Promoting Books in Goa: What Road Ahead?

Frederick Noronha

In the coming week—on June 30, 2026–the deadline will end for applying for the ‘publisher grants’ that the Goa Government’s Directorate of Art and Culture announces each year. Its Scheme to Provide Financial Assistance to the Publishers for Publishing Books of Goan Auhors is one of the dozen or so listed on its artandculture.goa.gov.in website. One cannot be sure how many potential beneficiaries statewide are even aware of these ‘schemes’, but some who benefit have been applying for the same, including this columnist.

Besides, the DoAC offers grants to students studying art and culture outside Goa, aid for long term projects in art and culture, an ‘appreciation fund’ for aged and distinguished artists, funding for camps or courses and cultural shows, grants to set up Ravindra Bhavans, for boosting Goan maand culture, to set up village and NGO libraries, and even aid to purchase musical instruments for bhajani or choir and cultural groups.  There are also awards, which one can be recommended for, in the field of culture, libraries and librarianship.

Some of these awards have been given out since 2008. With mixed results. Of direct interest to this column, which focuses mainly on books about Goa, are the book-related grants. Let’s note at the outset that a vibrant book culture—more so in a small region like Goa–requires far more than the government grants for publishing and running up rural libraries through panchayats and NGOs. The latter approach mostly seems unsuccessful.

Such grants may help because they reduce financial barriers to get into print and, in theory, to set up libraries. But the way the grants are structured, these seem calculated for failure.

The conditions and hurdles that village panchayats and NGOs must navigate make many library proposals unviable from the outset. A substantial portion of the grant is often absorbed by salary and administrative expenses, leaving too little for acquiring books, expanding collections or running an effective library service. The answer, therefore, does not lie merely in increasing the size of grants, but in redesigning the scheme so that its conditions are practical and conducive to building vibrant, well-used libraries.

At the same time, more diverse approaches are needed. A comprehensive strategy should include sustained reading campaign in schools and colleges, support for local bookstores, incentives  for authors, book fairs across urban and rural areas, author talks and book clubs, translation programmes to bridge language communities, digital platforms for discovering and purchasing local books, and the like.

Do we have a bit of innovating thinking? Why not consider partnerships with newspapers and broadcasters to review regional publications, links with civil society and the private sector, and outreach to diaspora communities?

Governments need to also do far more to integrate regional literature into educational curricula, and provide grants specifically for marketing, distribution, e-books, audiobooks and translations—not just printing. For that matter, a healthy and vibrant book culture needs to nurture writing, publishing, bookselling, libraries, schools, the media and readers in a way that each reinforces one another, rather than viewing publication alone as the end goal.

If you take the scheme to promote publishing (of local authors), even that has its own strong limitations. Some years back, both authors and publishers were given grants. Authors needed to produce a manuscript of a book they planned to write in the year ahead.

In advance, the DoAC would decide whether they could support it. They offered a maximum grant of Rs 25,000. This scheme was quite helpful. But then the scheme was changed to buy already-published books worth upto a maximum value of Rs 50,000.

So, the scheme was changed from being a ‘safety net’ to being a lottery.

In the past, it encouraged authors, whose books might have been tough to otherwise get published, to somehow bridge the gap and get their work into print. Today, even after a book is published, there’s no guarantee that it will get official support.

There are other requirements too: both the publisher and author have to be “Goan”. This excludes the work of expat writers working on Goan issues. The definition of Goan here is a “person who has lived in Goa for a minimum 10 years of his creative lifespan”.

In addition, the book should have been published in a minimum print run of 500 copies. Today, to cater to the limited-sized Goa market, many books are printed in fewer copies than this, and print-on-demand technologies makes this possible. Then, the authorities lay down which time period a book should be published during. All this makes it rather difficult for most books to even apply for such support, let alone qualify.

No anthology or compilation shall be considered. Works of translation will not be considered too. Why? One would have thought that there’s a need to encourage precisely this in multilingual Goa.

First of all, money is not the only or main support that books in Goa need to become viable and ubiquitous. But then, if taxpayer money is being invested in such activities, the least it could do is to be shared in a way that creates the best chance for some positive returns to come about. 

Promotion and the proliferation of Goa-focussed books face several interconnected challenges. Goa-specific subjects have a small readership. This faces competition from national content, or even that from a big neighbouring state like Maharashtra. There’s only limited shelf space in bookstores for local authors. Small print runs can result in high pricing and high distribution costs too. Most local books also suffer from weak marketing budgets.

The declining reading habits among the young is something we have largely left unaddressed. Language fragmentation (English, Konkani in multiple scripts, Marathi, and earlier even in Portuguese) divides the market. Goa has an inadequate integration of local books into school and college curricula. Library acquisitions are limited. There are difficulties in reaching out to the Goan diaspora.

Today, there’s no shortage of people with a story to tell in Goa. But all such factors make it tough and difficult for authors to break into print. Market and technology solutions are badly needed. While the government alone cannot be expected to solve such issues, it at least should do efficiently what it attempts to.

Goa’s book challenges today are mainly in the fields of promotion, marketing and sales. These big barriers block more locally useful books from entering the market.  Many Goa-focussed books receive little attention after their launch. Reviews are few, though magazine sections do cover new books. As a result, many potential readers simply never learn that these books exist.

Marketing could convince more readers to buy. But small publishers and self-published authors work on tight budgets. Many of those seeking an audience also lack reliable data about who their readers are and how best to reach them, making marketing largely ad hoc.

Local books in Goa tend to be stocked in only a handful of bookstores in Goa. Distribution is weak or non-existent, even in Goa, let alone outside. Direct sales at launches and exhibitions help but rarely provide sustained revenue.

Overall, such issues are more important than the quality of the books themselves. Goa has no shortage of writers, historians, researchers and creative talent. However, even an excellent book has limited impact if readers are unaware of it, are not persuaded of its value, or cannot easily buy it. Maybe, a more concerned policy would also look at solutions for promotion, marketing, distribution, digital publishing, translations or sustained reader outreach.