While some publishers are looking to blame Netflix and binge TV watching for declining readers numbers, those that have books that are also films or TV know that actually, Netflix is the publishing world’s best friend, and is boosting publisher revenue by taking book content to new audiences.

In India the Mumbai Film Festival is actively encouraging publishers and film and TV producers to join hands.
A new addition to the mix for 2018 was Authors Corner where authors rather than publishers get to pitch their wares to 120 prospective content-developers. 27 publishing houses were also at the two-day event.
Arpita Das, curator of ‘Word to Screen Market’, said,

There is a rise in demand for great stories, especially considering the proliferation of various OTT platforms; and initiatives like Word to Screen Market are a great means of bridging this gap.

As Scroll India explained, 390 titles were selected to put before the invited audience of producers.

Out of the 390 entries, over 90 titles were in Indian languages. Thirty-seven books in English, Assamese, Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, and Malayalam were selected from the master list for optioning, including Sundara Ramaswamy’s Oru Puliyamarathin Kathai, Ajay Navaria’s Unclaimed Terrain and Manoranjan Byapari’s Interrogating My Chandal Life: An Autobiography of a Dalit.

Arpita Das said,

To get a publisher come in from Chhattisgarh or Assam energises the narrative. Because we know so little about what is happening in the borderlands and what exciting stories there are. There is one story about a female executioner and another about a Dalit IAS officer who, because he is a Dalit superior, treats the Brahmin peon in a particular way because the roles have been reversed.

Among the filmmakers and studio heads present were Aamir Khan Productions, Fox Star Studios, Hotstar, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Roy Kapur Films and Phantom Films.
The Global New Renaissance continues.