Book fair at College Square opens
Sixty stalls have been set up at College Square, venue of the boi utsav. Seventy publishing houses, big and small, have taken part in the fair.
With reading habit out of vogue in new generation, the book fair had few takers in Shimla too.
Not many locals and tourists seem interested in buying the books displayed at Shimla Book Festival underway at Gaiety theatre since 23 June.
The footfall of youngsters is even lesser at the fair that offers plethora of books on wide range of topics, from literature, history to science. Some of the stalls are even offering the content in digital format, software encyclopaedia.
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The marketing strategy to sell famous and sought after novels of English literature has also not paid off much.
The book fair organised by Ocard India in association with Language, Art and Culture department of Himachal Pradesh has over 20 stalls on different subjects. A special stall displaying the books of Himachali writers is also there.
Sale of books did pick up on the week end, but was not much encouraging.
The representatives of different publication houses, mostly from Delhi, were vocal about the lukewarm response and said the book fairs in cities like Delhi, Patna, Lucknow and Patna any day attract larger crowds of book lovers. A number of them were disappointed as they were not able to even make for their rent of stalls through sales.
“We get the latest publications on internet. We can order everything on-line at one click now days. And then e-books are also available.Then why waste our time by visiting a book fair,” observed some youngsters.
Senior writer from Shimla, SR Harnot, however said, “The stall of books of writers from Himachal has evoked much response. On the whole, the book fair is successful.”
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