New Year’s Day might be the customary time to start delivering on resolutions. My resolution, naturally, is to read a lot of really good books this year. It can be kept, however, only if writers and publishers combine to pull off the magic. And since I cannot resolve to do that for them, here are my wishes instead.
1. Writers should stop being businessmen
Does anyone even remember the time when being a writer meant, well, writing a book? Think of the to-do list of today’s writers – at least, those who want to be successful.
-Identify a target audience
-Map their need-gap and fulfilment matrix
- Identify the ingredients of a book on this basis
- Home in on suitable characters
- Create an appropriate setting
- Test the plot on a focus group
- Write the book
- Appoint an agent / go to your existing agent
- Haggle with publishers for the best possible advance
- Point out to publishers why they’re setting their sales targets too low
- Chase the publishers for a marketing plan
- Reject the marketing plan and ask for another one
- Appoint a marketing and/or communications consultant to market the book since the publisher can’t do it, evidently
- Pay for previous point
- Buy shelf space in bookshops
- Appoint a social media agency to create a Facebook page for the book, Twitter handles for characters, an Instagram feed for the locales, YouTube videos to act as book trailers, an author profile on Goodreads, and… whew
- Chase literary festival organisers to be invited to panels
- Line up sponsors for the book launch event
- Monitor sales at bookstores
- Devise a contest to get people to buy the book
- Spend most waking hours on social media
- Put a guilt trip on the publishers for neglecting you
The pressure, the pressure! When do you even write a good book?
2. Editors should stop worrying about their P&L
With the pressures of the top- and bottomlines, editors at now have to make sure that every book they publish turns in a profit, be it ever so small. That in turn means projecting sales targets in advance. So, editors are often discouraged from taking risks, and nudged in the direction of "safe" books, which will not lose money.
In these circumstances, it’s difficult to expect an editor to commission – or accept – books that are spectacularly ambitious or break new ground, unless they are written by established writers who already command a sizeable readership. (In which case, of course, there is also a hope that this writer will stick to a successful formula.)
But if only editors were freed to follow their instincts and their aspirations instead of their spreadsheets, we the readers might have a more exciting set of books to consider. Sure, there might be big flops – but watching an Excel sheet cannot possibly lead to great books.
3. Fiction for thinking readers should be brought back
Already, books are aspiring to be television – easy to consume, without taxing the intellect. A rash of titles targeting the so-called middlebrow reader is being published every month. Trouble is, there are far easier ways to be entertained than by reading a book – between multiplexes, MP3 players, apps and constant chats, that territory is covered.
Why not take books back to where they belong - a deep, fulfilling engagement with the mind? There are still enough of us out here, trust us.
4. Books should become more imaginative
This one’s for writers, literary agents and, of course, commissioning editors. We have had enough of Bollywood and fashion in our novels. We are more than a little sick or urban angst – or is that ennui. Coming of age is really not unique. Everyone, and I mean everyone, goes through it. Love is great, sex too, but you know what, there’s too much of both everywhere. And as for mythology, can there be a moratorium on it for ten years?
Take us to places we cannot go to - and remember, we can go pretty much everywhere these days. Introduce us to wild, unusual, people – not the same folks we meet on Facebook every day. Pitch us into extreme sensations, not those we can retweet or give a thumbs up to. Show us conflicts we didn’t even know existed till we read it in your books.
In other words, give us books we can cannot forget. It’s difficult, but it really is as simple as that.
Happy new books year.
We welcome your comments at
letters@scroll.in.
1. Writers should stop being businessmen
Does anyone even remember the time when being a writer meant, well, writing a book? Think of the to-do list of today’s writers – at least, those who want to be successful.
-Identify a target audience
-Map their need-gap and fulfilment matrix
- Identify the ingredients of a book on this basis
- Home in on suitable characters
- Create an appropriate setting
- Test the plot on a focus group
- Write the book
- Appoint an agent / go to your existing agent
- Haggle with publishers for the best possible advance
- Point out to publishers why they’re setting their sales targets too low
- Chase the publishers for a marketing plan
- Reject the marketing plan and ask for another one
- Appoint a marketing and/or communications consultant to market the book since the publisher can’t do it, evidently
- Pay for previous point
- Buy shelf space in bookshops
- Appoint a social media agency to create a Facebook page for the book, Twitter handles for characters, an Instagram feed for the locales, YouTube videos to act as book trailers, an author profile on Goodreads, and… whew
- Chase literary festival organisers to be invited to panels
- Line up sponsors for the book launch event
- Monitor sales at bookstores
- Devise a contest to get people to buy the book
- Spend most waking hours on social media
- Put a guilt trip on the publishers for neglecting you
The pressure, the pressure! When do you even write a good book?
2. Editors should stop worrying about their P&L
With the pressures of the top- and bottomlines, editors at now have to make sure that every book they publish turns in a profit, be it ever so small. That in turn means projecting sales targets in advance. So, editors are often discouraged from taking risks, and nudged in the direction of "safe" books, which will not lose money.
In these circumstances, it’s difficult to expect an editor to commission – or accept – books that are spectacularly ambitious or break new ground, unless they are written by established writers who already command a sizeable readership. (In which case, of course, there is also a hope that this writer will stick to a successful formula.)
But if only editors were freed to follow their instincts and their aspirations instead of their spreadsheets, we the readers might have a more exciting set of books to consider. Sure, there might be big flops – but watching an Excel sheet cannot possibly lead to great books.
3. Fiction for thinking readers should be brought back
Already, books are aspiring to be television – easy to consume, without taxing the intellect. A rash of titles targeting the so-called middlebrow reader is being published every month. Trouble is, there are far easier ways to be entertained than by reading a book – between multiplexes, MP3 players, apps and constant chats, that territory is covered.
Why not take books back to where they belong - a deep, fulfilling engagement with the mind? There are still enough of us out here, trust us.
4. Books should become more imaginative
This one’s for writers, literary agents and, of course, commissioning editors. We have had enough of Bollywood and fashion in our novels. We are more than a little sick or urban angst – or is that ennui. Coming of age is really not unique. Everyone, and I mean everyone, goes through it. Love is great, sex too, but you know what, there’s too much of both everywhere. And as for mythology, can there be a moratorium on it for ten years?
Take us to places we cannot go to - and remember, we can go pretty much everywhere these days. Introduce us to wild, unusual, people – not the same folks we meet on Facebook every day. Pitch us into extreme sensations, not those we can retweet or give a thumbs up to. Show us conflicts we didn’t even know existed till we read it in your books.
In other words, give us books we can cannot forget. It’s difficult, but it really is as simple as that.
Happy new books year.
