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Bangalore: When literature and marketing join hands, a national bestseller is born. This is true in the case of the renowned author Amish Tripathi who wrote the novel ‘The Immortals of Meluha’. Tripathi faced many rejections for his first work from publishers for reasons like - a book on gods would have no readership and that it would have no connect with youth. It was after all the rejections that the alumnus of IIM Calcutta decided to take his next stern step. He went back to his marketing textbooks and charted out the plan to publish and sell the book all by himself. In a unique sampling format Tripathi printed out the first chapter of the book and distributed it at all bookstores. He also got a movie trailer done for the book and uploaded it on YouTube. His unlikely initiative to sell the book finally paid off. A year later, after publishing the second in the series of his Shiva trilogy, ‘The Secret of the Nagas’, both the novels sold over a million copies. As for The Immortals of Meluha, it is now being adapted to a movie by filmmaker Karan Johar this year, reported Kala Vijayaraghavan for ET Bureau. Dr Devi Singh, the director of IIM Lucknow said, “The younger generation today has a lot more confidence in its abilities and is willing to take risks, unlike people of our generation. And I think it is a great thing to be a non-conformist and not get stereotyped in a 9-to-5 corporate job,” as reported by ET Bureau. There are those who are considering dishing their jobs after their first novel, like Ravinder Singh, an alumnus of the Indian School of Business (ISB). His first novel, ‘I too had a Love Story’ published in 2008, turned out to be another national bestseller. He followed this success by another one of his brain child called ‘Can Love Happen Twice?’ published in 2011. Singh said, “I moved to Microsoft eight months back but am toying with the idea of quitting.” He spent six-and-a-half years at Sapient before joining the Indian Business School and turning into a writer. He further adds, “I derive more solace from my creative life than from my corporate nine-to five job.” Even Singh turned to his B-school learning to comprehend the 'business' of writing like Tripathi. Singh said, “I have seen the bottom of the pyramid and there is a great demand for Indian books. They can be sold in multiple languages and movies can be made of them. One can also get into publishing eventually,” as reported by ET Bureau.Sanjay Joshi who was the vice-president of finance at Idea Cellular in 2006, quit his job to write books fulltime. He wrote his debut novel in Marathi titled ‘The Resignation’ which later got translated to English. Joshi does reflect few regrets even though there was little money in the Marathi version. Joshi said, “You need less money than you think. My job at Idea Cellular was great and I worked happily nine to nine, yet I am happiest today as I have the freedom and luxury to come up with concepts at my own pace and will.” The chief executive of Westland, a publishing company, Gautam Padmanabhan spoke about the new trend that’s setting in the country, he said, “It is the beginning of a trend where authors are living off their books. Currently there would be few such successes such as Chetan Bhagat and Amish Tripathi but the phenomenal growth in the publishing market in the last three to four years will ensure there are more such full-time authors," as reported by ET Bureau. The roots of literature have grown beyond the limitations set by age or time of the streams of education. We are in an age where ‘anyone can be a writer’ who carries the flair and endurance to finish a book and get it published. Most writers know just to write and dispense books, but the combination of marketing and literature is ideal, which might take an extra tad of courage to accomplish the result of turning books into bestsellers. But once done the results are just a treat to indulge and cherish. |
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