How to publish a book in India

There are very few Indian websites or print publications that will tell you how to publish a book in India. I am talking of literary fiction here which is my area of interest. But having said that I have to tell you that the information sources dedicated to writers working in the west, do have very useful suggestions which helps get one started.

These resources will provide you detailed guidelines about writing for an audience, finding a literary agent, sending your MS, negotiating your contract, working without an agent and even self publish, if that interests you. I myself found some of those resources very useful when trying to find a publisher/agent for my first novel (published in 2007) Amber Dusk.

Well there are very few agenting services in India but the situation is changing fast. I know of at least four literary agencies working in India and focused more or less on the domestic market. These are Jacaranda (the oldest), Osian, Siyahi and Red Ink Literary Service. Jacaranda is based in Bangalore, Siyahi in Jaipur while the other two work out of offices in Delhi. David Godwin (Arundhati Roy's literary agent) had set up an Indian office at Safdarjung Enclave sometime back but that was, I believe, more to source domestic talent for publishing in the west rather than feeding the Indian market. I don't know if Godwin's Indian office is still there.

Writer's Side, which is a book editing and manuscript appraisal agency is also providing agenting services to promising talent, according to their website.

While working with agents the accepted wisdom (there could be one or two rare exceptions) is to find one who doesn't charge you any fees upfront. A good agent should be working on commissions on your royalties and thus would be having an equal interest in the success of your book. There are many scams and shady characters on the prowl out to make money by duping a struggling and gullible would-be author. So one has to be always careful and fix one's priorities first.

Human ingenuity is surely endless but some of the more well-known ways to make a fast buck out of a new author in need of a publisher are:

1. The agent who charges upfront fees to read your book - I would never go for such an agent whatever seemingly convincing reasons s/he might throw at you for pinching your pocket on day one. The relationship between author and agent should be one built on trust and both parties should be prepared for the long haul. So don't sign on an agent without having a face-to-face meeting with them first and read carefully the terms of the engagement.

2. The agent who refers you to a book-doctoring/editing service: These are people who will read your MS and say it is not good enough and refer you to someone who will edit/doctor your book to make it fit for publishing. But for a fee. You won't know when you pay, whether this editing work will finally elicit the interest of a publisher.

3. The agent vanity-publishing nexus: You cannot rest easy even after finding a literary agent who agrees to represent you and asks for the manuscript. There are agents who will say your book has been accepted by a publisher but when negotiating with the publisher you will find you have to bear the cost of production.

There might be interesting overlaps between the above categories. One useful website that tracks scams and schemes to take poor unsuspecting authors for a ride is this Alerts for Writers page.

There are many more scams in operation and a good Internet search will point you to numerous resources and fora that would tell you who and what to avoid. Both in the United States and United Kingdom there are professional associations of agents (like the AAA) that go by a code of conduct and the agents on their rosters are usually a safe bet for authors. I am not aware of any parallels in India, though you have to discount this with the fact that there are very few literary agencies or individual agents here. (In a slightly different context I also have to say that there are very few effective published authors associations here.


If you are not sure of working with an agent you should try to directly approach a publisher. While doing this there are a few things one should keep in mind:


1. Research your market: Check out at the local bookstores to find books that are similar to yours. What genre does your book fit into? Is it a murder-mystery, gothic, fantasy short, literary fiction or slipstream literature? Is it a saga, a picaresque novel or maybe a Bildungsroman? The space here is too short to name and define all these genres but once you have found a few similar books you can note down the names of the publishers who have been printing books similar to what you have written. The next step is to approach these publishers with a few chapters (often called partials). Many publishers will tell you their submission guidelines and if they are looking at new manuscripts at that time. In spite of a common pessimism about the Indian market one can't deny the fact that most international publishing houses have opened shop in India and many more are planning to do so. Besides there are a number of small but dynamic publishing houses (the small press) that have been doing good work.

2. Finish writing your book first before sending this to the publisher: This applies more for fiction and mostly for new authors.

3. Get yourself registered at www.writers.net which I believe is free (It used to be free when I did). Many publishers, agents and editors trawl this web resource and who knows you might hear from someone who is interested in your book.

4. Vanity-publishing or self publish: There are publishers who might ask you to pay for the costs of production but they usually have little interest in the commercial success or critical reviews of your book. Young struggling authors usually do not have deep pockets and its better to avoid these publishers. More so because it screws up the market and creates a bad precedent that hurts strugglers.

Also it often helps if you have published work in newspapers, magazines, literary journals which you can mention in your introductory letter to the publisher/agent. There are other issues and subtleties involved in finding a publisher and working with him/her which constraints of time doesn’t permit me to handle in depth here.

And finally it could be worth your while to contact published authors for tips and suggestions. I myself had been greatly benefited by my interaction with a well-known writer who gave me valuable suggestions when I was trying to get my first novel published. And before I forget to tell you there is this very good book `Get Published-Handbook for Writers in India' edited by Usha Rajagopalan (Oxford University Press) that answers many questions new authors might have.

Copyright Rajat Chaudhuri. All rights reserved. Links welcome, reproduction banned.
Further reading: I had written an article in The Statesman newspaper in January, 2010 that provides new and useful information for aspiring authors trying to get their books published.