To address these needs, the German Book Office, New Delhi, organised the Publishers Training Programme for Young Professionals on 4 December and 5 December 2015 at India International Centre, New Delhi.

“We want to attract young talent through this programme and the current edition of the programme offered the participants the knowledge on new developments in international markets,” said Prashasti Rastogi, director, German Book Office, New Delhi,

She added, “The two-day training programme helped take the mystery out of the topics such as digital publishing, multi-platform strategy and rights management for crossmedia. The participants learnt the knowhow for conducting business from international experts and other star practitioners from India. This interface not only took a look at German and international publishing industry but also addressed a major need felt by the young professionals.”

The Programme Leaders were the doyens from the trade itself. Nationally and internationally renowned subject experts with extensive experience made this training programme a distinct one adding to exclusivity of the course itself.

In the session on commissioning and pitching in genre specific world, experts Karthika VK of Harper Collins India and Arpita Das of Authors UpFront dwelled on the tricks and tips, informing the process of contemplating and communicating an effective book proposal to exploring the commissioning landscape, finding genre gaps in the market and preparing a potentially market-ready book idea. “When you commission for digital only, you have to think of the material differently as well,” said Karthika VK.

In the session on book design workshop, experts Stefanie Schelleis from Carl Hanser Verlag, Germany and Sunandini Banerjee from Seagull Books guided on how to integrate text, imagery and illustration with the eventual goal of building the architecture of a book starting from the font, the page, the palette. There was also a practical component allowing participants to get their hands on to designing a unique book concept from scratch.

In the session on trading rights and negotiating copyrights, experts Dahlia Sen Oberoi of Sen-Oberoi, Attorneys-at-Law and Priya Kapoor of Roli Books offered a practical guide to rights selling, and dealing with its nuances and complexities. The session, led by an experienced publisher and a sought-after copyright expert, focused on the best practices of rights exchange in the international arena, legalities of content copyrights, copyright enforcement, among others. “The minute a book goes into translations or another territory with rights exchange, it not only pushes their sales and also helps establish the author as a global brand,” said Kapoor.

In the session on publicity, Anurima Roy of Bloomsbury India discussed the nuances of promoting a book. Book publicity is critical to a book’s success and building its visibility in a busy marketplace is a challenge. Tackling these challenges were the main agenda of this interactive group session.

German Book Office (GBO), New Delhi is a joint venture of the Frankfurt Book Fair and the Foreign Ministry of the Federal Republic of Germany. Besides promoting German books and the activities of the Frankfurt Book Fair, it also serves as a contact point between the book industry in South Asia, Germany as well as the international book and media industries.