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.

Best Restaurants Great Cuisines I - Song Hay (Calcutta, India)

It is one of the best restaurants serving no-frills Chinese in Calcutta yet very few of us know its name. It has been around for quite a long time now and unless you have been too, chances are you never heard about Song Hay in the midst of the noise and the hype. Not so of course, for the steady stream of office-folk, at day’s end, out from the grey mansions of Dalhousie and Bowbazar, from the pigeon holes of Esplanade and Central Avenue, the halls of Lyons Range, where many fortunes are made and many more go up in the diesel-smoked evenings of Calcutta.

They come quietly, even if they had been loud during the day and they usually remain quiet and dignified till it’s well past nine. I always love pushing through its heavy glass doors to escape from thankless summers, to meet someone, for good food and intoxication.

Song Hay welcomes everyone -- the modest interiors with the double pillars twined by dragons, the red Chinese lamps hanging from the pearl-colored ceiling, the calligraphic lettering of a light box, the little nooks and private spaces with tables, created so thoughtfully by the designer, have a delicate charm.   

What is it that makes a restaurant special? I have often wondered why run-down place like Olympia in Calcutta India is packed like a tin of sardines every evening while just across the street, waiters at another establishment wonder, where have all the customers gone. I have found no good reason why the loud and baroque United Coffee House in the heart of Delhi seems always short of seats while a few steps down, Volga laments for lost custom.

Talking about Volga, the dim-lit, red carpeted watering-hole has a sinister air that has struck my fancy (and I will write about the fantastic mutton cutlets here in this restaurants series someday) but not so for the average punter. 

So we really don’t have an answer, what makes an eatery, a relentless crowd-puller. I have given this some thought and when it comes to my favourite watering holes and hiding places I believe it’s the feeling of comfort, that a restaurant can give its customer, that’s most important. Of course then you have price, for I am talking of places where the average person can visit. Food comes somewhere in-between the two and service sometimes matter.

The food at Song Hay has a variety that very few similar places would offer. Then, they have most of the items available, and not just menu-fillers. The fare you get at Song Hay at that price is really a steal. Tasty, good-looking, generous portions and served in basic porcelain or stainless steel plates and bowls. My favorites at this Chinese restaurant are the pork dishes – the fiery Mongolian pork, the unforgettable pork-fried, or the simple and delicious pork chowmien.

Jayanta was asking the other day, `how could they make pork taste so delicious?’ Well, the meat of pigs is not considered particularly tasty by many, so I told him to find out from the kitchen.   

I have to warn you that I tried only a small selection from their quite extensive restaurant menu and am sure there are more discoveries waiting to be made. But if you are not in a hurry and happen to be in Waterloo Street of Calcutta, then dive into this pleasantly air-conditioned Chinese eatery with friendly waiters and ask for their `fried chicken’ and wash it down with a bottle or two of Carlsberg. If it’s still not evening, you know you would be getting a 10% discount on the bill, all the year round.

I usually drop into Song Hay well into the evening, usually with some friend or colleague and we quickly gravitate to our favoured corner and order the heavenly Double Happiness chow mien to go with quite a few rounds of dark rum – it’s always Old Monk. I don’t care for starters or finger food to go with my evening tipple and plunge straight into the heart of the menu of one of my favourite Chinese restaurants of Calcutta.

I haven’t been to Song Hay lately because of some unplanned distraction but will be there soon. At this time of the evening they would be having their tables full, the aroma of crispy chicken rising from the kitchen, wafting through the dining halls, twining around the tables and the smiling waiters (Michael, who looks like a rock star, is usually at our table) the dragons rolling their eyes, wondering at this crowd getting ever so excited about Double Happiness chow mien and thin ginger slices soaked in balsamic vinegar.

Top of the Song Hay restaurant menu: Double Happiness Chow Mien, American Chop Suey, Fried chicken, Pork Roast (dry)

Location: Waterloo Street, Calcutta (diagonally opposite to the old Great Eastern hotel)

Hearty meal for two with drinks: Rs 600

(Carlsberg beer image courtesy Wikipedia; Chopsuey image courtesy Spicy Dragon)

Bad Sex Gems and BL’s Deathless Legacy

Norman Mailer won it in 2007 for a passage from A Castle in the Forest, that goes, `Are you all right?' she cried out as he lay beside her, his breath going in and out with a rasp that sounded as terrible as the last winds of their lost children.

'All right. Yes. No,' he said. Then she was on him. She did not know if this would resuscitate him or end him, but the same spite, sharp as a needle, that had come to her after Fanni's death was in her again. Fanni had told her once what to do. So Klara turned head to foot, and put her most unmentionable part down on his hard-breathing nose and mouth, and took his old battering ram into her lips. Uncle was now as soft as a coil of excrement. ...'

Last year's nominees include John Updike for dirty descriptions in The Widows of Eastwick and Paulo Coelho for a spirited passage in Brida. Updike quit the game sometime back and wouldn't be bothered whether they give him the `Bad Sex in Fiction Award' but gentle Paulo, could have a sermon or two for the red-blooded editors at Literary Review who run this heart-warming contest. His salacious bit consisted of footpath sex in Brida which is "the moment when Eve was reabsorbed into Adam's body and the two halves became Creation" and climaxes with the über-orgasmic, “As if struck by a sacred bolt of lightning, she unleashed them, and the world, the seagulls, the taste of salt, the hard earth, the smell of the sea, the clouds, all disappeared, and in their place appeared a vast gold light, which grew and grew until it touched the most distant star in the galaxy."

There are many more absurd, crude and downright funny passages written and rewarded each year a fine sampling of which is available at the Literary Review site. This year’s contenders for the bad sex award in fiction included Thomas Pynchon, Will Self and Mark Haddon better known for his `The Curious Incident of the Dog at the Night Time’. Iain Hollingshead, won the award this year, which according to the award’s founder is given out `with the aim of gently dissuading authors and publishers from including unconvincing, perfunctory, embarrassing or redundant passages of a sexual nature in otherwise sound literary novels.’ Read the passage that clinched it, for this first-time writer.

Talking of tongue-in-cheek awards, awards that chastise or ones that poke fun, who can ignore Edward George Bulwer-Lytton’s lasting legacy. This 19^th century Englishman began his novel Paul Clifford with the momentous (and much abused),

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, each year, invites people to `compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.’ Started in 1982, the contest now attracts thousands of entries in a number of categories, all striving to keep alive the legacy of this Englishman with the strange surname. Anyone can enter the contest electronically or otherwise.

This year the prize was won by a 55-year old writer, David McKenzie for composing this:

"Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the "Ellie May," a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests."

The winner for the detective fiction category, appeals even more with this horrendously amusing,

``She walked into my office on legs as long as one of those long-legged birds that you see in Florida - the pink ones, not the white ones - except that she was standing on both of them, not just one of them, like those birds, the pink ones, and she wasn't wearing pink, but I knew right away that she was trouble, which those birds usually aren't.”

Lytton’s great-great-great-grandson is however not amused by the increasing popularity of the prize and recently threw a challenge to its founders for maligning his ancestor’s name. He said, "to have been the first person to have penned a cliché was a mark of genius". In fact, other than `dark and stormy night’ Bulwer-Lytton had created many over-abused marvels like, "the pen is mightier than the sword" and "the almighty dollar”. This Guardian article has followed this debate.

From the Ig Nobel Prize to the Razzies, there are a whole lot of chastising, tongue-in-cheek or downright bitchy honours given out each year. Just reading about them and could make a dull weekend exciting. The Wikipedia list for Ironic and humorous awards is a good starting point.

To top it off, with a bit more from the Bad Sex Awards, here is an entry that makes one laugh with its mock-profundity. This is from a novel called Will by Christopher Rush:

``O glorious pubes! The ultimate triangle, whose angles delve to hell but point to paradise. Let me sing the black banner, the blackbird's wing, the chink, the cleft, the keyhole in the door. The fig, the fanny, the cranny, the quim - I'd come close to it now, this sudden blush, this ancient avenue, the end of all odysseys and epic aim of life, pulling at my prick now, pulling like a lodestone …’’

And this gem from Absurdistan, by Gary Shteyngart (Granta),

"You wanna pop me?" she said. This must have been some new-fangled youth term. The verb "to pop."

"I wanna bust a nut inside you, shorty," I said. "I wanna make you sweat, boo. Let's do this thing."

Bulwer-Lytton image courtesy thedandy.org

Norman Mailer image courtesy Wikipedia