Nine women, nine stories, one book.
The book is not only the journey of how the book came into being, it is also the journey of how nine women who were passionate about writing got together and compiled their stories into one single publication.
The journey was not easy as they were all first time writers and no well-known publisher was ready to help them.
The team got together and started their own publishing company called Inklinks and the result is their first book Bhelpuri, A Collection of Short Stories. Prema Sastri, the publisher describing the book said, “It is like ‘one baby with nine mothers’.
The nine stories are like the ingredients of bhelpuri, some sweet and some salty. When all these ingredients get together, the dish becomes enjoyable. The stories are written by Prema Sastri, Lakshmi Menon, Kamini Williams, Khurshid Khoree, Vatsala Warrior, Malathi Ramachandran, Eva Bell, Anuradha Nalapat, Nalini Malvia.”
The book launch was held at the British Library and the book was released by writer Malathi Rao. She was all praise for these women and was surprised that all of them could work together.
She also pointed out that the word bhelpuri appeared no where in any of the stories.
Shashi Deshpande, who was also present, shared her expertise on the subject. She said, “There is one disadvantage of self-publishing, that is, there is no marketing.”
She said that the book doesn’t receive the exposure it needs and hence, it might get left out. She advised the audience to read books other than those which appeared in the best-seller list.
Vidya Virkar, owner of Strand Bookstall, read excerpts from two of the nine stories stopping at exciting points in each story.
She also gave them tips on how they could market their book.
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