Plot twist: bookstores in India are alive

There’s been a crisp emergence successful the fig of autarkic bookstores crossed Indian cities. They are visible, talked about, and often beloved. But excavation deeper and this ‘revival’ of the carnal bookstore reveals analyzable layers. In Bengaluru past month, erstwhile a abrupt and aggravated hailstorm flooded the iconic Bookworm connected Church Street, astir 5,000 books worthy an estimated ₹14 lakh were damaged.

Hundreds of the city’s speechmaking assemblage showed up successful solidarity, to assistance cleanable and adust the water-damaged books. Together with publishers and well-known authors specified arsenic historiographer Ramachandra Guha, they urged their followers connected societal media to bargain the books and assistance offset losses. It was a vivid reminder that the autarkic bookstore is not simply a abstraction of retail, but 1 that has the capableness to stitchery astir it a community.

The uplifting moment, however, sits uncomfortably beside different communicative — that of Fort Kochi’s Printed Matter. Just 10 days aft I spoke to laminitis Gouri Ramkumar, I came crossed an announcement connected their Instagram page. The bookstore, it said, would beryllium closing its carnal store connected May 10. “The seasonal quality of Fort Kochi [where the tourer play dropped distant erstwhile summertime acceptable in] and the economics of autarkic bookselling marque it hard to support a carnal storefront going,” the station read. This revealed a sobering truth: that a store tin go portion of the taste beingness of a metropolis and inactive find its carnal beingness untenable.

West vs. India

Meanwhile, successful the U.S. and the U.K., the bookstore communicative is being framed arsenic a comeback — fuelled successful portion by societal media and younger readers, but besides by stronger retail infrastructure and ample chains reinventing themselves. Barnes & Noble, the starring retail bookstore concatenation successful the U.S., precocious stated connected its website that it opened much caller bookstores successful 2025 than successful the full decennary from 2009 to 2019, and that it would unfastened implicit 60 caller ones this year.

So, however is the communicative antithetic successful India, which has seen galore launches recently: from Fictionary successful Mumbai to Luna successful Hyderabad, Beku and Turning Pages successful Bengaluru, Mehrab successful Kochi, The Raven Academy successful Chennai, and Ukiyo successful Imphal? Bookstore concatenation Sapna says it runs much than 24 large-format shops crossed the country. Crossword announced it would grow from 120 stores (across 40 cities) to implicit 150 by the extremity of 2025, and summation their gross from ₹275 crore to ₹400 crore successful 2026.

Legacy owners successful the state are circumspect successful calling it a comeback. Leonard Fernandes, who runs Dogears successful Goa, for instance, admits that his store, founded successful 2016 and known for its curated enactment of books connected section history, civilization and fiction, is lone present breaking even. They are waiting to spot if the inclination proves to beryllium sustainable.

New and improved formats

In India, the caller bookstore is smaller, much curated, much local, and progressively assisted by cafés, events, oregon different sources of support. Offering tactile buying experiences that are missing online, these stores often absorption connected speciality formats. Take Fictionary, the fiction-only bookstore successful Bandra West, Mumbai.“I’m seeing a batch of autarkic bookstores coming up successful India now. It’s not by default an casual concern [especially astatine a clip erstwhile Kindle readership is increasing],” says Anup Jain, who started Fictionary a small implicit 18 months ago. “At the aforesaid time, station COVID, Crossword turned profitable and is present expanding similar crazy. Bahrisons [a family-run concern successful Delhi] is branching retired into each different city, and I heard that Relay could beryllium expanding extracurricular of airdrome spaces, into retail outlets,” helium adds.

According to information analytics level Grand View Horizon, India is the fastest increasing determination marketplace successful Asia Pacific. Its books marketplace generated gross of astir $10.4 cardinal successful 2025, and is expected to scope $17 cardinal by 2033, increasing astatine a CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 6.3%.

Passion projects

Interestingly, galore autarkic bookstores are besides founded by radical who are not accepted booksellers. Vineetha Vijaykumar near 17 years successful bundle to unfastened Turning Pages successful northbound Bengaluru 2 months ago. Jain of Fictionary came to bookselling aft much than a decennary successful e-commerce. Ramkumar of Printed Matter near a vocation successful clime and sustainability. Almost nary of them picture the determination arsenic a straightforward concern move.

“Nobody is opening a bookstore for profit. They’re mostly passionateness projects,” says Rahul Dixit, elder vice-president of income astatine HarperCollins India. “Most besides person beardown enactment from java shops [and the like]”. Which is not a atrocious thing. Landmark and Crossword had already taught Indian readers to linger successful bookshops, and café-bookstore combinations are not caller either.

What feels newer is the grade to which the hybrid exemplary is nary longer an add-on, but a information of survival. The store present has to beryllium a destination, an aesthetic, a neighbourhood acquisition and often a social-media entity earlier it tin anticipation to beryllium a viable bookselling business. “The bookstore close present [in India] is not conscionable astir selling books. I can’t vie with Amazon connected price. If I optimised purely for retail, cipher would come,” says Jain. Instead, bookstores “are moving successful the absorption of becoming a luxury niche experience”.

Fictionary has a three-revenue-stream business: books, café and events. And footfalls person gone up by 50% since helium started. “My archetypal year, we hardly broke even, though we were trending towards profit. This year, I’m hoping we volition beryllium decently profitable.”

‘Readers are terms conscious’

Amazon’s heavy discounting has softly reset what galore Indian readers deliberation a publication should cost. Neha Pipraiya, who has tally Pagdandi bookstore successful Pune for 13 years with her hubby Vishal, says, “Every day, we person customers showing america online prices.”

New bookstores whitethorn beryllium photogenic and culturally alive, but online discounts stay the benchmark against which their shelves are judged. As Harshita Varma, a scholar from Jaipur, puts it: “Light readers are precise terms conscious. They’re much apt to spell to a discounted concatenation oregon prime up a pre-loved publication oregon bid it online.”

So publishing pressures remain? Ashwita Jayakumar, co-founder of Indian Summer Press, shares that the modular commercialized discount built into astir each publishing contracts makes it hard for autarkic presses similar hers to find a level playing field. Publishers proviso copies to distributors astatine a modular discount of 52% — meaning much than fractional the screen terms tin vanish earlier the publication adjacent reaches a shelf. That, successful turn, affects bookstores: the smaller the borderline near successful the chain, the little country determination is for booksellers to sorb costs, connection discounts, oregon instrumentality risks connected slower-moving titles. From what remains, bookstores whitethorn inactive person to connection customers a discount of their own.

Offline stores enactment caller authors

But determination is bully news. Sayantan Ghosh, publishing manager astatine Simon & Schuster India, says that contempt the 60/40 ratio betwixt online and offline sales, publishers are relying acold much connected bookstores contiguous than before. That support, helium says, tin beryllium determination and specific. “A definite rubric that whitethorn person an entreaty successful the South [for instance] volition get a batch of enactment from the section bookstores,” helium explains.

Online, the accidental of discovering a caller rubric is “almost zero”. For publishers without infinite selling budgets, and for books by newer writers without blockbuster visibility, the hand-selling and carnal show offered by bookstores stay commercially consequential successful a mode the algorithm often is not. “The independent, passion-driven stores get bully enactment from publishers due to the fact that they assistance caller authors, caller voices and caller ideas. It works for some sides,” adds Dixit of HarperCollins.

The promenade advantage

Of course, the quality to past agelong capable to bash that — assistance caller authors and caller books — depends connected a precise peculiar economics of space. Ramkumar of Printed Matter is succinct: “Owning the abstraction changes everything.” Many bequest stores endure due to the fact that they ain their premises. In a metro specified arsenic Bengaluru, commercialized rents for a mid-sized bookstore tin scope from astir ₹1.5 lakh a period successful little fashionable areas to arsenic overmuch arsenic ₹5 lakh successful high-footfall neighbourhoods. Security deposits tin tally to 3 to six months’ rent.

Malls, surprisingly, connection immoderate relief. “They are costly properties, but they springiness precise affable presumption to the bookstores,” says Dixit. “Because having a bookstore adds a batch of worth to the platter of retail that [a mall] tin offer.” A concatenation specified arsenic Crossword would get into a promenade “at a overmuch little rate” than different retailer. But this vantage is mostly for ample chains due to the fact that for them “to acceptable up a caller store, the outgo is precise low”, helium explains. “Fixtures retired of 1 store tin beryllium utilized determination else. And banal is already available.” For an independent, mounting up a store connected the aforesaid presumption would beryllium much difficult.

Younger buyers who privation to linger

Today, the illustration of the bookstore visitant has shifted. “For the archetypal time, we’re uncovering that radical are really coming successful and not conscionable buying and leaving immediately,” says Aashti Mudnani of Lightroom, a specialised children’s bookstore successful Bengaluru. “They are present coming due to the fact that they person ‘read astir america oregon seen america connected Instagram’, and enactment for hours.”

Encouragingly, the property illustration of the visitant has changed too, particularly with books gaining a ‘cool’ presumption driven by societal media influencers. In Gangtok, Raman Shrestha of Rachna Books says 70% to 80% of his visitors are nether 30. “They whitethorn not person [huge] spending power, but they are the ones who astir often sojourn the bookstore and buy.” Anuj Bahri of Bahrisons, too, says that the radical walking into his stores contiguous — wherever literate fabrication and communicative non-fiction bash good — are mostly betwixt 18 and 35.

As Jain of Fictionary puts it, “Previously, determination was nary transmission wherever books were being marketed. Now, determination are bookstagrammers, and truthful radical are much alert of books. [Romantasy, successful particular, was doing precise good past year.] It’s portion of their illustration now. Some besides privation to amusement disconnected that they’re reading, and are buying books arsenic a decor point — to person a good-looking bookshelf astatine home.”

This makes the infinitesimal encouraging but hard to read. There is grounds of existent user maturation successful books successful India. In its yearly planetary marketplace study released past year, NielsenIQ BookData and GfK Entertainment authorities that India is the strongest-growing marketplace among the 18 territories analysed (such arsenic the U.K., France, Australia, and Brazil), with gross maturation of 27%.

But, arsenic Dixit says, “Online remains the majority”, and retired of each 100 books sold, 60 to 70 are sold online. The afloat picture, helium adds, is missing erstwhile platforms specified arsenic Blinkit, which person pulled books into the quick-commerce space, bash not stock data, and “a batch of online income are happening done societal media channels”.

It’s nary wonderment bequest booksellers are cautious astir calling this a “bookstore comeback” erstwhile the representation is much analyzable than rising footfalls oregon caller openings. Bookstores successful India are surely undergoing a transformation, with caller stores much deliberate astir their audience, and much hybrid. Let’s conscionable anticipation they are being rebuilt into thing that mightiness person a changeable astatine surviving.

The writer is an exertion and autarkic writer based successful Delhi.