In Rashmi Bansal, an author at heart and an entrepreneur by profession, you glimpse that sincere intent to interact with diverse people, share opinions and nurture her inner self. A founder of the youth magazine JAM, author of five books and now heading Bloody Good Book, an online platform for budding writers to realise their dream of getting that long-dusted manuscript printed, she is making a mark in different walks of life.
“Being an author, I was always approached by writers who wanted to get their book published. At reputed publishing houses, there’s such a load of manuscripts that there is hardly any time for feedback,” feels Rashmi. That’s where her venture is bound to make a difference. “It’s a site where people share their work, receive feedback, and connect with public, mostly literature fanatics,” she adds.
The response has been good, with nearly 125 manuscripts being uploaded already. The writers share a few chapters of their work and Rashmi’s team goes on to help the author sign a contract with them and later with the coverage and the marketing strategy before it releases in the market.
With the online lives we literally live today, the digital version of books makes good sense, she says. Taking her ideas forward just returning from IIT Madras, she shall be hosting a workshop for aspiring authors in the Mumbai LitFest (Tata Literature Live), and help them reach out to people in the publishing arena. Ideally, she’s expecting the audience to bring their manuscripts along for probable suggestions.
Her IIM –A background is one reason she finds a balance between her creative and entrepreneur capabilities. “Otherwise, I’d always be dependent on someone to take the next step despite writing the best book possible,” Rashmi avers and cites examples of assisting publishers with designing her book covers.
Her own writings have been on motivation and entrepreneurship, but she assures she will break that mould soon. “Maybe something around business, history or innovation,” Rashmi hints, adding that R K Narayan remains her most favourite author to date .
When she writes, given her work as a youth magazine editor, she has a 20 year old reader in mind, says the author of Stay Hungry Stay Foolish .
“We always come across students who do engineering but are barely interested in what they do. I’m happy that the magazine (now only digital) introduced a lot of talents, who are authors now and helped me even as an editor,” she recollects.
About the creatively intolerant phase the country seems to be undergoing, she states that this has actually been on for 20-25 years now. “Miscreants desire nothing but attention, misusing the IPC and indulging in maligning acts. Social media exaggerates such issues and news, where people find an excuse to get offended. God is someone who’s above all. How can a human offend him?” she questions.
