the world will never be the same again and it might take till the end of the year for the situation to normalise to the precoronavirus pandemic days leading indian publishers opine saying they are adapting in myriad ways to stay connected with readers while balancing their own operations to cope with the lockdown that has now been extended to may 3sales printing and production has completely stopped but editorial activities have continued at a steady pace marketing activities have proliferated but have only been directed to social media and online promotionsdigital delivery is the new name of the game even as publishers await the reopening of brickandmortar bookstoreslockdown has affected parts of the publishing business such as new title releases promotions launches etc we are hoping that the lockdown will be lifted in a staggered manner which will allow bookstores to open for business soon for example the government in kerala has decided to allow bookshops to open twice a week with certain restrictions in place we are hoping such positive news inspires other territories to be open to such arrangements of course depending on the ground situation nandan jha svp sales product penguin random house india told ians in an email interviewpenguin is also taking this time to reacquaint people to the joy of reading and ensuring that they know of the available formats they can continue reading niti kumar svp marketing digital and communications penguin random house india saidthrough creative collaborations with authors and communities we are giving people access to content such as read alouds on social media channels diy activities lifestyle hacks from experts and much morewe are innovatively using our own social media platform to continue engaging with readers kumar addedrecently penguin tv on instagram launched a spin a yarn with over a dozen authors completing each others cliffhanger endings to make one complete story the idea being to keep the conversation going bring positivity and inspire people to invest their time in reading kumar pointed outwith the lockdown disrupting the supply chain and with this control on peoples movement retail has been adversely affected under these circumstances we are also focussing on ebook and audiobook formats which are easily accessible safe and convenient from acquisition of a title to its publicity we are working out the best ways to get this content to the people kumar saidon its part oxford university press oup said the covid19 outbreak has become a major challenge across a spectrum of businesses not only in india but all over the worldnoting that the entire book industry is going through a tough time and affected by this badly but on the other hand we as a publishers are seeing this as opportunity and trying to cope up with this in the best possible manner an oup spokesperson said adding we have made content from online resources and leading journals freely accessible to assist researchers medical professionals policy makers and others who are working to address this health crisisoup