Inside the murky world of Nilkhet's copybook business
There are no exact figures for the number of copied books published and sold in Nilkhet. However, industry insiders estimate that annually, at least 4,00,000 books are sold
If you walk through the Nilkhet area, your eyes will fall upon numerous English novels and self-help books, written by obscure writers. Sometimes they are piled high on wooden tools, sometimes the shelves in the tiny shops are crammed with them.
Alongside, there are many international best-sellers, and popular books which were turned into movies. Every year, thousands of books are published and sold across the globe and chances are that at Nilkhet, you will find copies of them.
Of course these are not the hardbound, glossy original versions. These books are pirated copies, infringing the copyright of the original publication. So they are quite reasonably priced as well.
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But how do the book businessmen here know which books to print and which to avoid? How do they decide which books will be preferred the most by Bangladeshi readers?
There are no exact figures for these copied books published and sold in Nilkhet, and across the country every year. However, industry insiders estimate that annually, at least 4,00,000 books are sold.
"There are around 500 books. Some of them have 20,000 copies and some have 500 copies," said a bookseller on the condition of anonymity.
The copybook publisher decides to publish a book based on the reviews and hype on social media, as well as suggestions of book lovers who buy books at the market regularly.
Some books become hits and make a profitable business, while the sellers have to incur loss for selecting a book which gets a lukewarm response.
On average, the copybook publishers print at least 1,000 copies to make it cost-effective, according to business insiders.
Within a week after a book is published in the international market, its PDF format is found on dark websites. The copybook sellers download and print it. Sometimes, when the book is not available on dark websites, they buy the original book and make several prints.
The three major players
Industry insiders said that there are three major 'copybook publishers' involved in the copying and publishing business in Nilkhet. These are Tajin Boi Ghar, Molly Prakashani and Orian Publications.
Mohammed Foyz is one of the owners of Tajin Boi Ghar. The bookshop sits at the heart of the Babupura Market in Nilkhet.
Mohammed Foyz has been in the business for the last eight years. He said that in most cases, they print books mainly based on the recommendation of their readers. "They see the books on the internet and tell us that they want these books to be published and that these will be sold the most."
He said that sometimes, they follow reviews on Facebook and YouTube and decide accordingly.
First, they release a photocopied version in the market. If the sale is encouraging enough, they print more copies from a press.
There are some online booksellers who inform these publishers about the demand for any particularly popular book, and they say they will take all the responsibility for selling them online.
Any shop owner can print any book in Nilkhet, there are no restrictions. But the book publishers need to have contracts with the printing presses to publish the books.
However, printing books without securing the rights from original authors and publishers is a serious crime worldwide, and even in Bangladesh. Nonetheless, some syndicates and influential shop owners have long been involved in the piracy of books, violating intellectual property rights.
When asked whether law enforcement agents have ever conducted any drive against the shop owners who are involved in the pirated book business, Foyz said he did not know of any.
"I do not know that it is illegal to print foreign books," he claimed.
The other big player in the market of pirated books, Molly Prakashani's owner Mojibor Rahman, said a similar thing.
"We do not print deshi (domestic) books and I do not know whether it is illegal or not," he said.
However, according to one business insider, they have been in the business long enough to know that it is illegal, but they do it anyway.
Besides fiction and non-fiction books, there are many groups who are involved in printing foreign academic books. These include business administration, medical, engineering and law books.
When we spoke to him, Foyz was selling James Clear's self-help book 'Atomic Habit', Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter's 'Rich Dad and Poor Dad'. He was also selling other popular novels including Dan Brown's 'Inferno' and Colleen Hoover's 'It Starts with Us'.
Molly Prakashani's Mojibor Rahman also said that mainly customers give them the ideas and suggestions to print a particular book.
"Another way is that when we come to know that a popular writer's book is published, we publish around 500 copies first. If we get a positive response, we publish 500 more," he said, adding that these days he is also printing comic books, especially Manga (graphic novels originating from Japan).
All decisions are not right
Dan Brown is the author of numerous bestselling novels, including 'The Da Vinci Code', which has become one of the best-selling novels of all time.
His novels are very popular in Bangladesh too and you will find plenty of his book's copies in Nilkhet. However, his last book came out in 2017.
"We have published Dan Brown's 'Origin' and 'Inferno'," said Mojibor Rahman. "We are waiting for new books [by him]."
Bestselling children's author J K Rowling's Harry Potter series received a huge response in Bangladesh. The copybook publishers did good business with the books.
Tajin Boi Ghar and Molly Prakashani also published the Harry Potter series.
"There are some books we can sell 15-20 copies of. There have been times when we had to sell the remaining copies in kilograms," said copybook publisher Foyz. "Some books need around five years to be sold."
Sadikuzzaman Shopnil runs a bookshop called Shopnil Bookstore at the Islamia Market in Nilkhet. He also sells books online using the Facebook page "Nilkhet Books Market" (https://www.facebook.com/NBMarket1/).
He said that the demand for Harry Potter series books has fallen compared to some years back, because no new series came out. The seventh book in the Harry Potter series 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' came out in 2007.
"When the next book of the series comes out, the demand will grow back,"said Shopnil, unaware that the series has ended. He said that motivational books are currently dominating the copybook market.
"Now Atomic Habit, The Power of Now, The $100 Startup and The Psychology of Money are being sold the most," he shared with us.
Intellectual property rights activists and publishing industry insiders are very critical of such infringement of intellectual property rights in the Nilkhet area.
Mahrukh Mohiuddin, managing director of The University Press Limited (UPL), one of the leading book publishers in the country, said that they firmly believe in the need for protecting intellectual property in the interest of encouraging creative and knowledge-based content.
"I think it is imperative on the state apparatus and the law enforcement agencies to protect the interest of local publishers and authors/content creators to assure them protection of their copyrights," she said, adding, "as for pirated books in the local market, I would continue to argue that it is certainly not something we can endorse in any manner."
"However, I would humbly comment that the publishing industry and the government authorities vested with the responsibility of developing readership in the country needed to have a vision of providing legal content to its citizens," she added.
She believes that a coordinated and concerted effort is essential among the leading publishing houses, the government authorities, whose mandate it is to develop reading societies, in order to frame a vision for a country where people don't have to resort to piracy in order to access world literature, both fiction and non-fiction.
"Unfortunately, a large part of our tertiary education system is dependent on the piracy market, and even local publishers are no less of a victim," she said.
She also opined that awareness is necessary among all stakeholders concerned (i.e students, teachers, and general readers), and for this to happen, we need to see sincere intent from the copyright office and other relevant law enforcement authorities.
