While there’s no question the trend in international book fairs is more visitors spending more cash on more books, there are of course exceptions, and this year India’s Neyveli Book Fair has proven to be one of them.
By some accounts vendors are reporting takings down between 25%-40% compared to 2017, despite beating footfall expectations, with over 200,000 visitors turning out this year


Neyveli Lignite Corporation of India Limited (NLCIL) has been organizing the fair this past two decades, but this time appears to have provided too many distractions.
While 160 publishers laid on an array of books to keep the punters happy during the ten day event, the NLCIL’s decision to include a funfair at the venue to attract a bigger crowd, with the expectation of more people seeing the books and making impulse buys, seems to have backfired big time.
Maybe next year the Neyveli Book Fair can get back on track.
Earlier this year the Krithi Book Fair wildly exceeded expectations –

Organisers of the first Krithi International Book Fair in India “go gaga” as 700,000 visitors buy $2.6 million of books in ten days


But that’s small beer compared to the big Indian book fairs like Kolkata and New Delhi that regularly attract crowds of more than 2 million.