MARGAO: Lack of professional marketing is a major reason for the poor sales of Konkani books, a panel discussion at Margao has agreed.
The discussion on “Augmenting Konkani Book Sales” was held at Dogears Bookshop with the aim of deliberating on the reasons for the lower sales of Konkani books.
The discussion was moderated by Leonard Fernandes, co-founder of Dogears Bookshop. It was followed by a question and answer session with the members of the audience.
At the end of the panel discussion and interaction, the general consensus was that everyone is concerned that the Konkani books are not being sold in large numbers, which was due, in major part, to the lack of professional marketing.
It was agreed upon that there is indeed a huge untapped market that is being ignored and it was suggested that beyond publishing books and recovering money through sales in government institutions and alike, Konkani authors and publishers should do more to target a wider audience.
Furthermore, there was a sense that there is a big requirement for greater content in the form of children’s literature such as short dramas, monologues; information on scientists, important personalities etc and that no one is catering to the children category.
As a way to move forward, it was impressed upon that there is an urgent need for publishers and writers to first acknowledge that their books need to reach the readers and in order to do that, they should look at walking the extra mile and embracing new age methods and outreach activities. Thus, to boost sales, some of these new methods that could be adopted to achieve these goals.
