The Snaring of the Platypus

I admit I have let you all down with a resounding thud. After promising a post every week to my millions of admirers, I blatantly went back on my word and stopped posting for well over six months.

In my defense, I must humbly point out that in my last post, I had promised to share how I managed to snare this extremely rare breed called a publisher. But having proclaimed this intention well before actually bagging the creature, I had to lie low and pretend to blend into the background till the trap was finally sprung.

Today, I am the  proud possessor of a publisher- squirming and thrashing, no doubt, but firmly in my grip and unlikely to escape. Now I believe I am ready to share the gripping saga of my publisher hunt.

It was in October of 2011 that I typed ‘the end’ and officially declared my first novel complete. Even as I wiped the sweat off my brow, I had already embarked on the next step – that of finding a publisher or literary agent. Since I was absolutely convinced that my book was superior to anything ever written or anything that could possibly be written in the future, I would settle only for the best publisher. Ok, Ok, I am sure you must be muttering arrogant so-and-so on reading the last line, but I would place the blame squarely at the doorsteps of my informal editors, friend Anjali Nair, and my sister-in-law Shubha  (even though she lost steam half way through)who both kept raving about my book. Being an eternal optimist, I decided to ignore the lukewarm response of my cousin Nandu and the extremely positive but not ecstatic response of my young friend Vidyuth.

And thus started the quest. Having written a young adult book of international appeal, I decided to first search for a publisher in UK or USA. There was a small glitch, of course – a vast majority of these dinosaurs accepted only hard copies of the manuscript. Having learned from J K Rowling that to become a great author, one had to at least get 13 rejections, and considering the money and effort that takes to courier 14 separate envelopes to the US and UK, I decided to focus only on those few who accepted email submissions. Fortunately, my prime target, Christopher Little (he was JKR’s agent) was among them. I sent off my manuscript to all of two publishers and Christopher Little and waited.

In the meanwhile I also deigned to look at Indian publishers. I did extensive web research and figured out the whole process of snaring a publisher. It goes roughly as follows…

- Go to the web and research out the names of the publishers of all the famous books you know…

- Ask your friends and their friends if they have any contacts with these publishing houses…

- Cry when you realize that friends do not have connections to really big time publishers…

- Settle for whatever and get introduced through aforementioned friends or friends’ friends…

- Send your synopsis to all the aforementioned publishers…

- Send synopsis also to all other publishers and agents in the country not in the contact list…

- Curse your cousin BalC who worked in the company called Synopsys when you realize that you have miss-spelt the word synopsis in all your mails…

- Wait week after week for rejections to pour in, pretending you are aiming for 13 rejections…

- Write stupid blogs about how one is about to get published…

- Get polite rejection from Christopher Little and mutter ‘No wonder JKR sacked him’…

- Get impatient and start the process of self publishing through Createspace, coughing up an enormous sum of $3000, muttering ‘forgive them for they know not what they miss’ about the publisher community …

- Chance upon an old friend called P Venky who introduces you to his friend called Chanty who introduces you to Westland, one of the leading publishers…

- Keep sending reminders to Paul of Westland, thanking god all the while that he has not responded, being pretty sure that any reply would be a polite rejection…

- Get a mail from a totally strange being called Sayoni Basu (who later on turns out to be Paul's wife), who calls herself a Primary Platypus of Duckbill Publishers, saying they are an associate of Westaland, focused on children’s and young adults’ literature and that she loves the manuscript…

- Thank god profusely for creating some sensible people like Sayoni Basu who moreover has the sense of humour to call herself primary platypus instead of a boring Director etc. ...

- Fall on your face and accept whatever terms in the contract with utmost gratitude...

- Fervently thank god for the strange creature called platypus and the stranger being called primary platypus :-) (Ouch! Sayoni Sorry!)

And after intense research, my friends, I have come to the conclusion that this is the best process towards getting published. Follow it to a Tee and let me assure you, you can also get your novel published. Of course, the prerequisite is that you should have written the damn thing to begin with.