Sneha Jaiswal's Blog, page 288

Death & Darker Realms #19

“Pieces of my mind
Running everywhere
Nothing to bind
Threads of each share
Fragments float
To deep dark ends
Choking any note
Of saner friends”

First few lines of poem number nineteen in ‘Death & Darker Realms’, a collection of 40 poems. Some of us suffer from procrastinating too much on multiple things. There are others who will obsess over one specific issue. And then there are those like me, who can’t fixate on one problem and will think about a million other things constantly. What category do you fall in?

For the full poem, you could get a copy on Amazon. The e-book is just Rs 49 for Indian readers. Following are some country specific links  –

Amazon India

Amazon U.S

Amazon UK

Amazon Australia 

If you are not into poetry, then maybe you could check out my debut fiction book “Love, Loss, Lockdown“, a collection of short stories set against the Covid19 pandemic. It’s free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers.

10 Lessons For New Indie Authors

As a self-published author of two books, the last eight months have been a constant learning experience. A lot of it has been the “oh fuck, I should’ve known this before” sorts.

Here are the top 10 things I learnt as a new Indie author, even if some of it might sound absolutely useless to some.

I did close to ZERO research on promoting the first book. So all the ‘5 ways to sell your book’ articles were gobbled up after my debut book was out in the market. You need to read them up before publishing. Not after.Focus on building your social media presence before your first book is out. It’s okay if you are not even sure when it will be published. Just start getting active on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and whatever platform you deem suitable to promote a book.I did not have a GoodReads account. It’s where all the readers are. And it is one of the best places online to get people talking about your book. So you know where to be.Twitter was a ‘I don’t understand this shit’ territory for me. Despite having an account since 2011, I was never really active there. There is a burgeoning ‘writing community’ on the site, with a lot of supportive members. So get on to Twitter and start tweeting.If you are self-publishing via Amazon, do not use their free promotional period on the very first week of the book’s release. First, let all those who you know are willing to pay for your work buy it. And once you think everybody who would have paid for the book has gotten it — go in for the free promotional campaign. Everybody loves free books. Especially total strangers.Cross-link as much as you can. If you are active on multiple social media sites, drop all relevant links. For example, if you have a blog where you do book reviews, leave a link to your book at the end too. Along with links to your other social medial profiles. My insta handle is writer_jaiswal and my twitter handle is miss_jaiswal. See what I did there? Moving on to point number seven…There is pretty much no point in reaching out to small individual reviewers, unless they are genuinely interested in your book. Go through their reviews, a lot of them have generic template bullshit that could apply to 100+ other books. Nobody is going to buy your book by reading that.Get active on the Q-A site Quora and use relevant questions to promote your book. I see a lot of writers doing that and it works in their favour. In fact, some people first get famous by writing answers on Quora and then use that following to promote their book. There are writers out there who have published books by just compiling their Quora answers. Nifty little trick.Do not at any point feel bad about having to do all the promotional work all by yourself just because you couldn’t land a deal with a traditional publisher. Even with a traditional publisher to your name, you still have to do the promotions largely by yourself. So it’s still a lot of hard-work. I have seen famous traditionally published writers with less than 5,000 followers on sites like Instagram. While a lot of random unknown people tend to have 10k plus followers. Unless you are JK Rowling level famous, you HAVE TO engage with people online to build a following. Doesn’t matter if the most prestigious publisher in the world printed your debut novel.Try and NOT pay for reviews. I have NEVER paid for reviews. While I don’t mind giving my book for free in exchange of a review, I wouldn’t pay anything for it. Promotional pages with more than 100,000+ followers have reached out to me, asking me if I would be interested in having them review my book for an XYZ sum. It’s obviously very tempting to let somebody with a large following do a review for you. But hey, if they are taking money for it, they are probably just interested in the money, not your book. And despite their claims of ‘we will do a honest review’, they are going to be kinder to you, just because you’ve paid them. So you are not going to get a genuine evaluation of your content. And such reviews are just misleading for readers.

Note to readers: This was originally published on Medium.com, where I’ve just started writing. If you are fellow Medium writer, let’s connect – https://medium.com/@writer_jaiswal. I’ll follow back

How Social Is ‘Too Social’?

Maybe the title of this post makes sense only in my head, but let’s ignore it. Here is a question I am dying to ask just anybody who is willing to answer – How many social media accounts is ‘too many social media accounts’? Optimists who believe in the power of self-promotion will probably say “there is no such thing as too much social media”. Especially if you need to promote stuff.

Here’s the thing, there was a point when I did not have an instagram account and even wanted to delete my Facebook account. Because except for posting my travel pictures occasionally, I would never do anything on Facebook. The only reason I did not flush it out of my life was because it was more useful than LinkedIn when it came to looking for media jobs. I am not kidding. I studied in one of the top Journalism colleges in my country and they have a very strong alumni network on Facebook. So almost every second day, some or the other alumni posts media-related vacancies on the college page.

Now I am on

Instagram Twitter WordPressQuoraFacebookLinkedIn

And just today I published my first post on Medium.com about “10 Things I learnt as a new Indie Author”. After I finished publishing the post, I wondered to my self “aren’t I on too many social media sites?!”.

Apparently not. What do you think?

Ghibli’s Iron Giants

Don’t you just love it when a random conversation with a stranger online sparks a story idea for your next post? I do.

Yesterday, I stumbled upon a tweet about how the next Hayao Miyazaki film will take another three years to be made. For the uninitiated – Hayao Miyazaki is the co-founder of ‘Studio Ghibli’, and those guys make amazing animated films.

For loyal Ghibli fans like me, three years is a long wait. So I tweeted about it and it led to a conversation with a fellow animation enthusiast.

After discussing our shared admiration for some of the films, he happened to mention ‘Laputa’, also known as ‘Castle In The Sky’, which was the first film made by Studio Ghibli in 1986. Both of us felt that the film wasn’t very impressive. Our exchange reminded me of an interesting thought that had struck me while watching it – that the robots in ‘Laputa’ had reminded me of the U.S animated film ‘The Iron Giant’, which came out in 1999.

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‘Laputa’ in the Ghibli creation is a floating Island city, with friendly robots and many riches. We see these friendly giants taking care of birds and plants in the city which is no longer inhabited by humans. While the robots are not as elaborately drawn as the one in ‘The Iron Giant’, it’s not too far-fetched to believe that ‘Laputa’ may have served as some inspiration for the American film.

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In the American film, the robot comes from space and is a friendly sentient being. The giant then strikes an adorable friendship with a little boy and the story is about their unlikely bond. Kind of like ET, the 1982 film, but I liked it a LOT more than ET.

Well, anyway, I don’t really know if I am the only one who noticed the uncanny resemblance between the robot from ‘The Iron Giant’ and the ones in ‘Castle in the Sky’. But the thought is interesting, that the Japanese movie may have spurred the imagination of American animators. MAY HAVE.

Ruben Brandt, Collector

‘Ruben Brandt, Collector’, is a weird little animated gem of a film that will not appeal to those who are put off by abstract art and experimentation. No, seriously, this will fuck with their head and they will probably stop watching it after the first few minutes. If you fall in that category, you have been warned.

The plot is pretty intriguing, it’s about a psychiatrist (Ruben Brandt) who uses art therapy to help clients. But he is himself tortured by famous art pieces in his dreams. His clients, who are all criminals, decide to help him back – by stealing the masterpieces that haunt him. It’s the ‘face your fear’ technique. So you have a motley crew of four thieves, gallivanting around the world, robbing paintings by classical masters from art shows & museums. Even the iconic Louvre is not spared. Bonny and Clyde be damned.

There is also a parallel story of a private investigator, who is trying to unravel just who the fuck is behind the crazily impossible art heists. So you also have a classic cat and mouse chase going on.

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Directed by Milorad Krstić, this Hungarian thriller is intelligent, poignant and darkly humorous. It’s a cool blend of art house meets film noir, kind of like Andy Warhol blending in with Renoir and having a baby with Alfred Hitchcock. Yeah, maybe that’s not possible. But just saying.

What I love about this psychological thriller is that it has a dash of a lot of themes that wouldn’t ideally be thrown together. It’s realistically absurd in parts. But also unreal and fantastical in other bits. And each character is not just unique, but also drawn differently. The animation is just something else.

The writers spring up a neat little twist towards the climax, that explains pretty much everything, including why art-pieces haunt the psychiatrist Ruben Brandt.

The pace of this film however is on the slower side and can really test the patience of those who seek immediate gratification from crime films. A little bit of chopping would have done this one great good. But I really enjoyed it.

The film is available on Netflix.

P.S – On an unrelated note – I published my second book ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’. It’s a collection of short stories, check it out.

Indian Matchmaking – Review

Weddings are the new snake charmers. The willful orientalisation of the East by the West continues to this day and this shit-show is just another manifestation of the same. ⁣
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So Seema Aunty from Mumbai is in the business of ‘matchmaking’. Her clients include flashy upper class Indian families and well to-do NRIs. The show lays bare everything that is wrong with the way marriages are perceived among Indians, be in in the country or saat samandar paar.
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Be it the hunt for slim, trim, educated but cultured brides (read: discosavitris) or clueless young men unable to think beyond their mothers when it comes to choosing their life-partners. The ruthless trampling of individuality of women in the name of asking them to be ‘flexible, accommodating and compromising’ to perpetuating notions that a strong headed woman is ‘unstable’. The premium on good-looks (‘physically and mentally attractive’ said a participant, wtf?) or the importance of alignment of stars for a person to possibly succeed at anything in life. ⁣

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The show endorses misogyny, patriarchy, casteism, racism, colourism, class-divides, superstition, body-shaming, divorce-related stigma, lack of individuality and an idea that for a young person its ‘marriage or nothing’. ⁣
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What’s more is that it doesn’t have one success story to boast of (which was probably why I saw it till the end hoping Nadia to get hitched). Even Preeti Aunty’s dumb fuck son is still single despite her willingness to drown the bride in flashy jewelry and gaudy outfits. ⁣
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Do yourself a favour and don’t watch the show! ⁣

(If you don’t value your time – the new show is streaming on Netflix)

Note to readers – This is a guest post by Munish Rathore, journalist in the morning, Bollywood junkie by evening. For more of his reviews, you can go to his Instragram page – @MunishRathore.
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Jerusalem Diaries

So I binge-read and finished the graphic novel “Jerusalem” by Guy Delisle today. I’ve read three of his other books and they have this incredible quality of making even the mundane seem interesting.

Delisle captures the essence of every place with an unwitting wry humour. Just like his previous books ‘Pyongyang’, ‘Shenzen’ & ‘Burma Chronicles’, he starts of the narration with his arrival at Jerusalem. This time, he is with his girlfriend who works for ‘Doctors without borders’ and their two little kids.

This book gives the reader a view of a historically significant place through the eyes of a laid-back, non-partisan observer, who believes in ‘show & tell’. One gets to understand the varied religious and geographical conflicts the region is torn in, but in a casual, light-hearted manner.

Delisle books chronicle conversations with locals, officials, journalists, cab drivers and all sorts of interesting people. Each giving a unique glimpse of the way of the world he is in. And all of this is interspersed with his own domestic duties as a dad looking after two toddlers, while his wife is away at the Gaza strip. It’s a refreshing and engaging look at “the glamorous life of a housewife”, as the author himself declares sarcastically in a panel. It’s only a joke of-course, because no ‘housewife’ gets to run around the world, including conflict-ridden zones, unaccompanied, just to draw everything around.

Here’s what is very unique about Delisle’s travelogues – they don’t really make you want to visit the place, but definitely keep you turning the pages. He takes you to corners very few travel writers do.

The illustrations are simple, stark and have a very old school comic strip touch to them. I wish he had more of these travelogue style graphic novels.

P.S – On an unrelated note – I published my second book ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’. It’s a collection of short stories, so check it out.

So Absurd….

I found the book “So Absurd It Must Be True” via the author’s profile on Twitter. Just the fact that it was a collection of bizarre short-stories was enough to get me interested.

Let me start the review with what I really liked about the book – Victoria Ray (the author) seems to have had a lot of fun writing this one. I might be wrong, but that’s just the sense I got while reading some of the stories. “Wow, she really did go full absurd,” I would chuckle and think to myself at several points.

If you are the sorts that likes reading realist stuff or Victorian classics – This book is not for you. If you are looking for some dirty/kinky/fun/weird read for the weekend, you have found your match in this one!

Ray packs in a lot of pop culture and literary references that casual readers will not get. The names of some of the characters is hilariously good. I really enjoyed reading the one with Anna Karenina & Leo Tolstoy, it was short, absurd and funny. I haven’t really read any book of this sort (absurdist elements with erotica), so it was an interesting experience.

There were two-three stories that I didn’t quite see any point in. But some things in life don’t have a point, do they? Feel like Ray should have probably led with a different first story, because it’s not as fun as the others, predictable even. So don’t give up on the book if you don’t like the first short story. Plus points for the sheer ingenuity of some of the plots! Totally works for some weekend reading. 

P.S – On an unrelated note – I published my second book ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’. It’s a collection of short stories, so check it out.

Staying Sane As A Writer

I spent at least two hours of my Saturday morning just drafting polite individual messages for ‘book reviewers’. After a point, I just ignored some, even though I didn’t want to.

What am I rambling about? Well, some of you might be aware that I published a book called ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’. It’s a collection of 10 short stories set against the Covid19 pandemic. And a lot of ‘book reviewers’ have reached out to me on Twitter and Instagram, asking me if I would like them to review my book.

Reviewers reaching out to a new writer, sounds great right? Not really. All of the reviewers who reached out to me wanted me to PAY them to review my book. And I do not believe in buying reviews. That’s what it is. While I am happy to give a free copy of my book to somebody who genuinely loves reading and does critical reviews; I am not going to pay for it, even if it’s just a dollar.

Some of these reviewers who messaged me had more than 10,000 followers, heck, one of them had over a 100,000 followers. But my answer was pretty much this – happy to give you a free copy in exchange of an honest review, but will not pay for it.

Some random reviewer (with about 1500 followers on Instagram) clearly didn’t understand what I was trying to say and responded to me on the lines of – “Okay, I will mail you my review, but I will not post it anywhere, because that means I am promoting your book and for that you will have to pay”. I had a huge laugh out of it and didn’t respond.

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Honestly, the idiotic response completely fucked with my head for a few seconds. I mean – why does this random person (who contacted me first) think I am interested in knowing his opinion via a private email? And actually expects me to give him a free copy of my book for a private email feedback? L-O-L. I really wish I had the confidence of some of these guys. I have 6,000 followers on Quora and never have I ever messaged any of my loyal readers to sell them a copy of my book.

I am guessing since I have a pathetic following on Instagram, some of these ‘reviewers’ think they can scam me. I know there are enough independent authors out there, who would happily pay anybody who would read their book and post reviews on various social media platforms. To my fellow independent writers – if you value your work, can you not pay random reviewers who write generic reviews? You are basically encouraging a toxic culture of every second reader wanting to become a paid reviewer.

The Nasties – Book Review

‘The Nasties’ by Mark Hurst was a fun, gripping read. Despite the book using the typical good versus evil plot, Hurst splits his novel into interesting little chapters that keep the reader turning pages.

10-year-old Charlie is the hero of the story. The boy mysteriously loses his father but suddenly finds himself burdened with supernatural powers to fight monsters trying to take over his world. These monsters called ‘the Nasties’ feed on little kids. Can a ten-year-old, with only a drunk adult to guide him, do much to ward off evil? That forms the rest of the story.

Hurst has written this book in such graphic detail, it feels like you are watching a tv series. Some bits were reminiscent of Stephen King’s horror book ‘It’. Which is obviously meant to compliment the writer, because I loved It.

There were times when I wondered if some of the stuff said by Charlie in the book was too mature for his age and then thought to myself “I spoke like a grandmother when I was 10”.

There is nothing to not like about this book. It’s a fun one for anybody that wants to read some good old “monster versus kids” stuff. I really enjoyed it.

P.S. On an unrelated note – I published my second book ‘Love, Loss, Lockdown’, a collection of short stories. If you like general fiction, please get a copy. Both e-book and paperback versions are available on Amazon –

Amazon India /Amazon U.S / Amazon UK /Amazon Germany