News: Biyani pens print history with his story

(DNA 21/04/2007) Mumbai - Maverick retailer Kishore Biyani has created history in the Indian book publishing industry with his book It Happened In India that has already clocked sales of 10,000 copies. The remarkable aspect about the entire chapter is that the book is still to hit the stores in a big way with the exception of a few Big Bazaar and Depot stores in Mumbai and Pune.

Future Group CEO Kishore Biyani told DNA Money that the group has always believed in thinking big irrespective of the kind of business or activity they get into. "It is for the first time in the history of publishing in India that any indigenous book has had a print run of 200,000 copies. And the most interesting part is that we have already sold 10,000 copies (largest ever for an Indian book) on the day of launch," said Biyani.

At this rate, Biyani feels that the 30,000-odd copies made available by the publisher as the initial lot will be exhausted very soon and there might be a shortage if the stocks are not replenished as early as possible.

"We have had retailers from Gujarat and other places buying the book in bulk from our Big Bazaar and Depot stores. And by Monday you'll see the books being sold at the traffic signals too," Biyani said.

The curiosity value is also evident from the fact that over 1,000 copies have already being booked on their e-commerce platform www.futurebazaar.com in a week or so.

An interesting aspect about Biyani's success story is the pricing - Rs 99 for a paperbound and Rs 495 for the hardbound. While the Rs 99 pricing certainly proved to be the winner, there were only a few takers for the higher priced version clearly indicating the price-cautious nature of the Indian consumers - a behaviour/mindset exploited to the core by Biyani through his Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar and www.futurebazaar.com initiatives.