A good book with bad marketing doesn’t work: Amish Tripathi

Famed now as the man who created history of sorts by being the first Indian author to bag a one million-dollar advance from an Indian publisher, Amish Tripathi says smart marketing is essential to boost good writing.

“A writer can’t afford to just focus on writing and leave marketing aside in today’s competitive market,” says the “Shiva trilogy” fame author whose publisher Westland paid him a $ 1 million advance earlier this month for a forthcoming series of books.

The investment banker-turned author, is currently on a country-wide tour to promote the last book in the Shiva trilogy. Print sales of the mythical fantasy series, which began publication in the year 2010 has reportedly crossed 1.5 million copies.

The 38-year-old writer emphasised the need for good marketing strategies to promote sales.

“A bad book and good marketing won’t work, the same way a good book and bad marketing will also not work. There is no choice in the matter that if you need to write a good book, you also need to have good marketing for it. How will someone buy a book if he hasn’t heard of it?,” Amish told PTI in an interview.

The author whose recent book, “Oath of Vayuputras”, published by Westland has already sold 4,00,000 copies, says he has always been particular about innovative marketing strategies for his books.

In 2011, video trailers were screened at multiplexes for his second book “The secret of the Nagas”, while a music album was launched for his latest book.

Playback singer Sonu Nigam, percussionist Bikram Ghosh and Taufiq Quereshi have created an original soundtrack for promotion of the just launched book while Amish himself was seen sporting customised T-shirts at book signing events.

Apart from marketing, having a “literary agent” can also help a writer achieve the worth of his writing skills, says the author.

“Anuj Bahari has always been a really good literary agent for me. What a good agent does is that he manages many of your business aspects so you can keep your time free for writing.

Though I am a control freak kind of person so I am involved as the decision maker while he presents wise and lucrative options for me. The trend of a having a literary agent will catch up soon...!,” says Amish.

The author who says he was an atheist earlier believes that the genre of “mythological fiction” will never be an offbeat one because “mythology is embedded into our DNA“.

“The genre might have appeared on surface in past 10 years but I don’t believe it ever died or will die,” he says.

Quizzed about the choice of Shiva and not any other God, Amish says he is a “really cool God.”

“The genesis of Shiva trilogy began as a pure philosophy thesis on what is evil, and writing the trilogy got converted into an adventure to convey that philosophy. If you have to write a fictional adventure to convey a philosophy of evil, the best person is the destroyer of evil himself, Lord Shiva,” says Amish.

“Shiva is a very exciting character to write about. I don’t wish to disrespect any other god but he is a fun God, democratic God, brilliant dancer, brilliant warrior, musician and the ‘Bhang’ god,” says the author.

Amish who has a different approach towards research and characterisation when it comes to writing says writing is the profession of passion and not of money making.

“Money comes only to the lucky ones,” he says.

He does not believe in researching before-hand and specifically about the subject he chooses to write. “I don’t do research while I a writing. I am a voracious reader so any time I am not writing is research for me. Secondly I grew up in s religious family so most of what I know about Vedas, Upanishads and all I learnt it from my family, I learnt it the old fashioned way through listening so in a way I have been doing research on this book for 35 years.”

Similarly for characterisation he believes that defining the characters before writing the story makes it complicated.

“If you surrender the story characterisation becomes very easy. Give up control and let the story flow,” he says.

After the successful trilogy, Amish says he plans to write more mythological books however he has not zeroed down on the characters and subject yet.

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