Alls well that ends well!

The annual book far which was in town for 10 days had quite a few people from the city turn up at the 250 and-odd stalls that were put up, where about 150 English book stalls and 90 Telugu book stalls were put up. Stalls were set up by book shops from across the twin cities and outside including New Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Gorakhpur,  Vijayawada, Anantapur and a couple of others. With a recorded foot-fall of about 10,000 on weekdays and more than 50,000 on weekends, the fair was considered a success overall.When asked about how the response had been over the 10 days, secretary of Hyderabad Book Fair Society, Hanumanth Rao said, “The response has been incredible, especially on the weekends. The number of people who visited the fair on the last day has been more than 60,000, definitely a larger turn-out than last year.”While parents and teachers seem worried about children spending too much time either watching television or on internet, the book fair reflected differently. Most of the stall owners found that children's books were the most sold category of books. Another comforting trend observed was the sale of Telugu doing as well as English books; in some cases Telugu book stalls did much better business than their English counterparts. Tirupal, production incharge of Visalaa Andhra publishing house commented, “The sales have doubled this year when compared to last. Moreover, last year's fair was marred by the Telangana bandhs. This year, on the third or fourth day, we did a business of about `3 lakhs. That day I think was the day we had the highest foot-fall, even though today is the last day of the fair. But overall we've done good business.” He also said that there has been a revival of interest in books on history and in books by old authors like Vaddera Chandidas and Mahaganti, with these books having done more business than books by the newer Telugu writers. Prabhu of the Pustak Mahal was also one of the happier book stall managers who said they did better business than last year and, children's books and health related were among the best sellers. Stationery stalls also recorded a good turnout. While they hadn't done as well as the books, stalls like Siddharth Bros which sells office and school stationery like white and green boards and markers have done well if not great. The stalls of publishing houses English books reiterated what the Telugu book stall owners had to say about their sales. Janardhan Reddy, regional sales manager of Orient Blackswan, which has books on language, social sciences, children's educational books and academic books said that they have had very good business this year with a huge turnout of buyers with varied interests. Vinod who was with school division of Oxford University Press said that books in languages and Oxford dictionaries of different languages are always in demand. When it comes to the sales done by the stalls of Hyderabad based retailers, owners had a different story to tell. Hamed of the Unique Book Centre stall said, “The business has not been that good with profits being at a minimal. The publishing house stalls have books which people require, but the books that we have are quality books on a wide range of topics by not so famous but prolific writers. For the people who read books not out of need but for the love of reading we had much to offer, but such people were few.” All in all, there seemed to be an increase in the number of Hyderabadis interested in buying books. And with no bandhs marring the fair, none of the stall owners have much to complain about with their earnings this year at the book fair being unexpectedly satisfactory.