By Zahra Gardezi

IN an age of iPads and Kindles and presumed lesser reading amongst the youth particularly, the session ‘Mobilising New Readers’ — which had a lively audience — contextualised what it really means to ‘read’ and how this can be encouraged. Ameena Saiyid, managing director of Oxford University Press in Pakistan, focused on the importance of people recognising the author. She said it was important to have book signings, festivals and awards to encourage authors and increase readership.

To this Ashok Ferrey, author of The Good Little Ceylonese Girl, added that everyone yearns to get recognition for their work, and everyone appreciates festivals and visibility, but then also remarked that “this recognition is accompanied by responsibility, and that changes us”. On a humorous note, he added authors “write hoping politicians can’t understand satire”.

Answering a question on visibility of the author later in the session, the panellists agreed unanimously with Asif Farrkuhi that people taking photographs with an author and getting autographs increases visibility through social media and the internet, and thus readership.

Following, the next question arose: does recognition increase book sales? Group editor-in-chief of Bloomsbury, Alexandra Pringle, commented: “It’s the books, not the authors. Sometimes we spend thousands [of pounds] on marketing and it will make no difference”, and vice versa. With the emergence of prominent entertainment such as films and video games, Pringle argued, it definitely helps for a book to be visible for a few weeks, so it is in sight of the reader, but “radio and festivals on the whole don’t work”.

Quoting the example of Khaled Hosseini, author of A Thousand Splendid Suns, she said once a writer has become a bestseller, he does not need to regularly have signings or attend festivals: the occasional appearance will suffice. Chiki Sarkar, publisher of the Indian publishing house, Juggernaut, added a humorous point that though “every time [the charismatic] Salman Rushdie sneezes, it’s on the front page”, that does not guarantee bestsellers.

It is also the subject of the book that determines readership: if the topic is more ‘taboo’ or controversial in nature, it will appeal to the reader. Sarkar quoted the example of the book Aarushi by Avirook Sen, which “talks about all that is still wrong with India”. Though this book had relatively little advertising, it is a bestseller.

To mobilise new readers, the subject must be one that appeals to them — whether it is something aberrant such as Fouzia Saeed’s Taboo! or the ever-revered topic of romance. According to Sarkar, books on romance and love have an increasingly larger fan base in India — especially those written by particularly good-looking men.

Given that authors can write about all sorts of topics, at the end of the day it is that which sells that creates the greatest readership, as it reaches out to the most people. The advantage of the iPad or the Kindle is one step forward from the shift from hardback to paperback: with just an internet connection, one can buy thousands of books without having to move at all.