It had been expected that the leftist-generated controversy around Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story would help with its sales, but even the most optimistic couldn’t have predicted how well the book would actually do.
Less than 24 hours after pre-orders for the book were opened, Delhi Riots 2020 has managed to sell 15,000 copies. The announcement was made by Monika Arora, the book’s author. “More than 15000 copies of #DelhiRiotsTheUntoldStory sold in less than 24 hours. This is New India marching against Hate, suppression of voices, hypocrisy रोक सको तो रोक लो….. (Stop us if you can),” she tweeted.
For some context around the publishing industry in India, 15,000 copies sold already makes Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold a bestseller. “90% of all books published in India sell less than 2,000 copies a year,” Meghna Pant, who has written a book called How To Get Published In India, had told The Hindu last year in an interview. “A paltry 9% sell between 2,000 to 10,000 copies, and — hold your breath — less than 1% sell more than 10,000 copies. The number sounds ridiculous, but we are a population of almost a billion and a half. A book is typically considered a bestseller when it crosses the coveted 10,000 mark within a year of publication,” she had said.
This means that 24 hours after orders opened, the book is already comfortably among the top 1% of all books sold in India. This had been expected — when pre-orders opened last evening, Garuda’s website had crashed with customers eager to get their hands on their copies. Several people had had even said that they’d bought multiple copies to share with their family and friends.
What this would indicate that the left’s bullying tactics which led to Bloomsbury dissociating themselves from the book have backfired spectacularly. Leftist extremists would’ve hoped that Bloomsbury backing out of publishing the book would’ve caused it to suffer a quiet death. On the contrary, the book not only managed to find a publisher the very next day, but also became a national best-seller within the first 24 hours. And with orders for the book showing no signs of slowing down, Delhi Riots 2020: The Untold Story could end up smashing many records in the Indian publishing industry in the days to come.
