Sarit Bose is an author who is quite lucid in their thoughts about why new authors struggle to break through to publishing houses. It is all about patience, he says. But if an author is unwilling to wait, then there are other avenues that are equally, if not more attractive in getting your story out to the world. The most important of these avenues are self-publishing companies that publish your book for a certain amount. In an interview with Writers Melon, Sarit Bose elaborates on self-publishing, his quadrilogy, and so much more.
There are a lot of debut authors writing fiction/non-fiction these days. But they find it very difficult to find a publisher. Why does this happen and what do such authors do in the meanwhile? “The big publishing houses are practically immersed in manuscripts from debut, as well as, known authors and more keep coming. It is practically impossible for them to go through all the manuscripts. So, naturally, they tend to favour the known authors, thereby relegating the new ones to a much later date, which could be a year and a half to two years. But now several publishing houses have come up that cater to such authors by self-publishing their books.”
Sarit Bose has written two books so far that are part of a quadrilogy. The story is a fictional adventure with a historical background. Set in the early 19th century India, at a time when the East India Company was still not all powerful in India, the dominant powers in the land being the Marathas and the Sikhs in the North-West. He tells us more about the story;
“These books start off in London of 1813, with the Napoleonic wars raging in Europe, and potato famines creating havoc in Ireland, with thousands of the Irish leaving the land of their fathers for distant lands. Joseph McLeod, twenty years of age, is newly recruited in the East India Company’s Bengal Army. In London for a short duration, awaiting his sailing orders, he meets an exotically beautiful girl, Isabella Hamilton, the scion of a well-known aristocratic family, and is attracted to her. In spite of their first meeting not turning out well, he is concerned when two attempts are made on her life. The second attempt is heartbreakingly tragic. Her mother is killed and her father grievously wounded. On his death bed, her father reveals a shocking secret from Isabella’s past. Then, a delegation from India arrives with a strange tale of an estate from her mother’s side, of which Isabella happened to be the sole heir alive. Later, Isabella uncovers secrets from her childhood bric-a-brac. Plus there are people after her life that causes her to ask a number of questions. Why do they want her dead? And is the estate so valuable that men would come all the way to 19th century London to kill for it? The answers lie in India and on these answers depend her future, fortune, and probably her life. Thus, Isabella begins a tumultuous journey in Madras, into the unknown, to find her roots and her estate, along with Joe, mandated by the East India Company to help her before taking up his post at Fort William, Calcutta. This journey takes them over the length of the sub-continent and beyond, pursued incessantly by her would-be assassins and protected by the delegation that had come to London from her estate. But who are her friends and who are her enemies? Over all this uncertainty and fear, hangs the mystery of the amulet, and its incredible truth. And yet the question remains, of whether she will find what she came in search of.
Sarit Bose is one such author who has gone the self-publishing way, too. When asked to share his journey, he is quite forthcoming. “After I had finished the second book in my quadrilogy, I sent query letters to almost 40 Indian and international literary agencies and about 9 publishing houses in India. Then I waited for almost 6 months without receiving any reply. There were no rejections, mind you. Just no reply. Then a friend, who had gone through all this before, told me that if I thought of waiting for a reply, it might even take a year or two; and if I did not wish to wait that long, it was better to get the books self-published. I took a while to make up my mind because I was short of money. Finally I decided to borrow from a relative. Now was the tricky part of choosing the right self-publishing house. I checked several sites on the internet. And I came up with the conclusion that Notion Press of Chennai best fitted my requirements. Besides, Chennai was convenient for me because I used to live there once, and I have many friends with whom I could put up for the several times that I would have to come down to Chennai to personally meet the team that was handling my project and discuss and plan with them.”
“1) No waiting. You do not have to wait even for a day. The moment you make the payment, work starts on your book. 2) You are the boss. You have to approve everything from the editing to the book cover designs, brochures, posters, etc.”
“1) You pay for it. The higher the package, the more facilities you get. 2) Though they will help you by delivering the books to select stores around the country, to all on-line retail platforms, design eBooks and send them to all on-line platforms like Kindle, Kobo, Google Play, iBooks, etc., help you by planning your publicity and marketing campaigns, it is you who finally have to do the actual publicity and marketing. And if you fail in this, however good a book you have written, however nice your book cover looks, your book will not be a best seller. Marketing is the most difficult of all tasks that you will have to face to make your book a best-seller. Very few writers have the knowledge or the capability to market their book properly. Because of this, most books, even good books, fail to make it to the best seller lists. ” If you are an author, share about you and your book(s) in Author’s corner and do take a look at our unique community approach to Book Marketing.
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2 Comments
This was interesting, but as a first time author who is considering the self-publishing route, I wished you had shared some ideas about how such ideas can reach their intended audience.
Thanks Somdev, we are trying to put together more such pieces in future that will help you navigate your publishing journey.