Almost all the posts you see on this blog focus on what to do after you have completed writing your book. Some focus on writing query letters, pitching to literary agents and publishers, dealing with rejection letters. There have been none on how to improve your creative writing skills. All this while we’ve been ignoring [...]
A Times of India reporter reached out to ask me about my views on literary agents (here’s the published article). The interest in the topic was triggered by the recent announcement that Amish Tripathi (author of the Shiva trilogy) has recently got an eye-popping Rs 5 crore advance for his next series. That’s a million [...]
It was good to see that the second print run for my MBA book (Beyond The MBA Hype) was sold out on Flipkart. The book was published 1.5 years ago with very little fanfare. I jumped up in slow motion, pumped my fist in the air and froze there hoping the credits will start rolling. [...]
Self-publishing has been growing at an impressive or alarming rate, depending on which side of the fence you are. Authors tired of waiting for the bigger publishing companies are taking the reins of writing, editing, cover designing and publishing into their own hands. Some are making money. Most are falling by the wayside.
Apart from trying to get your kick-a$$ manuscript for your soon-to-be best-seller novel on the tables of influential editors, I hope you have also been working on the less glamorous but equally important task of strengthening your ‘author platform’. It’s not just important for publishers to discover you and your work. It is also important [...]
I have been getting increasingly curious about the size of the eBook market in India. More than the size of the ebook market, I’m also keen on learning about whether Indian readers are latching on to the new trend of using electronic reading devices such as Kindle, iPad and notebooks. And the interest in the [...]
After all these posts, I realised the most frequently asked questions relating to literary agent commissions in the minds of new authors haven’t been directly tackled yet. What’s the average commission rate for literary agents? What is this commission applicable on? How do literary agents get their share (i.e. how do they get paid)? Does [...]
Literary agents and publishers reject an overwhelmingly large number of query letters than they accept. With those odds, it’s hard not to have gone through the rejection and dejection phase. In many cases, it’s not even an outright rejection of the query letter through a template responses. It’s that eerie silence from the other side [...]
Freelance book editors provide services to authors before literary agents or publishers come into the picture. The assumption here is that the original manuscript has potential that can be accentuated with a little help. There are many subjective and commercial aspects you need to consider before you decide to hire a book editor. Some of [...]
If you are a poet, you have probably thought about getting a poetry book published. Good poetry, many would argue, is tougher to write than prose. For the creator (the poet), it requires far more creativity and a much higher emotional quotient to write poems that inspire, move, entertain or compel the reader to think [...]
