Something about Publishing industry

Over the years, I have come across many people who need information about publishing industry.

Mr. David Davidar began his career in journalism and is founder of Penguin Books India. Currently, he is Publisher of Penguin Canada and also is author of the novel, The House of Blue Mangoes.

Following Interview with David Davidar, Publisher, Penguin Canada by Sharif Khan will be very useful to many:

How did you first get started in the publishing business?

Twenty years ago I was working in Bombay and there was a colleague I knew who had done a publishing course at Harvard. And she said, “Why don’t you go there and check it out?” So I came to the States, and I did the course, and at the course was Peter Mayer, Chairman of Penguin world-wide. He said, “Look you’re from India?” (I said “yeah”). He said he was thinking of starting a company in India and asked me, “Would you like to run it?”

I was then twenty-six years old, I’d never done a publishing company in my life, I had little or no idea, but when you’re twenty-six years old sometimes you’re foolishly confident about your abilities, so I said “yes.”

I went to Delhi where the office was going to be and I had never been there before, starting from Cambridge, Massachusetts to Delhi – and there was nothing there. There were exactly 3 employees in the first year of operations and they invested ten thousand US dollars in the company in 1986. And that was it.

Now Penguin India is Asia’s largest English publishing company and has done over 10 million dollars in sales. It was quite an interesting experience and I had a ball! It kept growing and growing. It’s so fascinating…Now every multinational is in India. Penguin was the first.

To read the full interview, please visit

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977374500