Civilization is the outcome of varied experiences and observations of people on the canvas of time, the vital among which have been recorded since time immemorial. With the advent of the book, such observations have become better preserved, tangible and accessible, to the benefit of generations to come. Upholding this tradition, some proactive members of the publishing industry traced and identified a karmayogi in their domain, Mr Subhash Sethi, who has devoted fifty precious years of his life, serving selflessly and with dedication, to the welfare of the publishing industry. Taking into account his hardships and his valuable experiences – professional as well as personal – the people close to him thought it prudent to record them all, and persuaded him to walk down his memory lane and commit his story to paper, for the benefit of all those who are aspiring to make publishing and bookselling their career. Honouring the desire of his affectionate fraternity and other friends, Mr Sethi has written this book, every chapter of which is a motivational message for the younger generation and, perhaps, to those who would like to draw their own lessons from his experiences of agony and ecstasy. ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going’. Remaining compos mentis, determined and target-oriented is not very easy. To do so is the toughest, and can be achieved only by an equally tough soul. Subhash Sethi happens to be one such person – someone who has been gifted by nature the inborn qualities of clairvoyance, enthusiasm, dedication and zeal to grow for himself and also to assist fellow human beings with utmost compassion and help them grow simultaneously. Subhash Sethi has to his credit an illuminating experience of 50 years in the publishing industry – the book trade. He passed through innumerable phases of agony and ecstasy, thereby constituting a fortress for his family, friends and himself from the strong bricks of his experience of five long decades. However, Sethi did not want to let the experiences go unshared and unutilized. With this view, he has taken the trouble of compiling the creamy layer of his vast experience, in the form of this book, to provide stimuli, information and lessons of trade, for the benefit of the young generation entering the publishing industry, and that it may prove to be the Magna Carta for the young entrepreneurs of the book trade. Sethi’s diligence cost him his health, yet his physical limitations could never impede his growth as a publisher. After all, gold has to go through fire in order to get its glitter, does it not?
