From Arundhati Roy’s ‘Mother Mary Comes to Me’ to Dan Brown’s ‘Secret of Secrets’: How one man printed thousands of fake bestsellers

“He soon started hoarding these books, and got a godown in Fatehpuri to store them. He started selling them in bulk to other stall owners,” a police officer investigating the case said.

In 2011, the police were tipped off about Prasad’s venture and he was arrested by the Economic Offences Wing of the Delhi Police under the Copyright Act.

“He got out on bail later that year, and took a hiatus from the business. Both his sons were also getting settled at that time, so he stayed out of trouble,” the officer said.

During the Covid pandemic years, one of his sons went to Australia while the other married a woman police officer of UP Police.

“In 2021, he came up with the idea of reviving his business. This time, as a publisher. He bought two second-hand printing machines and rented a two floor house in Anand Parbat area, where he set up the press,” a police officer said.

Prasad’s sons, according to a police officer, said in their statements that they asked their father to stop. They were earning decent money for Prasad to pass his days of old age in comfort.

But, police said, Prasad’s business plan was all mapped out: he hired three workers to look after his new godown in Rohini, two to run the printing press, and ordered metal plates to copy original books.

The operation, the arrest

Explaining how Prasad worked, a police officer said, “First, he ordered original copies of the books. He then prepared the negatives of these books. The negatives were placed on the plates, and were used to print the pages. One negative could print about 1,000 copies.”

This way, original books worth Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,000 would be turned into soft copies costing just Rs 150 to Rs 200.

A police officer said Jwala started to supply these books to wholesalers across North India: Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh. From there, these books would reach roadside corner stores, and even old and established book shops.

On March 13, a team led by Inspector Sohan Lal, Inspector Satender Punia and ACP Ramesh Lamba got a tip- off about a godown near G3S mall, Rohini, which had stacks of fake books. To verify it, one of the investigators got a copy of the book from the godown, and called a representative of Penguin Random House to verify it.

“In one glance, he verified that it was a fake. He then filed a complaint, stating that an unknown person, in the name of Penguin Random House, has been publishing pirated books,” a police officer said.

On March 14, the police conducted a raid at the godown. A familiar name was on its board: Ajanta Book Depot.

It was Prasad’s godown, police said.

“A total of 8,593 pirated books were recovered and seized. During further investigation, another raid at a nearby premises led to recovery of 11,544 more pirated books, taking the total seizure to over 20,137 books,” DCP (Crime) Aditya Gautam said.

Prasad was arrested the same day. During questioning, he told the police about his factory in Anand Parbat. A raid was conducted there too, and police uncovered the printing press.

“Two printing machines from a press located in Anand Parbat Industrial Area, negatives of four pirated books, 12 printing plates used for reproducing copyrighted material, and dyes to colour code the books were recovered from the press,” DCP Gautam said.

‘Pirated books dent sales’

Prasad has been arrested under the Copyright Act, but the menace of pirated copies has hardly ended for publishers.

Fake copies have been piling up losses for publishers in an already volatile industry. A publishing professional, associated with Penguin Random House, with over 25 years of experience in verification of original books, said fakes have become a major dent in publishers turning a profit on any book.

“One of our latest publications, Arundhati Roy’s ‘Mother Mary Comes to Me’, was only launched as a hardcover initially. But within a day of its launch, its soft cover was also available in the market. A Rs 800 book was being sold for Rs 150,” he said.

Fake soft copies have previously stopped books from achieving ‘best-seller’ status.

“Dan Brown’s Secret of Secrets was launched in September last year. It was expected to do better… And though it seemed a lot of people were liking it and reading it, the sales were not reflecting that. Its soft copies were easily available at traffic signals of CP. Online platforms have made it worse. There is no mechanism through which they verify if books sold on their website are from authorised retailers or not,” the publishing professional said.

He said that on behalf of Penguin Random House, he filed multiple complaints with the Delhi police last year, like every year, about fake copies of books being hoarded.

The difference between the quality of the original and the fake is glaring, he added. “Paper quality, bind quality, colour pallet, even the font size. Most copies have smaller fonts, as they are trying to print fewer pages. We also run campaigns before the launch of a book, trying to make booksellers, and library owners more aware about this,” he said.

“It’s (fake books) been growing year by year. And sales are decreasing because of that. At least we should turn a profit on a book, before it’s rolled out for cheap. It’s a very expensive business,” said the professional.