All markets are fragmented. Just as there is place for multiple television channels, newspapers and magazines, there should also be room for up-market niche books of various kinds. Yet with returns running at higher levels than ever before, what are the prospects for niche books? Since the financial crisis, it has become clear that the market is neither rational nor efficient. So how can publishers make sure that highly-specialized books, outside the academic market, will bring in returns?

First, to dispense with the assumption that a niche market doesn’t exist: it does because India is a vast market with growing number of serious common readers in practically every field. Moreover, as far as niche books are concerned, Indian publishers are not asking for the moon: they are looking for a print order of 1,000-odd copies, saleable within 18 months of publication. This isn’t a tall order and yet the future doesn’t look too bright if you go by the plummeting sales and returns. Why? Prima facie, there are three reasons.

To begin with, the market for niche books is too scattered and in many cases difficult to service because of the lack of retail outlets. Mail order hasn’t quite worked because customers who are interested in the subject would like to browse through the book before buying it. A modest beginning has been made in some metros of using e-mail servicing, but these are early days and therefore difficult to predict how this will work out. But given the fact that all niche books are highly priced because of limited printing, there is no substitute for the customer examining the book itself.

Second, the niche book is always given to the retail trade on ‘an approval basis’, which means that if it is not sold within six to eight weeks, it could be returned. Sadly, this practice is open to abuse: publishers regularly complain that bookshops are returning books and then re-ordering them in order to extend their credit periods, a practice that is becoming more common now that finance is not easily available from banks. “Gone today, back tomorrow” is the joke in the trade.

Third, publishers argue that the time and money spent on the publication of niche books would rather be expended on mass-market general books that would recover costs plus some profit much more quickly. In the present climate, where success is measured by sales and profits, the argument carries considerable weight. It explains why fewer niche books are being published today and what is available are mostly imported titles in small numbers.

Yet, this is just one side of the story because many niche titles — particularly on Indian flora and fauna, travel guides, wildlife, mountaineering and cookery — have done extremely well and are often reprinted. These books succeeded because they were qualitatively superior to mass-market books in every respect — content, production, marketing strategies. But their greatest advantage has been the lack of constraints over pricing. Highbrow alternatives work even if priced high, provided they are delivered qualitatively. Incrementalism and business-side cowardice do not make a template for success any more.