India book market may nearly double to Rs 2 lakh crore by 2030-31

NEW DELHI: India’s book publishing market is projected to nearly double to Rs 2 lakh crore by 2030-31 from about Rs 1.08 lakh crore in 2024-25, but the gains may be concentrated among education publishers and firms able to turn books into reusable intellectual property.The India Book Market Report 2026-2030, released Thursday by Federation of Indian Publishers and NielsenIQ BookData, estimates the print-book market at Rs 95,816 crore. Digital publishing is estimated to account for Rs 7,048 crore and scholarly journals Rs 5,150 crore.Reaching the projection would add nearly Rs 92,000 crore in six years and require growth of close to 11 percent annually. Prashant Jain, CEO of Oswaal Books, said education publishing could sustain that pace but questioned whether gains would be widely shared.“An 11 percent growth won’t be shared 26,000 ways (publishers),” Jain said adding, “It’ll go to whoever consolidates, invests in data and metadata, and stops selling a textbook once when it could earn five times.” Publishers have to start creating original intellectual property (IP) and then valuing their IP appropriately instead of treating it like a commodity, he said, warning that otherwise outsiders would price it for them.Education remains the industry’s backbone, supported by India’s school, university and competitive-exam ecosystem. The report expects additional growth from trademarks and children’s books, professional learning, Indian-language publishing and research.It does not see digital simply displacing print. Technology is expected to strengthen discovery, assessment, accessibility and distribution, linking print with e-books, audio, translation and accessible editions.Jain was blunter about obituaries for print. “Nobody writing them has sat with a student the week before boards. In India a screen is where you get distracted and a book is where you get serious,” he said. Print funded publishers’ digital experiments, not the reverse, he added. Contrasting the Rs 95,000-crore print market with digital’s Rs 7,000 crore, he called the latter “a rounding error with ambition”.The report said a title can generate value through print and electronic editions, audiobooks, translations, learning tools, licensing and international rights. India could export not only books but also publishing technology, editorial services, educational products and intellectual property.Former education secretary Sanjay Kumar linked this opportunity to India’s international position. “India is the 3rd largest publishing industry in the world after China and the US with the potential to become the largest,” he said, calling for India to become a global printing hub under ‘Make in India’.Print publishing generated an estimated economy-wide output footprint of Rs 1,46,598 crore in 2025-26, with a multiplier of about 3.7. Employment in printing and book publishing was estimated at 3,75,534 in 2025.AI could accelerate editing, production, translation, accessibility and discovery, the report said, but accuracy, privacy, human judgement and creator rights would remain critical. It called for better metadata, multilingual production, stronger rights management and copyright enforcement.Get the latest India News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.