Ravi Subramanian's Blog, page 4

Amazon I am sorry. You lost me on this one.

 

Amazon Vs Hachette : Amazon writes to authors 

Got this email today from Amazon.

My stance on this…. Books need to be priced higher… ebooks and paperbacks both need to be priced higher. Its got nothing to do with the cost of production or storage or returns or inventory…. If one were to go by Amazon’s logic of pricing of ebooks,  a painting shouldn’t cost more than a few hundred rupees.. after all its nothing but canvas and a few tubes of paint… a reader pays for the hours that the author sweats to get a 300 page book out for the readers.

Am also a bit distressed at Amazon requesting authors to write to Hachette asking them to write to the CEO of Hachette with a copy to Amazon.

Amazon, I am sorry. You lost me on this one. 

********

Dear Author,

Just ahead of World War II, there was a radical invention that shook the foundations of book publishing. It was the paperback book. This was a time when movie tickets cost 10 or 20 cents, and books cost $2.50. The new paperback cost 25 cents – it was ten times cheaper. Readers loved the paperback and millions of copies were sold in just the first year.

With it being so inexpensive and with so many more people able to afford to buy and read books, you would think the literary establishment of the day would have celebrated the invention of the paperback, yes? Nope. Instead, they dug in and circled the wagons. They believed low cost paperbacks would destroy literary culture and harm the industry (not to mention their own bank accounts). Many bookstores refused to stock them, and the early paperback publishers had to use unconventional methods of distribution – places like newsstands and drugstores. The famous author George Orwell came out publicly and said about the new paperback format, if “publishers had any sense, they would combine against them and suppress them.” Yes, George Orwell was suggesting collusion.

Well… history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

Fast forward to today, and it’s the e-book’s turn to be opposed by the literary establishment. Amazon and Hachette – a big US publisher and part of a $10 billion media conglomerate – are in the middle of a business dispute about e-books. We want lower e-book prices. Hachette does not. Many e-books are being released at $14.99 and even $19.99. That is unjustifiably high for an e-book. With an e-book, there’s no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no returns, no lost sales due to out of stock, no warehousing costs, no transportation costs, and there is no secondary market – e-books cannot be resold as used books. E-books can and should be less expensive.

Perhaps channeling Orwell’s decades old suggestion, Hachette has already been caught illegally colluding with its competitors to raise e-book prices. So far those parties have paid $166 million in penalties and restitution. Colluding with its competitors to raise prices wasn’t only illegal, it was also highly disrespectful to Hachette’s readers.

The fact is many established incumbents in the industry have taken the position that lower e-book prices will “devalue books” and hurt “Arts and Letters.” They’re wrong. Just as paperbacks did not destroy book culture despite being ten times cheaper, neither will e-books. On the contrary, paperbacks ended up rejuvenating the book industry and making it stronger. The same will happen with e-books.

Many inside the echo-chamber of the industry often draw the box too small. They think books only compete against books. But in reality, books compete against mobile games, television, movies, Facebook, blogs, free news sites and more. If we want a healthy reading culture, we have to work hard to be sure books actually are competitive against these other media types, and a big part of that is working hard to make books less expensive.

Moreover, e-books are highly price elastic. This means that when the price goes down, customers buy much more. We’ve quantified the price elasticity of e-books from repeated measurements across many titles. For every copy an e-book would sell at $14.99, it would sell 1.74 copies if priced at $9.99. So, for example, if customers would buy 100,000 copies of a particular e-book at $14.99, then customers would buy 174,000 copies of that same e-book at $9.99. Total revenue at $14.99 would be $1,499,000. Total revenue at $9.99 is $1,738,000. The important thing to note here is that the lower price is good for all parties involved: the customer is paying 33% less and the author is getting a royalty check 16% larger and being read by an audience that’s 74% larger. The pie is simply bigger.

But when a thing has been done a certain way for a long time, resisting change can be a reflexive instinct, and the powerful interests of the status quo are hard to move. It was never in George Orwell’s interest to suppress paperback books – he was wrong about that.

And despite what some would have you believe, authors are not united on this issue. When the Authors Guild recently wrote on this, they titled their post: “Amazon-Hachette Debate Yields Diverse Opinions Among Authors” (the comments to this post are worth a read). A petition started by another group of authors and aimed at Hachette, titled “Stop Fighting Low Prices and Fair Wages,” garnered over 7,600 signatures. And there are myriad articles and posts, by authors and readers alike, supporting us in our effort to keep prices low and build a healthy reading culture. Author David Gaughran’s recent interview is another piece worth reading.

We recognize that writers reasonably want to be left out of a dispute between large companies. Some have suggested that we “just talk.” We tried that. Hachette spent three months stonewalling and only grudgingly began to even acknowledge our concerns when we took action to reduce sales of their titles in our store. Since then Amazon has made three separate offers to Hachette to take authors out of the middle. We first suggested that we (Amazon and Hachette) jointly make author royalties whole during the term of the dispute. Then we suggested that authors receive 100% of all sales of their titles until this dispute is resolved. Then we suggested that we would return to normal business operations if Amazon and Hachette’s normal share of revenue went to a literacy charity. But Hachette, and their parent company Lagardere, have quickly and repeatedly dismissed these offers even though e-books represent 1% of their revenues and they could easily agree to do so. They believe they get leverage from keeping their authors in the middle.

We will never give up our fight for reasonable e-book prices. We know making books more affordable is good for book culture. We’d like your help. Please email Hachette and copy us.

Hachette CEO, Michael Pietsch: Michael.Pietsch@hbgusa.com

Copy us at: readers-united@amazon.com

Please consider including these points:

- We have noted your illegal collusion. Please stop working so hard to overcharge for ebooks. They can and should be less expensive.

– Lowering e-book prices will help – not hurt – the reading culture, just like paperbacks did.

– Stop using your authors as leverage and accept one of Amazon’s offers to take them out of the middle.

– Especially if you’re an author yourself: Remind them that authors are not united on this issue.

Thanks for your support.

The Amazon Books Team

P.S. You can also find this letter at http://www.readersunited.com

 

Pic courtesy : Litreactor.com

GOD IS A GAMER – worlds first BITCOIN thriller

My next book GOD IS A GAMER releases on 5th of September.

GOD IS A GAMER, is the worlds first Bitcoin Thriller.  A hundred chapters to read in a little over 320 pages, it does promise to be a page turner. As readers you have always supported me. This time too, I look forward to your support and feedback.

GOD IS A GAMER is an interesting story which takes the reader from the bylanes of Mumbai to the beaches of Goa, to the imposing buildings in Washington to the financial capital of New York. A story which takes the reader to places unknown, not seen by anybody, but experienced by many – the dark web. The underbelly of the internet. And in the midst of all this, is  a tale of human emotions. A father whose son returns, a politician who wears his heart on his sleeve, a bank CEO who has a secret to protect. Caught in this quagmire is a old time banker whose gaming company is going down the tube, a couple in their twenties trying to find love, and an FBI agent who is trying to drown himself in work to forget his family. Things get a bit heated up when people get killed.

Woven across all these stories is the story of Bitcoins.. the virtual currency which has taken the world by storm. If some bits and pieces of this book leave you in awe, horrified that such things do happen, rest assured, most of the jaw dropping moments in this book have been inspired by real life events.

There is a reason why I chose Bitcoins as an overarching theme for my book. And that is my conviction. My conviction that Bitcoins (or any other evolved form of virtual currency) is the future. There was no internet two decades ago. Today, world without internet is inconceivable. Five years from now, a world without Bitcoins or any other Virtual Currency will be inconceivable. This is one space which will single handedly change the way business is done and the way the world is managed today.

Do read GOD IS A GAMER …. I can promise you that its my best.

To PREORDER click here : http://bit.ly/preordergodisagamer

The lead up to the book launch, the book promotion phase, is one of the most enjoyable  (at times agonising) part of the journey.I hope to share a lot more about the book in coming days. However if you want to stay connected…. head over to my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/authorravisubramanian and join the LITCOINS CHAMBER … an interesting way to stay connected and earn awesome GOD IS A GAMER and PENGUIN BOOKS merchandise. The link to the amazing contest that is on till 5th September is http://bit.ly/Godisagamer-litcoins

Earn your LITCOINS, our own form of Virtual currency and exchange it for some cool merchandise.

 

Oh! What a Crush! – the story of my brief but intense love affair

Playing Candy Crush on the iPad was like experiencing ‘Vegas on Steroids’. I started playing Candy Crush some time in August last year. It was quite annoying to see posts about Candy Crush spamming my newsfeed. Just out of curiosity one day (August 10), I downloaded the free app on my iPad and started playing. That night I was on it till 3am. Thankfully I didn’t have to go to work the next day. And from thereon I played the game every single day till December 31. On an average I would have played the game for over an hour-and- half every single day. Thankfully I was not writing a book at that time.

Till the time I played it, it brought colour to my life—the bright red, green, yellow, orange candies were my only crush. Sugar Crush was the most-liked chant and ‘Divine’ was the most motivating word that I would die to hear.

Yes, it was an addiction. The days I would not play Candy Crush at night, I would struggle to sleep. The days I would play Candy Crush, I would struggle to sleep. If I didn’t get past a level, it would irritate. If I did, the next level would seductively invite. The explosion of the candy, the unpredictable nature of the game, and the sudden turn of luck, where one move of the candy would set off a series of explosions would be enough to keep me going for the next few levels. And when I started passing my friends on my way up, it gave me a ense of joy, of being a winner.

In my quest to get ahead, I did everything that was possible. I did not have the patience to wait for my friends to give me lives—I bought them. I spent a lot of money on boosters at every level, which would help me clear rows, knock off candies, blow up candies of a particular type, colour, etc. It might be dangerous to talk about the amount I spent on these for it might land me in a sticky situation at home.

Candy Crush made me a bit of a hero in my daughter’s school too. Her classmates who were struggling to cross level 30 and 40 were super impressed to know that I had crossed level 300. And when I zoomed past 400, I got into a different race: A race with the game developers. I wanted to reach the last level available at that time before newer levels were introduced. I wanted to be at a stage where I could claim that I had completed all available levels. It was becoming an addiction, which started worrying me.

That’s when I promised myself that I would stop playing once I got to the last available level or December 31 (whichever is earlier). And as luck would have it, I reached level 485 on the night of December 31, and I haven’t played the game ever since. I often wonder if on that day Candy Crush had more than 485 levels, this wouldn’t have become the only New Year resolution I have ever kept in my life.

(This article appeared in the latest issue of Forbes Life India)

Book Marketing : The Myths (TED Talk)

In February this year, I had the opportunity to visit SITM, Pune to give a TED talk on Book Marketing:The Myths. The talk was largely about how every book needs to be marketed these days : largely on account of increased clutter and reduced discoverability. It also focussed on how treating a book as a product has become more or less a given, in the publishing world.

My talk dwelled on debunking three myths that surround book marketing these days:

A good book will sell on its own
Book Marketing is a new phenomenon
A writer must write. A publisher must sell

Here is the link to the TED talk

I am aware book marketing is a very contentious issue and people differ, some of them violently, with my views. However these are just my views and everyone need not agree with it.

The link to the presentation is also enclosed. You can see it here : Click here

A big thanks to the students of SITM for having me over. It was fun listening to some awe inspiring speakers there.

 

Changes at Penguin

Received this note from the CEO of Penguin, announcing the changes post the merger of Penguin and Random House. Am putting this up here because the changes are in public domain, in any case :

When I wrote to you in July last year, on the day Penguin Random House was formed, I proudly promised you that Penguin Random House India is committed to publishing with passion the books you write.  I also said that this would be accomplished by an experienced, knowledgeable local leadership team who would fully support and advance your vision for your books.

Today I am writing to you to inform you of our further realization of our commitment to you: a new cross-company organizational structure at Penguin Random House India; a teamwork which, I believe, will enable us to fulfill this promise–together.  With these leadership new appointments for our editorial, sales, and marketing teams we have created a unified management team which will enable us to work with you, our customers, and ultimately our readers even more closely and effectively.

On the editorial side, Chiki Sarkar, currently Publisher at Penguin Books India, will be expanding her role to become Publisher of Penguin Random House India.  She will have responsibility for building the local publishing list and will be supported in this role by Meru Gokhale and Milee Ashwarya, our newly appointed Publishing Directors, Penguin Random House India.  Meru will have responsibility for the Vintage India, Allen Lane, Hamish Hamilton, Viking and Classics lists, and Milee will oversee Ebury India, Random Business, Metro Reads, Penguin Ananda, Shobhaa De Books and Portfolio.  Within this leadership framework your primary day-to-day relationship you have with your current editor should remain unchanged.

Over her career, with both Random House and Penguin in India, Chiki has built a considerable reputation for finding, nurturing and championing the region’s very best writing talent and publishing their books which huge personal passion.  Her tireless work has recently been recognized by the World Economic Forum, which named her as one of their Young Global leaders, a community which assembles the world’s most promising next-generation leaders. 

Meru started her career at Penguin India, and during her years at Random House, she has shaped the Vintage India list into the finest home for critically acclaimed, award-winning literary publishing. In 2013, she was awarded the prestigious Jerusalem Editorial Fellowship.  Milee is well known for her flair for commercial publishing and has created, in Ebury, the country’s leading health and lifestyle list and, in Random Business, a bestselling combination of both serious and soft business.

I am convinced that, with Chiki, Milee and Meru’s breadth of expertise, you will be in the very best hands.

We will be bringing increased focus to our children’s publishing, and with it Hemali Sodhi will be taking on the newly created role of Director, Children’s, Penguin Random House India.  As Vice President Marketing and Corporate Communications she had established Penguin as one of the foremost publishing brands in India and she will now turn these considerable skills to developing our local publishing program as well as the international list for the Indian market.

Our new combined sales team will be headed by Senior Vice President, Sales, Ananth Padmanabhan who will have overall responsibility for all Penguin Random House sales in India. Nandan Jha has been appointed VP, International Product and Digital Sales, which will include the entire portfolio of Penguin Random House Group international product and all the agency publishers it represents in India.  He will also be responsible for all online and digital sales for the group and sales of children’s product.  Manoj Satti will take on the role of General Manager, International Product (Random House) and Sales Planning and Rahul Dixit will be General Manager, Local Publishing and Sales, responsible for the development of product and diversified sales for all local publishing across Penguin Random House India.

Both Ananth and Nandan, in their respective Vice President Sales roles at Penguin and Random House, have been responsible for expanding our sales reach in an ever-changing retail market.  Across our newly-combined team there is well over half a century of experience in all aspects of sales, from shop-floor selling and distribution to customer service and inventory management.  This wealth of knowledge will enable Penguin Random House to continue to ensure your books reach their readers, wherever and however they buy them.

Finally, Caroline Newbury has been appointed as VP Marketing and Corporate Communications for Penguin Random House India, and will oversee all publicity, marketing, digital and corporate communications functions.  Caroline joined Random House India two years ago after over a decade working in the Ebury Publishing division of Random House UK.  Hemali will maintain her role in corporate communications for Penguin Books India.

With these appointments I believe we have created a team at Penguin Random House which will enable us to publish your books and deliver them to your readers in the most connective, innovative, and effective way.  Our goal is to build your readership and sell more of your books in the traditional and emerging publishing formats and platforms.

I know that members of this team will be in touch with you directly very shortly but should you have any questions at any time, please do not hesitate to contact me. My colleagues and I very much look forward to continuing to proudly publish your books.

 

Pic courtesy : Penguin India Facebook page.

Stop the Hypocrisy. Penguin did the right thing

Too much is being made of the pulping of Wendy Doniger’s “The Hindus – An Alternative History.” I guess it all started with Arundhati Roy’s open letter to Penguin in the Times of India. Titled, “You must tell us what terrified you”, it launched a scathing attack into Penguins act of reaching an out of court settlement on Wendy Doniger’s book.

And then began the steady stream of condemnation from the so-called Literati, the upholders of India’s cultural and moral values. Penguin’s decision to pulp Wendy Doniger’s book had backfired, or so it seemed.

To all those who are being opportunists I want to say just one thing : 

Let the hypocrisy stop.

I have the following points to make on this issue. A few will agree, many won’t. But what the hell, I wrote this for myself right. This is not a book, I am selling. And hell, you can’t ban this blog. Can you.

1) A publishing contract is bipartite – legally and emotionally.

Two parties involved. In this case those two parties are Penguin, the Publisher and Wendy Doniger, the author. If anyone has a right to comment/feel aggrieved, it is Wendy. No one else. And this is what she has to say about Penguin:

“But I do not blame Penguin Books, India. Other publishers have just quietly withdrawn other books without making the effort that Penguin made to save this book. Penguin, India, took this book on knowing that it would stir anger in the Hindutva ranks, and they defended it in the courts for four years, both as a civil and as a criminal suit. They were finally defeated by the true villain of this piece-the Indian law that makes it a criminal rather than civil offense to publish a book that offends any Hindu, a law that jeopardizes the physical safety of any publisher, no matter how ludicrous the accusation brought against a book”

From the looks of it, Wendy’s anger seems to be directed not at the Publisher, but at the legal system and framework in India. She categorically says that she does not blame Penguin. If you read anything else in this statement of hers, please let me know. 

2) For any Publisher, publishing is a business.  

For those who don’t understand this, let me begin by telling you what it is not.

It is not a charity.
It is not ‘propagation of religion’.
It is not standing up against the legal system of the country.
It is not appealing to the conscience of the set of people who will stand up for anything which gives them some column space in mainline dailies.
It is not playing to the gallery and becoming a hero.

Publishing infact is a noble profession, where authors are given a platform to express their views, write creative stories and connect with the reading public. But only as long as it is legally acceptable. (If you think questioning of the legality of  the content in Wendy Doniger’s  book is incorrect, then question the legal system, not Penguin.)

Every publisher exists in this business for profits. Lets not glamorize this basic reason for existence with lofty words, like upholding of freedom of speech, bowing down before religious fundamentalists etc etc. If after defending Wendy’s book for four years, Penguin felt that they were on a weak wicket, what’s wrong in pulling the plug? Had the case gone to the higher courts, it only would have led to more expenses, which Penguin could have thought was unnecessary. Don’t they have the right to decide what is good for them and what is not?

Arundhati Roy says in her column that Penguin is one of oldest and most reputed publishers who exist today. Then why did they do this? Well Ms Roy, given the fact that they are oldest and most reputed publishers around, don’t you think they would have thought through a thousand times before taking this call. Give them that credit.

Let me recommend something to all those who think Penguin has screwed up and are taking to content hungry newspapers and social media to have some fun, starting from the columnist who started it all in the Times of India. If you are so anguished by Penguin pulping the book, go ahead and start a fund. Get like-minded people, including yourself, to donate to the cause. And take up cudgels on behalf of Wendy Doniger. Fight a legal battle. If you feel so strongly about suppression of freedom of expression, why don’t you put your money where your mouth (oops ..Pen) is and take it up. If you manage to win, you would have pointed your middle finger at Penguin. What say? Deal?

If you don’t have the courage to do this, then STFU.

3) Rising Intolerance

Over a hundred people work at Penguin’s office in Panchsheel Park in New Delhi. Penguin, like any other organisation, is accountable for their safety and security. The peace of mind of a hundred families would be shattered if Hindu Fundamentalists were to attack that office. And knowing the growing levels of intolerance in India in general, and Delhi in specific, the possibility of such motivated violent attacks is a bit more than remote. Don’t you think this would also have been on their mind. Given that all of us are expecting a Hindu fundamentalist government to take charge at the centre soon, you actually think Penguin had a chance of winning this legal battle. Why then would you say they were wrong in exiting this extremely one sided battle? A battle they had no chance of winning.

4)   Publishing is a trade which is going through extremely stressful times.

Profitability is weak, channels of distribution are shrinking, Indian reader base is not growing at the pace at which it should be, costs are rising-leading to margin pressures. Its not a very positive business environment. Given this, no publisher wants a distraction. Wendy Doniger’s book was surely a distraction. At times in business one has to take tough calls. And the call Penguin took was surely a tough one. In Penguins view, it was right. In Wendy Doniger’s view, they are not to be blamed for taking that call. What you and me think, honestly doesn’t matter. Get real!!!

5)  Where were the hypocrites when other books were being pulped?

In life, the sure shot way of getting into the media glare is to take potshots at leading luminaries, big organisations etc. I guess people doing this to Penguin, surely have this also at the back of their minds. Hit out to get noticed. Make a controversial statement and be featured. If this is not true, and you were serious custodians of free speech, torch bearers for freedom of expression, where were you when Jitendra Bhargava’s book “The Descent of Air India” (Bloomsbury) was scuttled by Ex-Union Minister, Praful Patel. Or when Sahara Group scuttled Tamal Bandhopadhyay’s book “Sahara – The Untold Story”, published by Jaico.  Bloomsbury agreed to pull back the book and pulp it (a month ago) as a part of an out of court settlement with the Civil Aviation Minister. They even agreed to offer a public apology. Sahara group managed to get a stay order on the release of Tamal Bandhopadhyay’s book. I didn’t see the same noises being made when those books were banned / pulped, by those who are screaming their heads off now. Well now do you realise why I call them opportunists and hypocrites?

6)   Great boost to Sales

And lastly, am not sure how many copies of Wendy Donigers book was Penguin selling in any case. Market feedback tells me that in four odd years since launch Penguin would  not have sold more than 5000 copies of the book. Many of them as gifts (which would not have been read for sure). Retailers / Distributors would have had heaps of stock gathering dust.

It would be stupid to assume that this settlement would not have given the book a fillip. Withdrawing a book and pulping it, is a long drawn out process. By the time the instruction to pull out books reaches the last retailer, most of the books would have in any case got sold. People are in fact rushing to buy her book before it gets taken off book shelves (Even her more recent book with Aleph Publishers has shown a huge sales traction over the last two days).When the dust settles on this, I would love to see how many books Penguin actually would have had to pulp. My vote is for “not many”.

Imagine the media attention this issue would get overseas  and the resultant sales of Wendy’s books globally. Brand Wendy Doniger is bound to rise as a result of this masterstroke.

I am confident that by taking this smart call, in one stroke Penguin has achieved two things :

a) Make Wendy Doniger a household name in India (irrespective of how much the Literary folks would have us believe… she was not a household name) and

b) Exhaust all stocks of Wendy’s book in India.  In the process they have managed to get more people (in India and overseas) to read Wendy’s book, than even Wendy would have imagined. Probably a lot more than the number of people who have read her in the last five years.

I see it as a win-win for everyone. So why are the hypocrites complaining.

BUY MY BOOKS ONLINE :

BANKERUPT : http://bit.ly/1bu3aiV

All Other Books : http://bit.ly/R1Jtu1

Penguin is the publisher of my latest book BANKERUPT.  This fact has had zero influence on what has been stated in this blog. Views expressed here are personal and my own. 

Can Indian authors afford to pursue writing as a full time career?

Not a single media interview passes, without me being asked if I am planning to take up writing as a full time career. This morning I was asked the same question again. And my answer, as always, was an emphatic “NEVER. Till the time I can manage both, and till the time my organisation continues to support my dual career, I will not get into a position where I will have to choose one over the other.”

The interviewer would not stop at that. “There have been authors who have quit their lucrative jobs and taken up writing, full time. Why not you?” 

In seven years (as an author), I have perfected the response to this. “Well, they might have an extremely strong/personal rationale for that. For me writing is fun. The day I quit my job and take up writing full time, writing will become just another job. A commercial necessity. That might just stifle the passion for writing that I have today. I just don’t want to kill the fun element in it. I am happy the way it is for me now – no dependence on writing for my living. That I make money out of it, is a big plus…. But only that… a big plus.” And this answer comes straight from my heart. Always. For I believe in every word of it.

This brings me to a related question. That of affordability.  Can Indian authors afford to pursue writing as a full time career?

A misconception that exists in the eyes of the general reading population is that authors make truckloads of money. Few days back I was at one of the IIM’s talking about books. I asked the students there what they thought about how much money authors made for every book they wrote. I got very diverse answers. One said 5 Lakhs. Another hand went up – 30% of MRP. Someone from the far corner of the room – 10 Lakhs.

The session was a revelation to me. Made me realize how little people know about the trade. A profession which is seen as intellectually glamorous is often the most misunderstood when it comes to the commerce involved.

To understand how much normal authors make, it is very important to understand the sources of income for any author. By and large, an author has the following seven heads of revenue:

1)    Royalty & Advance

2)    Translation rights

3)    Overseas rights

4)    Film rights

5)    Merchandising opportunities

6)    Speaking assignments

7)    Newspaper columns

Royalty and Advance :

If one is not among the top 10 authors in the country, one has to count himself lucky if he gets a royalty percentage, which is in double digits. Debut authors get between 5-7.5% of MRP for a paper back. This goes up depending on who the publisher is and how successful the authors previous books have been, not to mention his ability to negotiate deals with publishers. Debut authors, often are so happy that some publisher agreed to publish them, that they accept any royalty that the publisher throws at them. I know of an extremely successful author who has written six books and is still at 7.5% royalty (but the 7.5% was because that author was good at heart and didn’t negotiate).  At 7.5%, an author gets Rs15 for every book sold (at an MRP of Rs 200). For a Rs 100 book, the Royalty is Rs 7.5 a book. 

Royalties above 12.5% are very rare, a few successful ones even manage to get upto 20% as Royalty. But those are the ones who sell upwards of 75000 copies per book. Very small community indeed. Royalty percentage for bulk of the authors is in the 7.5% – 10% band.

Do the math.  Hundreds of books come out every year. While the few successful ones go on to sell over a hundred thousand, the number of books which cross 20000 unit sales can be counted on ones fingertips. Books by Indian authors are considered very successful even if they cross the 20000 mark. And almost all these books are in the Rs 100-300 price point.

For a minute assume that there is an author, who becomes successful and his book manages to break the 20000 sales barrier. Here’s the royalty that he will make at various price points.

Royalty Grid at different MRP and different Royalty percentages

MRP :Rs 100
MRP :Rs 140
MRP :Rs 200
MRP:Rs 250


Novice : 5% Royalty
100000
140000
200000
250000


Average : 7.5%
150000
210000 (most likely band)
300000
375000


Pushy : 10%
200000
280000
400000
500000


Lucky : 12.5%
250000
350000
500000
625000

Important to point out a few things:

 A book takes about a year to write and bring out. An author might have the ability to write it quickly, but a good publisher has a calendar. He would normally take 5-6 months from the time one submits his manuscript to bring out the book. So the amount in the table above is likely to be the royalty any author would make in a year.
All the royalties mentioned above are assuming that regular discounts are given to retailers. If there is a special promotion run wherein the publisher offers higher than normal discounts, a big chunk of the royalty also goes out. Lower royalty at high discount sales is built into the contract.
most publishers pay royalties twice a year, post TDS (10%). Even if one get the highest royalty percentage, and prices the book high, the 625K might be down to 550K by the time it hits the author.

If everything works out well for the author, the publisher does his job, the distribution kicks in and the book stores support him, and he does succeed, one is staring at a number of Rs 6.25 lakhs for a book or in other words, 6.25 Lakh a year. If the MRP drops, the royalty correspondingly comes down. 

Wow, 6 lakhs for a book. Before you start celebrating, hold on.  Over 1500 fiction books get published in India every year.  I cant think of more than five books from newcomers and reasonably new authors which sold more than 20000 copies last year in India.  So now drop the expected sales numbers for an author to 10000 units…. see what happens to the royalty. Your best case royalty goes down from 6.25 lakhs to roughly 3 lakhs. (for a Rs 100 MRP book, it is down to Rs 1.25 Lakhs). And mind you, 10000 copies is not a bad number either. Now tell me, will you celebrate? You can figure out for yourself what the odds are for a new author to make a reasonable amount as royalty.

Well, that was the revenue side. Lets look at the expenses one needs to incur as an author. The assumption here is that you are not an established author, but someone trying to become one. Once you are established, the expense dynamics are completely different as the publisher will invest money in you. 

No publisher invests marketing money on a new, unproven author. Once the book starts selling, most of them will come to the party. To be fair to the publisher, the money they make on new authors does not justify any kind of marketing spend. One might argue that it’s the classic case of  a chicken and egg. Without marketing, books won’t sell and if books don’t sell, how will the publisher justify marketing spend. While this can be argued from both sides, as of now, the dice is loaded in the favour of the publisher. So if a new author wants to promote his books he has to spend from his pocket.

The expense list is a long one. It will extend to the extent an author is willing to stretch his pocket. Lets see what are the key spends that one has to incur

Book launches and events : 20K (while you will not even realize this, if you add up everything that goes into this, the spend will exceed 20K)
Social media : If you hire professional help, which I suggest all budding authors should do, you will be down by about 20-25K per month, at the least.
Merchandising : Renting displays and window space at bookshops can set you back by over 50K for a few shops. An author I know rented space at a leading store for 300K and is reaping the benefits.
Travel : in case you travel to multiple cities to launch your book, it will cost significant amount of money. Publishers / Book stores pay for established authors, but not for new/unproven authors.
PR and Media : Depending on whom you hire for doing your PR, it can set you back by anything ranging from 40K – 100K a month. If the publisher does it, an author must count himself lucky.

Its simple math isn’t it. Any author earns (best case) around 6.25 Lakhs, and spends almost all of that in making the book a success. Should one spend, one may ask. I would recommend it, and most authors do it too. It helps if the author ploughs back all the money he makes in the first few books, into promoting them.(you do that when you start a business – you plough back the first few years earnings back into the business… then why not when you embark on your writing career).  If the book clicks, one will recover all that investment back with his subsequent books. IF the book doesn’t click, well at least an author would have had some fun promoting it.

If you scroll up, I had added a few other heads under revenue. None of them count for much if the book is not a mega book.

Second in that list was money from Translation rights. Translation into regional language nets an author  Rs 10-15K per language. And that’s all the money an author will see. If any book sells 10000 copies in English, its unlikely that an author will even get this much.

As far as film rights are concerned, while it sounds glamorous and sexy to talk about, apart from Chetan Bhagat, Ruskin Bond how many popular  books by Indian authors have been made into films? Big numbers get thrown around for film rights, by uninformed media. Most of it is false. Unless the film gets into production, no author sees any money worth talking about. Optioning of film rights can happen, wherein you offer film rights to studios for a fixed period of time, and the rights revert back to the author in case the film does not go on floor in the agreed time. Almost all the Indian books which had been optioned in the last two years have now reverted to the authors. No money here too.

Writing columns is a time consuming job. Newspapers in India normally think they are doing authors a favour by allowing them to pen columns. So if one is not an author in the top 10 list of Indian authors, he can kiss that revenue goodbye too. One benefit of newspaper columns though is that it helps in building the brand of an author and hence might lead to increased sales.

In the final analysis, contrary to what you may like to believe, Royalty and Advances still remain the biggest contributor to an authors revenue. Sadly in most cases, this amount is ridiculously low.  

So does that mean one must not become an author, if one is starting off now. Well, that is definitely not what I mean. By all means write. Give vent to your creative thoughts. Let your imagination take wings…But don’t do that for money.You will surely be disappointed if you do it for money.

95% of Indian authors can’t live off “only writing income”. Moreover there are easier and better ways to make the same amount of money that any author would make off his writing.

Given this, tell me. Would I ever advise any author to quit his job and take on writing… full time?

I would only say that if one has that urge to quit his job and is desperately waiting for the day one would throw his resignation on his boss’s table and walk out, my advice to that author would be .. WAIT. You need your job to pay your bills. First start writing. Get a couple of bestsellers under your belt. Become a reasonably successful author. And only then think of any such misadventure. Till such time, get up in the morning, go to work, come back home, have dinner and get to your laptop. Type your story furiously till the key board cracks or your manuscript gets ready. And then take it to your publisher and respectfully hand it over to him. If you can negotiate hard for a couple of percentage points. do that. For that’s the best you can do in any case.

BUY MY BOOKS ONLINE :

BANKERUPT : http://bit.ly/1bu3aiV

All Other Books : http://bit.ly/R1Jtu1

I was like Kejriwal. Glad I changed

Many many years back, when I took up my first role as a Business Manager in a Bank, I was a bit like Arvind Kejriwal. Brash. Loud. Visibly aggressive. I always felt that the only way in which one could do well in life is by aggressively driving home a single point agenda.This approach was backed by the strong conviction that I had in my business, my team, my policies and in what I wanted to achieve. I felt at that time, that the only way of demonstrating conviction and strong will was aggression. I would try and bull doze people in meetings.  Show off as to how brilliant and aligned my team was to the cause that I represented. Ring fence the team well enough so that outsiders don’t get a chance to get inside information about the team. In essence I ran an island within an organisation.

I felt it was necessary. Necessary because there were constituents of the business which did not report to me. I ran a lending business. Like most foreign banks, Credit did not report to me. Compliance was a separate team. Operations was independent. In all meetings my approach was to highlight the flaws of the other teams and stake my claim to take over those arms of the business – if not in letter, at least in spirit.

This was the choice I made. And in life, every choice has its consequences. My choice in running after the departments, which were not under my direct control, made those teams wary. They became defensive. I made more enemies than friends. And trust me, when you make enemies at work, you spend the entire day figuring out their next move rather than work towards betterment of your business profitability.

In politics and on the central stage, Arvind Kejriwal is doing exactly what I did in my corporate life.  But I learnt my lessons. Some though counseling by well wishers and friends. And some the hard way. But I learnt them fast.

I have learnt that in life, great leaders are not those who deliver with things directly under their control, but are those who learn to work with people not directly in their span of control, but upon whom they have reasonable influence on account of stature, position and knowledge. Only if you do that, would people rally around you, trust you, work for you. And when the entire team – direct and indirect rallies around you, can success be far behind?

That’s why my unsolicited advice to Arvind Kejriwal would be – get back to work. First do things under your control to improve life of people in Delhi. They voted for you. Before you put them through hardships, get them to rally for you by fixing things under your control – things which you can do yourself. I am sure there are hundred things you can do on your own. Build a name for yourself. Demonstrate good governance. Once you do that people will themselves support you in your battle for taking control over units which you have only an influence over. And at time, it will be time for the central government to figure out a reason why they need to hold on to those departments. Give people a reason to fight for you.

Anyone can get work done by people who directly work for you. Great leaders go outside their sphere of control and change lives by influencing outcomes beyond their  direct line of sight.

INFLUENCE….. and not CONTROL is the key word here My Kejriwal. Hope you learn your lessons fast, else you will be disappointing loads of Indians who saw in you someone who could change the face of Indian politics. As of now they are beginning to lose faith in you.

Take time out for old friends….

From Left : Sarita Mandanna, Sangeeta Modi, Sandeep Runwal & Yours Truly

When I got a call a few days back from a Sangeeta Modi, a good friend, asking me if I would be free for dinner on Sunday, my heart sank. Sunday, is one of those days that I ferociously protect for myself and my family. I try and avoid socialising on Sundays. Between my day job and writing career, thats one day that I get to recoup, think of plots and go on impromptu coffee trips with Dharini and Anusha. Another reason why I avoid socialising on Sunday evening is my daughter Anusha. Her bed time goes back to normal (10.30PM) after extended timings on Friday and Saturday, and she hates it if I am not home when she goes to sleep.

However when Sango called, it was difficult for me to say no. There was a reason to it. Just last weekend I had missed my Institute Alumni 20 year Reunion, which I had committed to attend. I was feeling very guilty about not attending. The dinner on Sunday was in honour of one of our batch mates and friend who stays in Canada and was transiting through Mumbai. What also made me agree was that I hadn’t met this friend of ours, Sarita Mandanna, even once after we passed out of IIM-Bangalore in 1993. And more so she is an author of immense repute(TIGER HILLS), having been published in 16 countries and languages across the globe. We have occasionally been in touch on Facebook, but twenty years in person is a bit too long. Sandeep Runwal, a close pal, a builder par excellence, and the one who had pushed for this meeting, was also there with his wife Priyanka Runwal.

So an exception was made to the “no social engagement on Sunday” rule and we all met at Taj Chambers at Lands End in Bandra (Courtesy Sandeep Runwal). And then came the four hour riot – which took us back twenty years in time. Back to our days at IIM-Bangalore. It didn’t seem like any of us had left campus. We relived the best years of our life in those four hours. Not a topic was left untouched – life in the hostel, friends, neighbours, assignments, late night walks, Night Canteen, strange quirks of a few of the people we knew, who was seeing whom, interesting escapades with profs, the number of authors who have come out of IIM Bangalore… well there was not a topic which was not discussed.

Finally when we walked out of Taj Chambers at night, we were not a bunch of forty year olds looking forward to going back to their jobs the next morning, but we were a bunch of twenty year olds walking out of the hostel Night Canteen heading back to their rooms looking forward to another day of fun in the hostel.

Its worth taking time out for old friends. You don’t get many opportunities to meet them. Hence look for every opportunity to connect, to relive the good memories of your past. Memories may not serve you much, but they will surely remind you that in a life moving ahead at a feverish pace, its worth pressing the pause button for a second and taking in the moment. Enjoy life. Savour it. The moment gone past will never come back. Live for today… in the present… and don’t die chasing tomorrow.

Me, My books – a different side to my life

A few days back Kiran Manral, a close friend a fabulous author and a wonderful human being did a Q&A with me on her blog. I had reblogged her post yesterday. Here’s the link to it…http://bit.ly/1dnWSE6. Thanks Kiran for featuring me on your blog. 

As a part of the Q&A, Kiran had implored her readers to ask me further questions about me, my books and anything else that they wanted me to respond on. She even offered 5 copies of Bankerupt as give aways for people with the best questions. I realised the fan following Kiran has, when i saw the number of questions the followers of her blog asked. It took me some time to respond to the questions and select the five winners of the giveaway. The answers to the second lot of Questions asked by the followers of Kiran Manral’s blog is given below. Each Question starts with the name of the blogger who asked the question.

Rashmi : How did you finalize the title of the book and how important the title is for book’s success?

The title of a book is one of the most important elements of any book. It has to be intriguing and enticing enough to make a casual browser pick up the book and consider it. Remember it is the first thing that anyone notices about the book. That said, you can never sell a lousy product by giving it a good title.

 In the case of Bankerupt, we came up with a longlist of some 100 odd titles, which could have fit the bill. And after days of discussions between the publisher and me, and multiple rounds of elimination we came up with the title BANKERUPT. We felt that given that the book in question was a thriller, this title had the punch required to go with a thriller. And given that the story was about a banker caught in an eruption at MIT, BANKERUPT was an apt and intriguing title to go with.

 Manjulika Pramod : When you set out to write, do you have one story in mind or many and then how does the final one take shape…?

 When I set out to write a story, I only have the backdrop in mind. I have a brief idea of the field I am going to set my story in. And I also have a brief idea of how my story would begin. But beyond that … absolutely nothing. I have no idea which direction the story would take. It works fine for me because if I don’t know what the next page contains, the reader has a slim chance of figuring that out. It helps in adding to the intrigue element in the final product.

 Digi88 : In all the books you have penned, you have thoroughly shown us the inside details of the banking world. In a way, you are the MADHUR BHANDARKAR of the banking world, showing us the glaring reality. Do you take inspiration from his style of writing?

Look, Madhur Bhandarkar is a good filmmaker. But in his films, his detailing of the subject, at best, scratches the surface. Whether it is Fashion or Heroine or Traffic Signal or even Corporate – the films don’t cover the industry in detail. To be fair to him, it is very difficult to cover a subject in detail in a film of 150 minutes.  Authors have it slightly better, because we have the liberty of taking as many pages as we deem fit, to build the characters, to detail the story, to explain incidents etc. Hence you will find my books much more detailed than you would find a typical Madhur Bhandarkar film. The short answer to your question is..No. I have not been inspired by Madhur Bhandarkars style of film making. I hope at some point in time Madhur Bhandarkar gets inspired by my style of writing and makes a film called BANK.

RG : The Indian banking and finance world has had more than its share of colourful personalities, methinks. Despite masking details there is a chance that some real-life acquaintances may appear as characters in your stories (or at least some people may imagine so). How much do you worry about it, how do you handle it?

Oh, I have seen a lot of people speculate as to who the character in my book is in real life. It’s a favourite pastime of many bankers and is a favourite topic of discussion at many parties. That said, I don’t think there is much to worry here. A number of incidents in my book have been inspired by real life incidents – not necessarily ones that have happened to the same individual.  In my books, the story of Character “A” will never track a real life person “B”. The incidents in the life of Character A, in the book may be a creative juxtaposition of incidents that might have taken place in the lives of multiple people in real life. 

It will hence be very difficult for anyone to stand up and say that a character in my book is Mr Y in reality. I try to make sure of this, to the extent possible. I do not worry much about it, simply because if I tell dark stories about the underbelly of banking, I know that I am sure to antagonize some people. Hence I am prepared for it.

Nischala : If you had to choose one book of yours to be made to a Bollywood movie, which would it be? And Hollywood? What casting would he choose?

BANKERUPT without doubt, and that too only because its on a wider campus and extends to life beyond banks. The casting would be :

Aditya Raisinghania : Ranbir Kapoor / Arjun Rampal

Cirisha Narayanan : Deepika Padukone in her Plain Jane avatar.

Narayanan : Naseeruddin Shah

Michael Cardoza : John Voight

James Deahl : Kevin Costner

Shivinder Singh : Nawazuddin  Siddiqui

Given the canvas of the book (story spread over Mumbai, Boston & Mexico), it has to be an international film.

Amruta : What’s the thing you’re most proud of about your newest novel, BANKERUPT compared to your others, or the thing that sets it apart from them? 

Amongst other things, what sets Bankerupt apart from my previous books is that this is the first time I have made a departure from regular banking thrillers. Bankerupt is the first book of mine where I have had to do intense research about the political scenario in the United States of America and their Gun Control laws. It’s a generic thriller with a little bit of banking in it. It  was not easy to step away from my comfort zone, but nevertheless it was extremely fulfilling.

Indian Thoughts : How much inspiration do you draw from real life finance world blunders and scams?

Actually lots. Most of the incidents that happen in my earlier books and even in Bankerupt, have happened in different forms in real life. Take Bankerupt for instance, the scams in the book, have taken place at various times, in various parts of India.  Even the incidents related to guns and academia in the USA have taken place in reality. The benefit of building your story around real life incidents is that the story becomes a lot believable. People relate to it better.. and when people relate to it better, they tend to like it. Building a story around real life incidents is also one of the reasons why my books do not have any superheroes. They only have normal human beings, like all of us, who are inspired to do superhuman deeds on account of a trigger in their lives.

Rohan Kachalia : Have you ever got hit by the writer’s block while writing any of your books? If yes, then what did you do to come out of it? Also, why don’t we see you in the blogging world penning short stories on crime or rather some romantic lines?

Rohan, it’s a bit surprising, but I haven’t yet been hit by a serious writers block. The worst writers block for me, has been cleared during the course of a long walk of a drive back home. So really nothing to share here. I have always held and am of the view that short stories are far more difficult to write as compared to novels. Hence short stories do not make it to my blog.   And I am a very impulsive blogger. I don’t blog in a planned manner. Hence for me to write a crime thriller or romantic lines in my blog is almost impossible.

aprawriter: Do you think a scientist/mathematician can become a banker and what personality traits would she/he need to change to be successful (given that academics aren’t the best at networking or public speaking!).

If you look at the banking industry today, you find all kinds of people there. Engineers, MBA, commerce graduates, Arts graduates, even Biotechnologists (my wife being one of them). Hence I see no reason why a scientist or a mathematician cannot become a banker. To my mind, the only personality traits a person needs to become a good banker are high levels of personal integrity and empathy for the customer. All the technical knowledge and subject matter expertise can be acquired on the job. Its not as complex as it seems from the outside. Public speaking skills are helpful, but not a prerequisite for a banking job.

Meera V : If you were to look at your previous books, do you feel you could have written them better? If yes, about which book do you feel that way?

Writing is like any other skill that one acquires. You get better with time and experience. The same has happened to me too. After six books, I find myself a much better author than what I was when I began this journey. Hence all my earlier books could have been written better. This evolution will hopefully never change. When I finish writing my next book, I will feel that I could have done a better job with BANKERUPT. It’s a journey. An evolution. And as long as I continue to learn and improve, I will be very happy.

Meera V : During the course of writing any of your books, did you ever pass through a phase where you just wanted to throw everything away and run away (may be for some time only  )?

Haha. Are you a writer Meera? And have you ever felt like this? Why do I feel that many a times, you have felt like this. Yes, there have been times, particularly in the editing and re-editing stage, when you feel like throwing away everything and running away. At that stage after reading your book over two dozen times, you feel bored and frustrated. But that’s the stage where it is important to focus and keep going.

Pallavi : The book deals with gun control – something that currently the USA is grappling to find an answer to. It also has MIT, one of the finest institutions in the world, as one of its characters. How difficult was it for you to pen down a book incorporating these aspects? Also, considering that no banks have gone bankrupt recently, what inspired you to come up with the title? Are you forecasting that some more banks might go bust?

Who am I to forecast banks going bust. The title is actually symbolic of a Banker caught in the eruption at MIT.  Banker + Erupt = Bankerupt.

Writing a story set in MIT, based in the gun control and second amendment backdrop was not easy at all. It required me to do a lot of research, read books on the subject and get myself sufficiently equipped to write on the subject. It was time consuming, intensive, high intellect task, nevertheless I found it extremely interesting.  

Theabhishekkr : How seriously do you take your critics, especially the hardcore one???And who is the first person to read your novel once they are completed (not including your editor)??

To read my views on negative criticism, do read my blogpost, wherein I have covered my approach in detail.

http://authorravi.com/2013/07/04/screw-your-view-wrong-approach-to-uncomplimentary-book-reviews/

My wife is the first one to read the novel once the first draft is done. She is my worst critic too. While she is reading the book, I wait anxiously like an expectant father outside the delivery room in a hospital, waiting for the good news.