In these last two years of the pandemic, the publishing sector in India has seen just about everything. There have been highs and lows - temporary closures, the emergence and boom of debut authors, and a technological revolution as books moved to audio formats.

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The market was about Rs 30,660 crore as of FY15, and in just five years, it more than doubled to Rs 72,000 crore, and come FY24, the publishing industry is expected to cross Rs 1,00,000 crore.

India is the third-largest publisher of printed books globally and the second-largest English print book publishing market, just after the US. However, the industry is highly fragmented and competitive with more than 24,000 publishers across the market along with a substantial unorganized segment.

India is a country with over 20 official languages and 1,600 plus regional languages and so it is not surprising that 47 percent of the leisure books sold in India are sold in regional languages!

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The share of foreign publishers is estimated at about 10-15 percent of the overall market. In terms of the biggest cost for the publishing industry, it is paper. That alone contributes to 60 percent of the overall cost.

Unlike most developed countries, India is dominated by educational book publishing with a small share of trade book publishing. Trade publishing is the world of general-interest books, both fiction and non-fiction, that are written for a non-specialist readership and sold through the general retail trade.

The non-trade segment largely comprises educational and academic publishing. It is this segment that dominates the Indian market, with trade forming only 4 percent.

In the non-trade segment, educational books account for 71 percent of the market, academics about 24 percent, and in the trade segment, non-fiction forms the largest chunk, followed by children's books with a 25 percent share, and fiction books another 20 percent.

CNBC-TV18 spoke to Ashwin Sanghi, famous Indian author; Ananth Padmanabhan, CEO of HarperCollins India; Rajesh Pasari, managing director of Macmillan Education India and Vikrant Mathur, executive director of Nielsen Bookscan to discuss opportunities and challenges in India's publishing industry.

Padmanabhan said, "We are seeing more and more bookshops coming up, especially for children's books. I think it's important for a child to be able to touch, feel or even for the parent to see the book and we are seeing that happening a lot more."

Mathur said, "India is the biggest market in the higher education space, and that's the reason India continued to remain a solid growth market. We continue to grow the educational sector by over 24 percent. While if you look at the other market, which is a major rating, there are also growing about 12 percent year-on-year basis, so the market remains solid for the country."

Watch the video for more.