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Have a tale, will tell
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The past year saw a flood of debut authors, many of whom generated interest in readers
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Photo: P.V.Sivakumar
Self-help? Amitabha Bagchi says his multi-city self-financed effort helped generate interest in readers
Amitabha Bagchi has a way of recounting incidents that fringe on the comic. Chuckling, this young novelist relates how he failed to sign his dream contract with Harper Collins India for “Above Average”, his debut work, published early 200
7. “I had a rough idea as to what kind of a contract I wanted, so quite confidently I asked my publisher for those terms,” he says. “I was told, no.” Bagchi seemed to have pleaded, “Pleassee…and still it said, no.”
“That’s when I realised I am not in a bargaining position and so signed it the way it was formatted for me,” says the light-hearted Delhiite, whose novel is in the best-selling list of works by a debut author. “Fifteen thousand copies sold!” flashes first on his website he has put up with “help” from Harper Collins, but Bagchi is quick to add, “Harper told me it has gone up further.” He is obviously buoyant at the reader response despite failing to sign the contract about which he had “a rough idea”.
Changing trend
Look at the overall scenario for debut authors in 2007 and you have something positive to talk about. First, there was a definite surge of new writers. A Penguin India spokesperson says, “Last year, we published 18 debut authors cutting across all genres,”
Harper Collins senior editor Nandita Aggarwal matches it adding, “The number of manuscripts received has definitely gone up”. It published over a dozen new authors in 2007 while Rupa too had 12 such names.
Secondly, most of these first timers seemed to be doing fairly well, sales-wise. Besides Bagchi, there is Advaita Kala’s “Almost Single”, Ravi Subramaniam’s “If God was a Banker”, Ankush Saikia’s “Jet Set Woman”, Amandeep Sandhu’s “Sepia Leaves” to name a few titles which are finding readers. Enough boost to set them on to their next book.
Interestingly, besides a handful of them, (such as David Devadas’s “In Search of a Future”) most of the books doing well are light fiction, with autobiographical elements, targeted at the changing pattern of readership of English books. A trend that publishers, authors and literary agents consider “positive”.
Says Ravi Subramaniam, “Literature is not only about hills, valleys and birds flying. My books are for casual readers.” Concurs Anuj Bahri of Redlink, a literary agency, “We need to have more books which can be read fast; not heavy literary fiction. For this, we need different genres such as thrillers, fantasy fiction, historical writing, etc.” The trend has started, and “in two to three years, it will be better.”
Such a need has perhaps made Kala’s book, the country’s first chick lit, fare well. With her book finding a mention in the western media, Kala is now in touch with publishers for its international edition. “Also, I am getting queries for film rights,” she says.
Alongside, also trot out pointers like why most debut authors go autobiographical, receive a paltry sum as signing amount compared to the West, how selling 15,000 copies is ‘a great going’ here, besides complaints like insufficient publicity for books by publishing houses and how new authors are not genre conscious and so few genres are still untouched.
Bagchi, in “AlmostAverage”, picks frames from his life as “You need to have characters with depth and creating one is not easy the first time.” Subramaniam, in “If God Was a Banker” too specked a few personal elements. But herein, Sandhu has gone the whole hog. Not just with “Sepia Leaves”, which talks about his mother’s schizophrenia, but with his next book too. Yet another factor that seems common to debut authors is their struggle to get published. Almost all of them say, “It was difficult”, and signed a contract which tilts more towards the publisher. Sandhu says, “I have collected a few rejection slips and forgot that I had sent my manuscript to Tara Press. So when I got a call from them, I was taken aback.”
Publishers’ inadequate effort at promoting books is also a complaint. Bagchi says, “I travelled to different cities at my own expense and started a website and a blog to talk about my book, which pushed sales.” Paltry royalty is an issue too. Subramaniam says, “I get pocket change.” Bagchi adds, “I get Rs.15 per copy. With eight years put for a book, is that enough?”
SANGEETA BAROOAH PISHAROTY
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