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.
