Book industry professionals to confab in November in Delhi

Bindwel’s India Book-Mission will celebrate with a half-day programme packed with ideas about how publishers and printers can come together to increase book consumption in India, understand ways to make books more affordable, and evolve the country to be one among the top two book print exporters in the world.

17 Nov 2023 | By Dibyajyoti Sarma

(l-r) Kai Buentemeyer and Sadashiv Nayak

Theme: Books for All - Printed in India
The date: 29 November 2023
The venue: India Habitat Centre, New Delhi
The hosts: Bindwel and PrintWeek
The audience: Print CEOs + Publishers

Book industry professionals, including some print veterans, will gather at the India Habitat Centre in Delhi on 29 November for a book summit. This event is hosted by Bindwel and PrintWeek, which marks a decade since the first summit.

Opening the event, Pallippuram Sajith, managing director of Impel Services (Bindwel - Stelda group), will give a special thanks to all who have contributed over the years and say: "We started the India Book Mission to support the publishing industry in India. We created this community a decade ago to develop the business and support the book market."

"The main objective for us was to create the connection around the publishers, the book printers and the main stakeholders around the book world. For Bindwel, our main target is to develop and bring to market the best technology to create super high-quality books cost-efficiently."

Later, Neeraj Jain, managing director at Scholastic India and president of the Association of Publishers, will address the publishers and printers about how the fast-growing book business in India is adapting technology. Last year, when he interacted with PrintWeek, he dwelt upon capacity building for teachers, research, and setting up of KPOs in India, with a sustained focus on Indian arms of publishing companies supporting the global teams on various pre-publishing, publishing and post-publishing functions. In 2019, addressing the Books for All roundtable, a segment of the India Book Mission, on the sidelines of the PrintPack exhibition, had shifted the blame of "not reading enough" on the millennial to our generation "who did not read-aloud enough to them".

Later, Kai Buentemeyer will have a fireside chat with Sadashiv Nayak, the group director at Impel Services (Bindwel - Stelda group).

Kai Buentemeyer was the global CEO of the world's largest manufacturer of bookbinding machines, Kolbus - Germany, before joining Bindwel India as its director. He was also the president of Global Print, the Federation of all the Print Associations worldwide.

Kai Buentemeyer will dwell on the approach that would work across different types and sizes of books, and also examine the international book publishing scenario. He will look at paper production, printing, and various binding methods

In a sense, the program on 29 November will try to break down what the next 12 months and beyond have in store for the world of books, publishing, book design and material innovation.

Over 30 top book printing members and more than 25 publishers will attend the event.

As Pallippuram Sajith said, the focus of Bindwel's India Book-Mission is: What could be your book business in the future, and how the industry has to change.

PrintWeek is the knowledge partner for the event.