BENGALURU: When his first book, The Immortals of Meluha hit the stands in 2010, author Amish, then known as Amish Tripathi, hadn’t an inkling that success and fame would be his, and his role in the financial services industry, a thing of the past. This year, 2020 marks 10 years of Amish as an author – a journey which has not only been a game-changer for him personally, but for the publishing industry as well. “I had never thought that my first book would ever get published.
Having come such a long way, there is absolutely no denying the fact that the life that I am leading currently is a blessing beyond my wildest dreams,” he says, adding, “I am just lucky I guess, that I wrote my books at a point in time when its themes were in tune with the zeitgeist of our age.” His most recent role, that of Director of The Nehru Centre, London, has required him to move bag and baggage to the west. A demanding role, which has previously been held by stalwarts such as Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Girish Karnad and Pavan K Varma, Amish says he has some pretty big shoes to fill.
“The aim is to leverage the Nehru Centre to impact the narrative around Indian culture in London, and through that the larger Anglosphere. After all, London, along with New York and LA, drives the cultural memes of the Anglosphere. And the Anglosphere drives the cultural narrative of the entire world,” he says. But the transition, Amish admits he has had challenges, more personal in nature. “London is really cold, which is a serious problem for me since I am a Mumbai boy and used to a hot and humid climate. Also, this role does require a lot of socialising, something I am not very good at naturally, but I am learning and working on it with every passing day,”he says.
Amish, who has changed the style of marketing books, comb i n i n g u n i q u e strategies, including offering free copies of the first chapter to customers, points out that a good book selling by itself is nothing but a fallacy. “One certainly needs good marketing, but sometimes even that isn’t enough. We have seen many books fail despite some brilliant marketing strategies. In fact, brilliant marketing can kill a bad book a lot quicker than one might think.
With the present ubiquitous use of social media, the only long-term guarantee of a book’s success is it being publicised by strong word-ofmouth. Good marketing only ensures trials for your book as readers will at least pick it up and read the first 50 pages. So, marketing should not be ignored.
Focus on it. But focus most of your attention towards writing a good book, at least a good one in your own personal opinion as an author,” he explains. Currently working on the fourth book of the Ram Chandra series, he writes instinctively, not making plots, notes or any narrative charts. “I discover the story of my book while writing just as a reader would while reading,” says Amish, who, in the next decade, promises, “many more books, and some rocking initiat ives at the Nehru Centre!”