This month I will step back from the technical aspects of creative writing and, instead, focus on the question uppermost in the minds of most committed writers: How do I get published? To that end I don't think it is worth my while or yours to reiterate what you would find in a million tomes on the subject. Furthermore, much of that advice applies to London and New York. The Indian literary marketplace is a different beast and taking it on with that advice is akin to confronting a tiger with a rifle loaded with blanks.
So how do you get published in India? Let me illustrate that by using the differing experiences of two writer friends, both first-time authors, whose names I have changed to protect their privacy.
Two stories
Suresh came to me a year ago. He had just finished a novel about how the lives of two families — one Hindu and the other Sikh — were distorted by Indira Gandhi's assassination and the anti-Sikh riots that followed. Since my first novel Time Is a Fire dealt with Indira Gandhi's assassination and its aftermath, he wanted to use me as a sounding board. I told him one thing he should do is go with a big publisher. Otherwise he would find it very hard to get noticed. Time Is a Fire was published by Srishti, a small, respectable publisher but one without the deep pockets required to promote a book. Hence, it did not get its due, despite receiving a raft of good reviews.
Round this time, another one of my friends, Gauri, who lives in the U.S., finished a historical novel set in the India of the 1860s. That novel was fronted by a New York-based literary agency and then offered for sale in India by a British agent known as something of a specialist in new literatures (read Asian and African writing in English). As it turned out, that book was snapped up by a major Indian publisher, while Suresh is still hunting one for his novel.
Having read both tomes, I can, unequivocally, say that Suresh's novel is no poorer than Gauri's. And a novel dealing with how people's lives were distorted by the events surrounding Indira Gandhi's assassination is 10 times more topical in 21st century India than one set in the days of the Raj. The reason why Suresh remains unpublished has nothing to do with writing. It is just a consequence of how publishing works in this country.
Editors all over the world seek bureaucratic marks that will raise their comfort level, as well as cushion the risk they take while signing an unknown author. That is even more true in these recessionary times where a failed book can sink an editor's career. In the West there are several creative writing programmes and competitions that an unpublished writer can enter to gain these bureaucratic marks. Entry into a prestigious programme or placing well in a high-profile competition counts as a big tick in the writer's favour. Then there are a number of literary agents on the lookout for new talent. In India, however, the commercialisation of creative writing is still in its infancy and very little of the above applies. However, if, like Gauri, the novel has the backing of a major Western literary agent with a good track record in discovering non-Western writers, then it counts as a huge tick in the writer's favour. After all, if London and New York made the same mistake of buying the book then how bad can the consequences of failure be?
Right perspective
If you are depressed after reading this, don't be. Writing may be an art, but publishing is a business. Publishers do not exist to put out good writing. They exist to make money. Accept that and remember if you are going to succeed in this endeavour, you are going to have to marry your artistic side with the mercantilist.
Suresh failed, because he thought his writing alone would carry him. He did not take the time to sell himself or make the right connections. As in other sections of Indian society, relationships are key in publishing. Even more so in the paucity of more objective criteria, such as creative writing competitions for unpublished writers. Think of getting published like landing a plum job. The best jobs are never advertised. They are filled through relationships. You need to spend as much time positioning yourself to get published as you do working on your book.
Writing is best if it is treated as a passion rather than a profession. If it becomes a profession, then nothing like it. But don't start out with that in mind. For, as the great American short story writer Raymond Carver said, ‘Surely there are easier ways to make a living.'
Vikram Kapur is an award-winning novelist and short story writer.
