For publishing houses
Keep selling print. Add practice, video, a study companion and a branded app to every title, and finally see what your readers do after they buy. Your editors approve everything.
India's book market is overwhelmingly print, and the industry's own report says the story is “not a simple shift from print to digital.”[2] So do not trade print for digital. Add to it, and start before someone else reaches your readers.
See it
Pick a type of book, then open each tab. Try the quiz. Press play on the video.
The cardiac impulse begins in the sinoatrial (SA) node, in the wall of the right atrium. It spreads across both atria and reaches the atrioventricular (AV) node.
At the AV node the impulse is delayed by about 0.1 second. This delay lets the atria finish emptying before the ventricles contract.
The impulse then passes through the bundle of His and the Purkinje fibers, and the ventricles contract.
Every normal heartbeat starts here, in the SA node.
A storyboard of how the page is planned. The real video adds narration, captions and animated scenes.
This is a demonstration. We wrote these sample pages ourselves, and they do not come from any publisher's book. The numbers in the report are made up to show the format. On a demo call, we run the real tools on a chapter of yours.
The whole business
A publisher can easily end up with a scanning vendor, an e-book app, a video agency and a separate store. Here they are one system, and what readers do comes back to your editors.
Then the loop closes. If most readers miss the same question, that is a paragraph to fix in the next edition, and now your editor knows which one.
The impact of AI
The clearest damage so far is in businesses that sell quick answers. We found no data that isolates what AI does to textbook sales, and none showing a fall like this in India. But the free tools are arriving.
Jan 2025
Chegg, a homework-help company, reports non-subscriber traffic down 49%.[4]
Jul 2025
A small US panel from Pew: people clicked a link on 8% of searches with an AI summary, and 15% without one. Google disputes the method.[6]
Jan 2026
Google offers free JEE Main mock tests in Gemini, using Physics Wallah and Careers360 content.[8]
Jul 2026
The Delhi High Court refuses ANI an interim injunction against OpenAI. It says this is not a final holding, and ANI has appealed.[9]
Sep 2026
A new industry report puts Indian print at ₹95,816 crore and says the story is “not a simple shift from print to digital.”[1][2]
Q3 2026
Chegg's revenue is $46.5 million, down 40% in a year. The cause is disputed, and Chegg is not a book publisher.[3]
Oct 2026
Google adds hundreds of free textbooks to Gemini Notebook, including S Chand Publishing titles.[7]
This is our own judgment. No data measures it yet.
What the research says
Many sellers will tell you video beats reading. The research does not say that. Here is what it does say, including the parts that do not help our sales pitch.
By convention 0.2 is small and 0.8 is large. These studies measure different things, so read them as rough sizes, not a ranking. Most of the video studies were in health sciences, the authors flag possible bias, and a later re-analysis says a universal benefit is not yet proven.[11]
One meta-analysis found that “practice tests are more beneficial for learning than restudying and all other comparison conditions.”[13] In health professions, 21 of 23 retention results favored testing.[14]
With short videos, test scores after AI video were not significantly different from human-made video, and some learners preferred the human version. In one study, an AI video took the authors 3 to 4 hours, against about 16 to 28 for a human-made one.[12] No study yet covers whole courses or Indian languages.
Animation has a modest edge overall, and static pictures can win for things like spatial layout.[15] A heartbeat deserves animation. A table of drug doses does not.
Reading on paper has a small comprehension edge over screens, mainly for informational text.[16] Putting the same pages on a phone adds little by itself.
The question you will be asked
On 29 October 2026, Google added hundreds of free textbooks to Gemini Notebook.[7] For reach, it is hard to beat. But reach and a business are different things. This is not either-or: you could do both.
| Textbooks in Gemini Notebook | Your own platform on Vacademy | |
|---|---|---|
| Reach | Very large, and Google brings the students | You bring them, through your book and your dealers |
| Cost to the student | Free, as announced | You set the price and the bundles |
| Answers, quizzes, flashcards | Yes, grounded in the textbook | Yes, grounded in your book, with the page cited |
| Whose brand and app | Google's | Yours, on your domain |
| Who holds the reader's details | Not stated in the announcement | You |
| Report on what readers get wrong | Not stated in the announcement | Yes, by topic and by student |
| Commercial terms for the publisher | Not disclosed | A plan you can read and compare |
Based on Google's announcement of 29 October 2026, which does not cover every point. Ask Google directly before you decide. We sell the option on the right.
The cost
Making AI video is now the cheap part. An agency's 2D animation in India is listed at $300 to $1,200 a minute,[26] though that is a different product. The real cost is your editors' time, and we could not find a reliable public number for it. A pilot will give you yours.
Indicative AI video budget
about ₹2.4 lakh
Based on about ₹400 per finished minute. This is a guide, not a quote. It leaves out your editors' review time, the platform plan, and rights clearance. Add those before you decide.
Before any page goes through AI
Rights and accuracy decide whether a converted title can ship. This is general information, not legal advice.
Under section 18 of the Copyright Act, an assignment does not apply to a medium “which did not exist or was not in commercial use” at the time, unless it says so.[20] Ask your lawyer about each older contract.
A figure you licensed for print may not be yours to animate. Make a list before you start, and leave out anything not cleared.
Ask for no training on your content, clear ownership of outputs, and deletion when you leave. That includes us. Our security page says your data is never used to train AI models.
Under India's DPDP framework anyone under 18 is a child, and tracking of children is barred unless exempt.[24] A direct-to-student app for Class 9 to 12 needs a lawyer's review.
Where to start
One subject, with rights checked. Choose books that already sell.
Book only. Book plus practice. Book plus practice and video. Practice comes first because it has the stronger evidence.
An unaided test one to two weeks later, your editors' review hours per finished minute, and how many readers pay.
Keep what the numbers support. We could not find these figures published for any Indian book, so yours will be your own advantage.
We would rather tell you now. Parts of what we do overlap with these, and for some jobs they are the stronger choice.
EPUB files, and an e-reader with strong DRM
An e-book platform such as Kitaboo
Reaching readers you do not have yet
Distributors such as Perlego, VitalSource or Kortext
Large-scale outsourced conversion, with human quality checks
A services house such as MPS, Straive or Hurix
How AI Is Changing Book Publishing in India
What is already happening, which publishers are most exposed, and what to do first.
How to Digitize Your Textbooks: A Step-by-Step Guide
Rights, scanning, practice, video, selling and measuring, with real price ranges.
Turning a Medical Textbook Into Question Banks and AI Video
Why practice comes first, and how to review medical content safely.
Google Gemini Has Textbooks Now. Join It or Build Your Own App?
An honest guide to what you gain, what you give up and what to ask.
No, and we do not suggest it. India's print book market is still growing and is far larger than digital publishing. The aim is to add a digital layer to the book you already sell, not to end print.
No. Chapter PDFs can go in as they are. AI drafts the outline, videos and questions from your pages. Your editors change or reject anything they want before readers see it.
Only with expert review. AI makes mistakes, including in checked medical content. You can stop at the script and have your editor correct it before any voice is recorded, and ground the video in the real figures from your book. A named clinician should sign off before release.
It depends on each author contract. Indian copyright law treats adaptation, film and reproduction as separate rights, and older contracts may not cover new formats. Check title by title with your lawyer before you start. We can help you run a pilot on titles you have cleared.
No. Your content is used only to provide the service to you. Our security page sets out how data is handled, and you should get the same terms in your contract.
You may want to. Google gives huge reach at no cost to the student. But on your own platform you keep the reader's details, your price, your brand and the report on what readers find hard. Many publishers could do both, depending on the terms Google offers.
No tool can promise that. Vacademy makes copying harder with copy protection in the viewer, per-role download control, encrypted offline files, device limits and remote revoke. You still need legal action against people who share your books.
AI video can be narrated in Hindi and other Indian languages. Study Companions, which answer from your book, teach in English, Hindi or Kannada. We know of no independent test of AI translation accuracy for Indian-language scientific text, so a subject expert should read every script.
AI video costs about ₹400 per finished minute. This is a guide, not a quote. The platform plan is separate, and your editors' review time is your own cost. Use the calculator on this page, then ask us for a quote for your catalogue.
No. Vacademy delivers PDFs, lessons, video and tests inside your own app and website. If you need EPUB files for retailers or for accessibility, keep your conversion vendor for that part.
We will run it through the tools with you, live. You will see the output and judge it yourself, with your own book.
Last updated 4 November 2026. Vacademy sells the platform described on this page, so check our claims against these sources. Legal items are stated as of this date and can change. The exposure ratings are our judgment. The sample pages, and the numbers in their sample reports, are made up by us to show the format. No customer results are quoted here.