Tell Me a Story

R Shriram, CEO of the Crossword chain of bookstores, believes the reason for this is two-fold. ‘‘First, the behavioural pattern of Indians is different. We do not spend as much time in a car commuting (which is where almost all such books are heard, in the West). Secondly, the pricing of these books is not competitive. They can cost anywhere between $10-20, which is very high end,’’ he explains.

‘‘The Indian consumer is just not used to paying Rs 700-800 for a cassette that plays for 45 minutes,’’ says Buldeep Verma, sales officer with India Book Depot. ‘‘There are heavy duties imposed on imported cassettes.’’ For IBD, the biggest seller in audio books is the Karadi Tales, which comes as a cassette-text package.

Apart from the kiddie genre, the most popular audio books in India relate to management and self-improvement, with titles like Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Successful People leading the list, according to Shriram. However, the New Delhi bookstore Midlands claims to buck the trend, saying that its bestselling audio books are fiction titles like Stephen Fry’s Paperweight and Agatha Christie’s Collection of Stories but they admit that Benjamin Graham’s Intelligent Investor ‘‘moves equally fast.’’

But perhaps more indicative of customer interest in audio books is the fate of Plus Books, a venture floated by Amit Khanna and Mahesh Bhatt; the company actually had to pull out their series of audio books following dismal sales. So till Indians start to buy more cars and move to the suburbs, we can collectively kiss uncle Stephen goodnight.