand logo. The district of Bankura, popularly known as ‘Lalmati’ was famous for its burnt clay or terra cota horses which were known by its place of origin (Bankura Horses). But he was not satisfied by the designs given to him by some artists and designers. As he went back in time, “At around the time I was searching for the right logo, a pair of Bankura horses was bought by an acquaintance Subimal Lahiri when he went to Bankura for holidays. I requested him to lend me the same for some time and brought it to my place and photographed them. Then I drew and colored copies of the picture at my residence.” The new brand was ready, and as per Gorai, “I found my audience was appreciating the name and the symbol (Refer to Exhibit II for the logo). Moreover since the name and logo is linked to my homeland, it filled me with memories.”

The First Major Offering from Lalmati The first major product from Lalmati was an anthology of comic strips created by one of the most famous comic artists of Bengali language, Narayan Debnath9 (Debnath). The idea about the product came to Gorai while participating in district fairs when he observed buying behavior of comic books. As he recalled, “I found the parents were not interested to buy a Bengali book for their children worth INR 30, whereas the same parents were not bothered to purchase a foreign comic book like Tintin worth INR 350. Moreover, in the Kolkata Book Fair, I have observed big b0ook sellers to struggle with the demand for Tintin or Asterix. Thus, I started to wonder whether our own home grown comics would also have similar consumer response behavior. Thus, I contacted Mr. Narayan Debnath as he was the pioneer of Bengali comics. Initially he was reluctant because of his age and present work pressure. However, I persisted and convinced him that I wanted to create an anthology of his entire works. To this he was interested since he

8 Gorai came from a humble family in Bankura, which is also known as Lalmati because of the abundance on red soils in the region. 9

also wanted to see in his lifetime, his works put together in a single volume.” However, another problem cropped up since Debnath did not have copies of his published works and Gorai had to do the research. Interestingly, Gorai found an assistant in Shantanu Dey, who happened to be an ardent fan of Debnath. Together, the duo started a painstaking research of rummaging through the second hand book stores of Kolkata and old libraries for the work of Debnath. The Bengali comic books before this would be lesser than even 50 pages, however reputed the comic writer might be. Most of these were these were set of printed pages stapled together and would get damaged easily. Gorai instead wanted to create a collector’s item and thus maintained international quality standards for the book. Unfortunately, this increased the cost to a great extent and the price tag was fixed at INR 500, that too after keeping a narrow margin. However, when the first volume was shown to Debnath, he was overwhelmed and complemented Gorai for the feat (Refer to Exhibit III for the cover page of the same).

Lalmati Takes Off: But not smoothlyThe take off was not smooth for Lalmati, as Gorai rued, “Before this collection, Bengali readers had neither seen a 500 page comic anthology, neither one with a price tag of INR 500. Thus when I launched the product, the booksellers’ spontaneous response was, ‘Are you crazy! A Bengali comic book at Rupees 500! You have published a high quality comic book, that’s great! Keep it with you.’ Obviously I felt insulted and requested them to stock the books and pay me if only it got sold. After a while many of them returned the books as they were just not selling .” Gorai had invested a lot of money on the book and was not ready to give up so soon. Subsequently, the Kolkata Book Fair 2011 opened, and the book was displayed in the stall and the entire team of Lalmati gave its best efforts to sell the books. Just to generate awareness and curiosity, the team members made rounds of the entire fair carrying the books in their hands and displaying it. The slogan was “just come and see it.” Few thousand visitors saw the book and the footfall in the stall increased. The staff members reported that readers were browsing the book with interest. As Gorai recalled, “This was a positive sign as if they see it today, they might purchase it tomorrow. Still I figured that an INR 500 comic book was not considered worth buying and in 2011 the sales were nowhere near expectations. But positive feedback also came from interested readers who wanted me to carry on with further volumes. I could not explain them that I neither had the infrastructure nor the finance to sustain another setback.” In 2012, Gorai collected funds and started again. By this time however, word of mouth about the book had spread and readers were interested. Interestingly, the bookstores that had returned the book came back to me asking for more. The sales started taking off and Lalmati had started its journey on the path visioned by Gorai.

An Anthology is not Easy: The Product DevelopmentAs Gorai explained the product development process, the differences and complexities of the process compared to a consumer good became evident. As he detailed, “The idea generation process is done by me. External knowledge or market availability provides some information but ultimately it is my personal choice which leads me to decide what to publish. In addition, I have to search for experts in the required area and take their support in producing these works. Given the fact, that my establishment and the infrastructure are not very big, I have to undertake most of the responsibilities and also take help from friends and acquaintances on a voluntary basis. Generally, on venturing into such work, I start from the library since I feel libraries act as repositories of voluminous information, even in this internet age.” Gorai was member of many

prestigious and old libraries in and around Kolkata which stocked old, rare and useful books. The libraries were very helpful for initial research and the librarians were very cooperative. However, in many libraries old/rare books were neither available for issue nor for photocopy. In those cases, Gorai looked towards personal contacts to tackle the situation. The research required time, and at times Gorai had to spend 10-12 hours a day to get things done on time.Sometimes, unique product ideas evolved spontaneously. As Gorai recalled an incident, “This was the time when I was planning a complete collection of Leela Majumdar. In course of the research, I read ‘Padi Pishi’r Bormee Baksho10’. This was story for children about a long lost box of jewels and how it was rediscovered. It struck me as to how would it be to package the book within a box as mentioned in the story? However, to make a box which was supposedly for keeping jewels, would mean additional costs and would raise the price of the book. Many of my friends said it was madness as such an innovation would not work for a book, but I went on with the production (Refer to Exhibit V for a snap of the book and the box). In the meantime I received the shocking news that Leela Majumdar had passed away. I wanted to show her the work but could not. Nevertheless, I attended her funeral and took the book inside the box along with me. The box was displayed at the hall where people had gathered and many of them were imminent personalities from Bengali literature. They appreciated my effort and from that point, the book has found buyers from different parts of India and abroad.” Sometimes, ideas are generated from the market. As Gorai explained, “whenever a Bengali hears the name of Birendra Krishna Bhadra (Bhadra), they think of his Mahalaya11 recitals on radio. However, Bhadra was an imminent author, dramatist, child fiction writer and had created stories which could make one fall in love with. Interestingly, my research yielded that there were no good collection of Birendra Krishna Bhadra available in the market”. Gorai felt that a comprehensive collection of works of Bhadra would be lapped up by the market. However, when he discussed the project with his team, some of the team members suggested the inclusion of a CD containing excerpts of his ‘Mahalaya’ recitations and recitations of selected poems in his baritone voice so that the readers could have a taste of his talent. Thus, the collection not only required research for his lost works but also legal procedures to ensure that the royalty agreement on the audio pieces with the original copyright owners was not affected. Ensuring Quality“To make a high quality product, even the binding and the cover has to be given due importance”, as Gorai illustrated by showing the jacket of a book. “Most of our anthologies (comics or non-comics) are offered as premium products and thus require double binding.” Gorai explained the importance of binding and how it could work as a differentiating factor, “if you read foreign books or premium quality books, you will observe that the binding is of high quality. A poor binding would have a negative impact on the life of the book. On the other side, expensive binding does not necessarily mean that the book would be good. So the binding and layout has to be decided only after taking into consideration the market requirement and the customer’s purchasing power”. However, because of the high quality of production, the cost increases and thereby the price. The other major issue in quality maintenance was that of externalities. A book required the involvement of more stakeholders than just the author and the publisher such as printer, binder, suppliers of paper, etc. Any of these stakeholders could pose hindrances for the publisher at

10 Pishi is the Bengali for Father’s Sister. Bormee Baksho refers to a particular type of wooden box which used to come from erstwhile Burma to Bengal and was very popular for its intricate carvings. 11

times. As Gorai elucidated with an example, “A reputed author may want to work for me but he agrees on the condition that the cover (jacket) of the book has to be approved by him. When my designer creates the cover the author rejects it and this goes on for some rounds. As a publisher I have to work with him so I have to make him happy. The question is how do I make him happy? So now I decide to get the cover done by some top level artist or illustrator. But this would mean problems at two fronts. A top level artist would charge a hefty amount which would come into the costing and increase the price. Even if I assume that it could be adjusted, the artist may need 10-12 months to give me the design because of his busy schedule. This would mean that I won’t be able to publish the book even if I had the content ready and printed.” Gorai explained that he had to improvise at times because he had faced similar situations but the improvisations were all done keeping in mind that the quality of the final product would not diminish. As he summarized, “To produce a good work, you need resources. I am falling short there, but I am trying my utmost to overcome those constraints”.

Pricing and DistributionWhile deciding on the price, the first consideration was the cost incurred for the book, the number pages and their dimensions, and the binding quality. There was additional cost of royalty for books with existing/valid copyrights (between 10 to 15%). After all these calculations, the publisher had to decide the margin and the final price was fixed. However, the more important question was related to the number of units to be printed. There was a fine balance between projections and production capacity of the producer which was a tradeoff. As Gorai explained, “Say, I expect a sale of 5000 copies for a particular book. If I could print 5000 copies at one run then my production costs would reduce drastically because of economies of scale and I would not have the hassle of a second run. However, this would require large investments which could pose a risk for small business like me. Thus I opt for an initial profit based on the demand analyzed from the first edition and then decide to go/stop for the second edition. The sales projections are mainly based on experience and the idea about the market, but still the success rate of a correct projection is around 50%. However, for smaller volumes of print runs I am losing out on cost reduction through bulk printing”. Gorai knew that the problem managing inventory costs would be solved to a great extent in case he had his own production unit, but till 2013 he was outsourcing the print job since he did not have the financial power to buy a production unit. Gorai recalled his early days when large book stores in and around Kolkata refused to stock his books labeling him as a ‘small publisher’. He smilingly said that the same stores were eager to stock his books post 2011 and even online retailers such as Flipkart12 had complemented him by claiming that his books were among the highest selling Bengali books particularly for children. Lalmati also participated in the district level book fairs in West Bengal state. Gorai opined that the Kolkata Book Fair played an important role for his books both from the distributional aspect as well as for publicity. “Kolkata is just a namesake, it is an international book fair attended by people from all parts of the world. I have the opportunity to showcase my creations to a global audience. It creates very positive word of mouth”. However, throughout the year his books were available through his own company outlet at College Street in Kolkata (Refer to Exhibit VI). Lalmati published books around the year unlike many publishers who had majority of their publications planning centered around the Kolkata Book Fair. He also explained a logistical problem behind the decision, “these days we are forced to publish throughout the year because

12 A prominent online retail store in India

now dates of the Book Fair coincide with the opening of the school academic session. So the printing press owners are totally focused on the school books since they generate more revenues for them. In my opinion, a publisher should work year round irrespective of whether he/she is big or small.”

The Comic Book FocusLalmati had a major focus on comics. Till the mid of 2013, they had published eight volumes of comic anthologies created by the most eminent comic artists in Bengali language. Gorai gave his own logic behind this focus. “When we consider work of Narayan Debnath or Mayukh Choudhury13 there would be two target groups. First one is the present adult who was once a child and had read the comics. The second one would be the present day children. The greatness of these works is that they are loved even after the child has turned into an adult. Alongside these works would also appeal to the present day children. Thus I have a market spanning different age groups. However, some of our publications such as Nole Da or Kaafi Khan Somogro are primarily targeted towards the adult audience. They are old and would appeal more to the audience who were contemporary or at least belong to the same generation”. Incidentally, the target audience for the latter mentioned had reduced in the state of Bengal since a huge section had migrated for employment. Therefore it was difficult to reach out to them. This inference was also evident from the sales success of the comic volumes since the ranking in descending order put Narayan Debnath at the top followed by Mayukh Choudhury and Kafi Khan at the bottom. Nevertheless, Gorai wanted to continue with comic volumes for some more time since he was confident about the quality of his products and was sure of encouraging sales in future for the slow moving products too.

Marketing LalmatiEven though Gorai knew the power of marketing, he agreed that he was yet to harness its power to promote Lalmati. Till mid-2013, Lalmati did not have a website or a presence in electronic social media space such as Facebook. There was also a need for branding activities such as creating a punch-line and maybe a spokescharacter. The marketing communication was also at a very basic level where Gorai used information flyers (Refer to Exhibit VII) as inserts in his books, and put advertisements in literary magazines such as Desh14 before the Kolkata Book Fair. Gorai knew that more could be done to market the brand but did not have the necessary expertise to do so.

The ChallengesGorai was a believer in co-opetition, “It would be wrong to brand another publisher as a competitor. The word competition to me somehow implies a win-lose situation. Moreover a publisher alone cannot make or break the market. When I launched an INR 500 comic book, I saw others coming with similar products. Thus I paved the way for large volumes in Bengali comic book industry, and everybody won including the readers”. According to him, the real challenge was from the environment, “The reality is that the society is changing and readers are turning from Bengali books to English which to me is a dangerous signal for the Bengali books as a whole. Most of the affluent children these days are admitted to 13 14 Desh is a Bangla magazine published by the ABP Limited (Anandabazar Group). Since its inception in the 1930s, Desh has been perceived as a leading magazine for Bengali intelligentsia. Although it is a literary magazine that contains short stories, poems, and serialized novels, it also offers articles on various issues.

English medium schools. So they cannot relate to Bengali literature and that’s what poses the biggest challenge for us. Moreover the parents have role in buying the books for their children. They could motivate their children to learn Bengali through comics since comics provide visual support that would ease the learning process”. Gorai also commented on the role of electronic media such as the internet and cable TV and how it has eaten up the leisure time of children and taken them away from books. The third burning issue which he was facing was that of finance. As he explained, “If I had my own printing press a lot of issues would have been solved and my printing costs would have come down. Moreover, I would not have to be at the mercy of my printer to deliver the books on time. I would also be able to bring down the price of my books and delight my customers.” The Upcoming Book FairThe meeting had almost come to an end. Roy was listening till now while Sen was asking the questions. Roy asked Gorai, “So you want us to create an immediate marketing plan which would help you gain mileage during the Kolkata Book Fair 2014?” Gorai nodded in affirmative and added, “That’s my focus for the time being. The other issues need to be addressed, but not immediately”. Both Roy and Sen were aware that Lalmati did not have a website and it was too late to have one and use the same before the Kolkata Book Fair 2014. Thus they had to think of other ways of creating a buzz which could help Lalmati in two ways. First, it would generate short time excitement and bring people at Lalmati’s stall at the Kolkata Book Fair 2014. Second, it would allow Lalmati to bank on the buzz and create positive word of mouth for long term customer relations. However, still a lot had to be thought out such as the type of communication, the media to be used and the execution of the same. Above all, the tight budget of Lalmati allocated to marketing left very little for promotional activities. Roy and Sen thanked Gorai for taking them through the Lalmati journey and assured him to get back with a promotional plan within the next fortnight. While on their way back, both Roy and Sen knew that they had a lot of brainstorming and creative work ahead.

Exhibit VII