JOIN USYoung authors find a niche at Delhi Book Fair
A voracious reader, Suhail Mathur is a writer too. The Bhairav Putras, a historical fiction is his first attempt in the direction of being a successful young Indian author.
He obviously is on his way to success as his debut novel is selling fast on online shopping websites like Amazon and Flipkart. Mathur has a reason to brim with confidence as he believes youngsters today are interested in reading interesting fiction ‘even if it is by any Indian author and that too young’.
“Definitely, youngsters are reading novels. There are many who only tend to read international bestselling novels because they don’t know much about Indian authors. So, as they indulge more into reading habit they get to know about Indian authors too. This in turn is leading to the expansion of Indian book market,” says the young writer, who was present at the 20th Delhi Book Fair for the promotion of his book.
As youngsters throng the stall, where Mathur has been sitting along with his friend and watching them pick up Khaled Hosseini’s Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, he says, “Look at them, they know about Hosseini. Similarly, when an Indian author gets into limelight they want to read their book too,” says the 25-year-old, a graduate from National Law University and the winner of Tales Pensieve’s Best Book Reviewer Award 2013.
Pratham Devang, another young author, an electronics engineer, pursuing MBA from Allahabad University, present at the fair to promote his novel Mutton Soup comments on the role of promotional activities making young authors hog limelight.
“Not everybody can be as popular as Chetan Bhagat. Today, it is all about getting yourself known in the market. There are good novels by Indian authors but people hardly know about them because they were never promoted. On the other hand, there are authors who launch their books with much fanfare but there is no content. So, good content and promotion has to go hand in hand.”
Devang believes publication houses play an important role in the success and sale of a book. “In book fair, if the book is sold by a big publication house there will be buyers. However, if there is a
local distributor selling the same book, the sale will be less.”
Abhishek Sharma, a college student, hunting for books at the fair, says, “We know about some well-known writers like Amitav Ghosh, Chetan Bhagat and Ameesh Tripathi. Since everybody these days is writing books it becomes difficult to read all of them. So I prefer bestsellers, rather than going for any random book by any author.”
However, Khayati Shukla, who came all the way from Gurgaon to attend the fair says, “I believe Indian authors are very good story-tellers. They write in simple English which does not make reading boring.”