Six kinds of people you meet at book clubs in Delhi

‘You’re everywhere,’ cried a guy who came to three of my Meetups in Delhi over the same weekend. Yes, I was. Two weeks in Delhi and I wanted to meet, chat and listen in to what the crowd in the capital city was reading. What kind of book was it buying and what kind of writing was it pondering on. And I wanted to tell them about my book, my writing experiences and the crazies I’d learnt.

So I met four different book clubs, did a lecture at Jesus and Mary College and at National Institute of Fashion Technology and mostly met all ages of people and had a ball. Plus discovered that I’m sticking to running for fitness on my own. (Thanks Kay, for that!) But it was fun, to meet all kinds of people in Delhi. The kinds who read books, the kinds who write them, the ones who sell them or publish or market them and the ones who love to talk about books without really sitting cozily with one. Here are the kind of people I met in Delhi’s book clubs.

The curious kinds

They are the ones that come to meetings/gatherings to listen in. They’re usually open to ideas, exchanging information, helpful, impressionable and actually hear things you might be saying (reason you have to stop saying vague things you’ve been saying all your life). They want to know you, your book, as well as how you wrote it. They have a lot of questions and are open to ideas.

The gifting types

The whole reason they’re there at the meeting or gathering or panel or even your own book launch is to come up to you and give you their own work. A signed copy of their work or an excerpt. That’s it. They’re not there to listen or even to talk or to read, but to promote their own written work. Well, I appreciate gifts in any form, especially books!

The selfie hogs

Oh yeah, they’ve attacked the book clubs too. They won’t buy your book (probably don’t buy any books really), but would want to get a photo of themselves with you to post online and boast and who knows what else?

The excuse types

They feel slightly guilty at coming at a do without picking up the author’s book. (Perfectly okay, since you might not actually like the said book) But the excuse-breed, gives you reasons why they’re not picking up your book. Reasons like ‘I don’t have money today. I will order it online.’ or ‘It’s cheaper online. I’ll order it there.’ Or they’ll just smile, and sneak out without saying bye. Even though they had the most questions in the session.

The smugs

They are the kings and queens of the world. They already know everything, even though they’re attending a writers’ session. They come loaded with preconceived notions about the writing, publishing and marketing process (having not gone through it). Their questions are usually hidden assumptions, pandering to a need to be proven right. ‘You put the ‘Mature readers’ cover to sell the book, right?’ ‘You have a connection in the industry right?’ ‘It must be easier to sell a book if you’re a girl/boy/drag queen/naked.’ Oh, and they never buy the book.

The naysayers

The ones who feel nothing is right in the industry of writing and publishing. No one buys books, no one publishes the right kind of books. No one is sensible out there. Someone should buy Indian author books, someone should publish amazing books, someone should. And no, they don’t buy the book either.


Oh, well. It’s Delhi after all. 🙂 Here are a few photos of the various thingummies I did.

Know of any other Delhi book-reading kinds? Type away below.

 

 

 

 

Fab launch for Cult of Chaos in Delhi

#Delhi #Booklaunch #Rocked

Super duper excitement happened while I was in Delhi. First of all, I saw spring come alive in the city after six years. It’s fabulous, by the way, that end of winters before they crash into the searing hot summers. The city was blushing and blooming with colours all over, Fall tussling with Spring. And I can vouch for it, for was driving from one end of the city to the other, meeting people, making new friends, signing books, talking about the art and craft of writing books (knowledgeably at that!).

The end of my Delhi trip was with a formal launch of Cult of Chaos, which HarperCollins organised in association with Oxford Bookstore and QuizCraft Global. The idea was the same as the launch in Bangalore a month before: a quiz on everything paranormal and supernatural and then a discussion about Cult of Chaos. About 70 people turned up. The house was full, more were standing in the aisles, including me and it was a young bustling, energetic crowd, with a few kids. Manasi, an editor from HarperCollins introduced the book beautifully. Sidhartha, the handsome bloke from QuizCraft offered a rocking quiz to attendees. RJ Ginnie, who kindly accepted my request to do a discussion and ask me probing questions, made the talk about the book so much fun. Most of them who attended had a good time (and told me it wasn’t a boring book launch. Including a few peeps from HarperCollins). So see, heaven had been achieved.

Except it wasn’t just that. A lot of the people who turned up were from my school, college, post grad, ex-office pals and family. For me, more than a launch, it turned out to be a series of reunions with old friends, swapping notes, hugging, crying a bit. They were all there for me, proud, excited, supportive. Wow. Am touched, out of words, giddy and rather exhausted. So here’s all the madness. In photos and comments as usual.

Since I don’t really remember much of the event myself, here’s what two literature students who were there at the quiz and stayed till the end, thought about it. They interviewed me post the event and wrote for a really nice website called ReadersClubDelhi.Com. They were well prepared with a tight questionnaire, so check out the video below if you want to see me fumble and skirt difficult questions.


Oxford Bookstore CP and Harper Collins India in association with Quizcraft Global organized a quiz – Witches and Vamps : a quiz on paranormal crime on 28th March to celebrate the launch of the novel Cult of Chaos, a tantrik thriller by Shweta Taneja. 

The event began at 3:20pm with an introduction by Mansi, editor at Harper Collins and was taken over by Siddharta Gopati, the quizmaster for the day. There were sixteen teams and three rounds – written, audio-visual and still image.

The questions were thrilling and the atmosphere electric.
Written round included a few questions from Cult of Chaos among the other questions. Audio-visual round was an out of the world experience with short video clips of movies like The Conjuring and The Exorcism of Emily Rose being played to be identified by the teams.

IMG-20150330-WA0006The quiz ended at a thrilling note and left the participants awestruck and yearning for more.

Manjulika’s angel, The Reluctant Quizers and SFF were the round winners. Sawalon Se Darne Walewon the overall quiz. All of them were awarded the prizes by none other than Shweta Taneja.

After the distribution of prizes, the author was in conversation with Ginny about her book The Cult of ChaosHere is a small excerpt from the conversation –

Ginny: As we know The Cult of Chaos is a fantasy, what was your research and preparation for the book?

Shweta: I did my best research and tried to keep the book as indigenous as possible. I read sixty books on tantrism, asked people about their experiences and folk stories. The blood of my book is Indian, unlike the western magic world fantasies.

After the conversation, the floor was open to questions and an interesting assortment of questions was thrown at the author to which Taneja answered with smiles and incredulity. More serious questions regarding her novel and protagonist were also asked.

A stunning quiz, interesting discussions and a few laughs and smiles, the evening came to an end. Check out an interview with the author.


Would you like the supernatural quiz in your city? Contact me!

On the front page of The Hindu

Oh my.  This is the fourth time the kind girls over at MetroPlus, the magazine of The Hindu, have done a story on me (see herehere and here) . And I remain amazed at how everyone I seem to know reads this newspaper in Bangalore. I am flooded with messages, tweets, emails and phone calls everytime a story comes out.

Mini’s interviewed me twice now and every time, we giggle together as friends and as people who enjoy poems about old age.  She messaged me a month ago to tell me how because she was so involved in Anantya’s adventure, she could  reading ignore her fear of flight (she was flying internationally). It was the best compliment ever!

Cult of Chaos, The Hindu, Hyderabad, Feb2415

Here’s the interview.

Shweta Taneja talks about the anger of Anantya, the tantric detective heroine of her latest book

There is a new gumshoe in town. She is Anantya Tantrist, a tantric detective solving horrific crimes in the supernatural underbelly of Delhi where magic seamlessly mixes with the mundane. The Bengaluru-based Shweta Taneja talks about the genesis of Cult of Chaos, where the feisty, foul mouthed Anantya makes her debut.

Can you tell something about the genesis of Anantya?

Anantya came to me from a now-failed novel. It was a revenge saga in an epic fantasy world. I spent months building up the world and then realized that I wasn’t excited enough about the story. So I left it and started to work on Ghost Hunters of Kurseong instead. Meanwhile, Anantya stayed in my head, an angry protagonist, a powerful magician. Then one day, while reading a detective story, I suddenly knew that she was an occult detective. Anantya’s anger is a reaction to a frustration in me on everyday violence on women. On the other hand, I did want to create a heroine who does all those things that are usually reserved for alpha male detectives – spews gaalis, has no-regrets sex on the go, is stubborn, talented and emotional.

Why did you set the story in Delhi?

After the book was created in my head, I knew it would be based in Delhi. The capital city is a fascinating mix of layers of history, combined with arrogance in power and violence. It has not belonged to anyone historically, but everyone feels a claim to it. Also, having grown up in Delhi as a woman who had to be aware of where she was walking and keep a layer on, I wanted to revisit Delhi with Anantya.

Is the weird quotient as much as you wanted or did you tone it down?

The weird quotient was one of the reasons that many publishers rejected it initially. Even HarperCollins had doubts, so I requested them to come on the table to discuss this. Thankfully they agreed and we signed a contract. In the final editing process, though the language was softened and toned down, all the scenes, the story and the plot are exactly how I wrote it.

Drugs, sex and cinema — what about rock and roll?

The second adventure of Anantya Tantrist, which I am currently polishing and editing, has a pretty weird scene in the middle of a rock show. With Anantya Tantrist and her world, I want to explore all things that are considered vices or a taboo by the mainstream society.

Cult of Chaos is very different from Ghost hunters… Does genre hopping make you schizophrenic or does it come naturally to you?

With Anantya Tantrist, since she has a very unique voice you would feel it is dramatically different from my other books, but I see a connect. Both belong to the mystery or thriller genre, though the treatment in each is quite different. I do tend to challenge myself with each thriller that I write.

The book makes a strong case for the feminine principle. Would you describe Cult of Chaos as a feminist text?

I would rather not describe the book as a feminist adventure, because of the problematic ‘male-bashing’ tag to the word nowadays. It’s definitely about a woman, a strong willed woman who has gone beyond social relevance and taboos. In the book, I’ve taken immense pleasure in consciously turning everyday gender scenes on their head. To call it a feminist text would be unfair since you won’t use the word ‘masculine text’ for books or movies that have a male point of view.

The characters including Nawab sahab, Kaani and Prem Chokra are super colourful…

Aren’t they? I loved creating each and every one of them. Nawab is just so dramatic and still insecure after so many centuries of living a life of a ghost. Kaani, though talented takes his own time to describe things. I think their uniqueness comes from the fact that each of them is eccentric in their own ways.

There are stories that Anantya doesn’t tell… is that saved for future novels?

Yes. I’ve signed a three-book contract with HarperCollins on Anantya Tantrist mysteries, which means you will definitely read three books of her adventures.

I am already in the middle of the second book, where you will find out a little bit more about Anantya. The third book will be mostly based in Banaras, where she comes face to face with her past. Books four and five will head to explore her matriarchal past.

How come a novel set in Delhi is so filmy — it seems a Bedardi Bar can only be in Mumbai!

Oh, that’s a little unfair to say. Delhiwallas love both movies and drinking. Actually the love of both these things, with cricket is the only thing that binds us all as Indians. We all love movies, and all love to drink. I can even imagine Bedardi Bar in Bangalore, an illicit little dingy place which is run by supernaturals in the Pete area.

Anantya’s reaction to technology (as mysterious to me as tantrism was to others) is refreshing. Was that by design?

Yes. All of us who’re technology connected tend to forget that we’re only a very small percent of the population of this country. There are people whose life doesn’t revolve around technology. Who are not online or use gadgets. And they don’t need to in their everyday life. Since I am a technology writer myself, this weaving of technology, science and tantrism as an alternate science has been quite fun to build up.

Could you tell us something about the cover design?

Isn’t it just fabulous? I am so, glad that George Mathen agreed to make it.

I so wanted to ask him to do the cover. Even then I did and he agreed, even though the pay was pittance. He’s so sweet that way. I sent him a five-page cover brief, he read it, discarded it and created something completely different and fabulous.

=============

Cult heads to China and reviews

Oh, it’s such a treasure, when someone else posts a photo of Cult of Chaos over at social media, tagging me. And there are so many spaces online for these little delights. The book’s been sighted at various stores in Mumbai and Delhi and I’ve been informed on Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter and other places. But the best picture ever was this over at Twitter via @hershbhardwaj.

“@ Your book at @ stand in my friend Bob’s hand. Going to China. Had hard time exlpaining what a tantric is. He kept saying black magician.”

B-QxBTZCUAAaA_i

I mean, how cool is this? Anantya’s a desi chick and till now, the book is just published in India (the only way you’ll get a copy out of this country is by opting for one over at Goodreads giveaway). I am hoping that Bob comes back to me and tells me if he could connect to the book at all, if Anantya was fun for him. Would be nice to know that and maybe I could think about other international markets for her.


On another note, I had two great reviews on two different blogs.

B00kr3vie3ws.com

Debdatta, not only came to the book launch and bought a copy (as well as made her blogger friend buy one) but also did this lovely review of it. Isn’t she a treasure?).

“Oh my! This book is a result of an amazingly creative and imaginative mind at work. The blurb of the book and my dismal summarization of it do no justice to the world of Anantya Tantrist. You have to read it to experience it.”

Read the complete blog on her website here.

Fantasy-smorgasbord.blogspot.in

Sachin runs an amazing fantasy book review blog (it’s a great place to find new titles if like me you’re into SFF stuff) so I was so glad when he called it ‘mindboggling’. Here’s a bit of what he wrote.

“Personally, what really excited me about the book was this mad bubbling brew of ideas and imagination that somehow gelled with an urban day-to-day setting (Anantya chugging along the crowded Delhi-Gurgaon highway cursing the traffic, for instance cracked me up like crazy!) and still made me shiver with both fright and anticipation. It’s a refreshing change from the genre as is now popular in India – where Fantasy is only inspired by mythological stories or perhaps a mix of history entwined with Dan Brownesque mystery-thriller format. Shweta goes on to break the mold and doesn’t check her punches – running amok with her imagination to give us a colorful account of a supernatural world juxtaposed against a modern-day Delhi where Apsaras do item numbers, CBI has special sections to deal with crimes of the “sup” nature and Tantriks are over-ground.”

Read the complete blog over at his website.

 

 

Cult of Chaos launched in Atta Galatta with an occult quiz

Never knew that a standalone event, where people are coming just to meet you, to celebrate your book, can give one such jitters. So it was that I had had a sort of a stomach churning, a week before my first ever book launch was about to happen. I adore Anantya Tantrist, the tantrik detective of Cult of Chaos. Absolutely love the book, but how was I going to convince 50-odd people to turn up at the event and buy the book at that?

And why should they come? I’m not a known author or anything. I’m just someone. But somewhere I so wanted to somehow celebrate the book and writing and completing and getting it published. I’ve always been the curious sorts, asking questions to everyone. So I wondered, why not a quiz? The idea stuck and we decided to do not just any quiz but a special one, on Occult Detectives to entertain the crowd.  I knew Anantya would like that and that way, I wouldn’t have to ramble on about the book for half an hour, or do a discussion, which can be so boring for the audience! That decided, we hired  QuizCraft Global to conduct this quiz.

To start the quiz, I had asked a friend Kanishka who had read the book at its manuscript level, to say a little about it. He started from The Ghost Hunters of Kurseong, which he’d read and how he was so pleasantly surprised at Cult of Chaos, which is extensively different from my first book. (And definitely not meant for kids) I blushed and got muddled in my head, while he said really, really nice things.

Sathvik Ashok, the quiz master from QuizCraft Global took over from there and kept people entertained for almost 45 minutes, scribbling and chewing pens, hitting themselves on the head or clapping at the chap who got the answer. The quiz had five rounds ranging from supernatural questions, urban legends, to Indian ones. My favourite one was:

ONE OF MY FAVE QUESTIONS:

“A female ghost with messy hair and tattered clothing is said to knock on people’s front doors asking for alms. Opening the door to this ghost is said to invite bad luck. Sometimes, she’s even recognized as an omen for death in the house. If you open the door, she hangs around your house and becomes a nuisance. What idea did people come up with to combat this ?”

Can you guess the answer? I will put it in the end of this post.

Post that,  author Sharath Komarraju, was asked to come on stage to take off the shiny wrapping off Cult of Chaos to formally launch the book. He also won one of the rounds of the quiz. He said, ‘I will keep it very short as I’ve been told to say exactly two words. I’ve read this book at the manuscript level and found it fascinating. So my two words are: Buy it.’ With this, he gave the mike to me.

I mumbled emotional stuff about how the book combines the two genres I love the most: fantasy and detective fiction. Of course with blood and violence thrown in. I’ve rambled on the same stuff in other interviews, which you can read here, here and even here.

Finally, it was Ajitha, the senior editor, who has been with Anantya and me throughout, who came on stage. She retold the story of when Shweta had met her first, a few years ago at Bangalore Literature Festival. ‘Shweta came up to me, introduced herself and said, I think Anantya wants you to be the editor of her book. At that time, I was stumped and didn’t know what to say, but it got my attention and I got back home and started to read Cult of Chaos. And I was hooked.’ On the part she loved about the book, Ajitha said. ‘The world is so fleshed out and real. And Anantya is just so like you and me, a woman who has grown up in India, is trying to live an independent life, and even though most of her gaalis are written in English, they are perfectly Indian. I think the time was right for a book like this, an occult detective fiction, to come out in the market.’ Am so happy she agreed to become the editor of the book!

The event closed with a few signings and a couple of photographs with friends. Signing off with the best comment overheard: “The age of the audience increased by 20 years for the next event, a poetry reading session.’

Answer to the above question: Naale Baa (Come tomorrow). The two words were written on every second door in the city to avoid a mysterious woman from knocking at the door at midnight.

A special mention to Ashu, who was there as always and to all of my friends for coming by and making it so much fun (And Kanchen for the owls)! Here are a few photos taken by pal Prasad N and the media coverage so far.

See? You should’ve come. It was super fun.

 

Why are ebooks so expensive?

It’s a question that came to me and a friend over coffee when we started to discuss Flyte, the newly launched ebook section of online Indian giant Flipkart. Ebook is not a physical book, it’s not printed on paper, it does not take more money to produce more numbers. It does not need distribution channels which eat off a big cost pie of the publisher. It does not need retail space to be sold. In other words, producing ebooks brings down production, distribution and storage costs for the publisher.

IMG_20130315_131434

Right? Readers would assume so. For them, ebooks are just another medium but doesn’t exactly mean they own a book. Once you as a reader buy it, you cannot share it with someone or resell it if you don’t like it. In a way as this New York Times article states: You have only rent it from an Amazon or iTunes or Flipkart and your rights on the product are severely limited. You cannot resell and it’s gadget limiting and app-dependent. Logically, if the reader was just renting a book, the ebook’s price should have cost something like a library’s book rental cost – atleast half of the cost of a new book.

Then let us look at what it costs to make an ebook. Most Indian publishers, even the ones who have MNC counterparts, outsource their typesetting work (What is typesetting) to a third-party where plates are made digitally and then a physical final converts into a physical book at the printing press. Since the work is outsourced, the final typeset plates might have been deleted from the printer’s computer or put into raddi . So even if the editors and authors exchange drafts of Word documents and emails, the final version of the book (the typeset one with spacing, font setting and other stuff, etc) is not there in the hand of a publisher, especially in the case of older books, which have already been published say five years ago.

Since most of Indian publishers, especially in non-English languages are still producing books in outsourced press, to convert those into ebooks, they have to incur costs on getting them converted from paperback to OCR (optical character recognition) and then have it professionally proofread for scanning errors. In case they don’t have display rights or digital rights, they might have to procure them. This is a huge roadblock for many smaller traditional Indian publishers.

Then there are new costs associated with producing ebooks. As a New Yorker article put it:

“E-books are cheaper to produce, by about twenty per cent per book, because they do away with the cost of paper, printing, shipping, and warehousing. They also eliminate returns of unsold books—a significant expense, since thirty to fifty per cent of books are returned. But they create additional costs: maintaining computer servers, monitoring piracy, digitizing old books. And publishers have to pay authors and editors, as well as rent and administrative overhead, not to mention the costs of printing, distributing, and warehousing bound books, which continue to account for the large majority of their sales.”

Another article in Huffington Post sums up the costs that it takes to produce an ebook from a publisher’s perspective.

1) Software to create an ebook – Adobe Indesign (One copy costs $699), Photoshop and other softwares to create and edit. Going digital in other words.

2) Cost of hosting the ebooks – maintaining servers themselves or paying rental for third-party hosting service

3) Paying hefty royalty to the new retail giants – “Amazon keeps a bit over 30 percent of every book, because it also charges a “delivery fee” above and beyond the percentage it makes. B&N keeps about 35 percent. Google kept 48 percent on my last report.”

4) More royalty to the author (somewhere between 15-25 percent).

Both New Yorker and Huffington Post’s articles are from old-style publisher point of view. When faced with ebooks, old publishers are panicking and even resorting to illegal measures. In the USA last year, book publishers S&S, Hachette, Penguin, Macmillan and HarperCollins were sued by the Justice department for colluding to raise ebook prices. Out of these three (S&S, Hachette and HC) coughed up money and gave them back to the US customers who had bought up ebooks from 2010-2012. The USA scene happened because publishers were afraid that ebooks will kill the traditional market practices. Some of the publishers were following the traditional market pricing as they simply were in deep sea—not knowing how to proceed in the ebook market.

The Indian market is still nascent. Most Indian publishers shy away from ebook markets citing piracy fears and the fear of the unknown—technology. This fear converts itself into a new cost, a new way of thinking, a new business model. Copying what you were doing traditionally is not enough to keep you afloat. And they are being pushed by demand from readers who have tablets in their hands and want to see the book on various mediums —different ebook devices, audio, print. This generation likes to be served on individual plates. Their way or the highway.

How does one bridge the gap between the MRP that a publisher wants to put on an ebook vs what the reader is willing to pay for it? Maybe a traditional publisher will come up with a new business model which cuts costs. Or maybe we will see exclusive ebook-selling publishers sprouting around us. The Indian publishers need to drastically change their business models, figure out their costs and see the writing on the wall, that they have to change with this paperless times. Else perish.

As for authors, especially people like me who are just starting in the career of creative writing and storytelling, the more mediums I can get to my reader to read on, the merrier for me. Till readers are coming do I care how they read that particular story? I hope the publishers catch up to this reality soon.