Publishing Next Awards shortlist reveals best of Indian publishing

Bloody Good Book is a publishing initiative where readers log onto the internet and vote for the best book-in-progress to be published. Eklavya, an NGO in the field of education, has published a series of books for children in Mundari, a language spoken by the Munda people of East India, Bangladesh and Nepal. Pratham Books, with a mission to put a book in every child’s hand, has started an initiative ‘Donate-a-book’, where a patron can donate a pack of books in different langua

08 Sep 2015 | By Dibyajyoti Sarma

What is common among these diverse ventures? Nothing, except that all the five have been shortlisted in the ‘Publishing Innovation of the Year’ category in Publishing Next Industry Awards 2015.

The winner will be announced at the Publishing Next conference to be held on 11-12 September 2015 at Panaji, Goa.

The Publishing Next Industry Awards were instituted in 2014 to reward the talent, initiative, entrepreneurial zeal and untiring efforts of publishers – big, small, independent – that create books. Established under the aegis of the neutral platform of the Publishing Next Conference, the awards seek to recognise innovation and leadership in the book trade.

The awards are given in seven different categories, and this year’s shortlist features both industry leaders like Penguin Books and HarperCollins and specialised independent publishing houses like Adivaani and Eklavya, among others, highlighting the diversity of book publishing in India.

In the ‘Publisher of the Year’ category, the shortlisted companies are HarperCollins Publishers, Kalachuvadu Publications, Penguin Books, Rupa Publications and Yoda Press. Chennai-based Tulika Publishers won the award last year.

Promoting traditional book retail, ‘Bookstore of the Year’ is an important category in the Publishing Next awards and this year, the five bookstores in the category are CMYK (New Delhi); Kitabkhana (Maharashtra); Rachna Books (Gangtok); Walking BookFairs (Bhubaneswar) and Literati (Calangute, Goa), the bookstore which won the award in 2014.

The books shortlisted under the ‘Printed Book of the Year’ category include A Clutch of Indian Masterpieces (Aleph Book Company); Indian Classical Dance: The Renaissance and Beyond (Niyogi Books); SPICESTORY (Niyogi Books); The Dramatic Decade: The Indira Gandhi Years (Rupa Publications) and Wild Fire: The Splendours of India’s Animal Kingdom (Aleph Book Company).

The seven books under the ‘Printed Children’s Book of the Year’ category are Around the World in Eighty Puzzles (Scholastic India); Bookasura: The Adventures of Bala and the Book-eating Monster (Scholastic India); Disaibon Hul (adivaani); Raza’s Bindu (Scholastic India); So Ja Ullu (Eklavya);  The Boy and the Drum (Pratham Books) and The Pterodactyl’s Egg (HarperCollins Publishers).

The shortlisted ‘Digital Book of the Year’ are Is He Fresh (Penguin Books); Kakk Mam Ani Gurbanjekka (Konkani Language and Cultural Foundation); Kheer and Kismet (Aleph Book Company); Mazya Pillanchya Babas (Srujan Dreams) and The Dramatic Decade (Rupa).

The ‘Book Cover of the Year’ shortlist gives a shout out to seven striking covers of books publishing last year. These are Bookasura: The Adventures of Bala and the Book-eating Monster, designed by Priya Kuriyan; The Cats Save the Day … Err … Night!, designed by Anjali Nayar; The Legend of Ramulamma, designed by Nikheel Aphale, Illustrations by Laxman Aelay; The Second Coming, designed by Preeti Koul Chaudhry; The Sibius Knot, designed by Arati Devasher; The Song of the Magpie Robin, designed by Carl D’Silva; and The Surveyor, designed by Pinaki De.

The jury for this year’s awards included Aashti Mudnani, proprietor of Lightroom Bookstore, Bangalore; Aravinda Anantharaman, librarian and author based in Bangalore; Asif Husain Arastu, owner of Hyderabad’s AA Husain & Co; Badri Seshadri, managing director, New Horizon Media; Bipin Shah, publisher Mapin; Dileep Raj, publisher of books in Malayalam; Frederick Noronha; managing editor of the Goa-based publishing house, Goa, 1556; Hemant Divate, publisher, Paperwall Media; Indu Chandrasekhar, publisher Tulika Books; Naresh Khanna, editor, Indian Printer and Publisher; Padmini Ray Murray, faculty, Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology; Paulomi Shah, Ahmedabad-based graphic designer; Praba Ram, children’s writer; R Sriram, cofounder of Crossword Bookstores; Rakesh Khanna, co-founder of Blaft Publications; Ramu Ramanathan, editor, PrintWeek India; Sugata Srinivasaraju, editorial director, Asianet News Network; Tom Mangatt, CEO Indulekha.com; and Vivek Menezes, festival curator of the Goa Arts and Literary Festival.