Rejection the Beginning of all Good Things : Author's Perspective

Amazon Kindle

It’s been two months since my first book It Happens released on Amazon Kindle and subsequently on paperback, thereby giving me so much experience to share. During my research on book promotions, it was well pointed out, that blogging for Authors is a great way to connect to readers and should be taken up. So here I am starting my blog to connect with everyone out there, being just myself.

In this series of blogs I will be sharing my experience of writing and publishing a book, from where it started etc. I will be sharing my experience about the whole process which went into making and marketing this book.

The book just happened to me....till June 2017 I had no idea that the stories which I had written 12 years back would be revived and I would end up publishing them, be it after a lot of additions, from originally a 10000 word story to a 38000 one.

The original story of It Happens was written in only 10000 words with setups, emotions etc being left to the reader’s imagination. But truth be told when I wrote this and other stories I was a 24-25 year old movie buff, smitten by the glamorous bollywood. So the only avenue I thought such stories could go was a bollywood producer. Given that I am a July born Cancerian, I was very shy to approach people and tell them I write scripts or stories.

In those days ie 2005-2007, the Indian film industry was not so well organised and was more owner dependant and driven. I did however manage to get through one very famous studio who were very corporate in their approach and did decide to take up my amateurishly written and unedited 10000 word story for consideration. At that time the story was titled Kabhi na Kabhi. After more than a month of imagining that I am going to be the next Salim Javed rolled into one, I finally got the bad news that they would not like to pursue my story. The exact feedback which still rings in my ears was, “ We liked your writing style and thought process but the topic is not something we would like to pursue. However if we have any project which comes up and requires writers like you, we would surely call.” I guess it was a nice way of saying Goodbye though I honestly hoped for the next 6 months that I might get a call.

The Original Cover for Kabhi na Kabhi

Kabhi na Kabhi aka It Happens though was not the first story I wrote. My first foray into writing stories was with a romantic thriller called Khoj. Now whoever is thinking that I was being totally filmy by trying to ape Ekta Kapoor and Karan Johar by naming my stories with K, is absolutely right. The third story which I wrote, I named it Koshish. My own name starts with K, though that is a sheer coincidence. Luckily I got over this K fascination in due course. I just felt at the time of submission to the film studio, that a different kind of love story would be a clincher rather than a thriller but alas.

12 years hence, I continued with the same thought process and thus when I thought about publishing my first book, I decided I would do it with the story on Age Gap relationship where the woman is the elder one in the relationship...a topic which till today has not been much written or spoken about. However more on the book and the topic in my subsequent blogs.

I did try getting through to other production houses on phone but never mustered enough courage to land up at their office with a script in my hand and maybe line up with other people trying to break into the industry. I can’t pinpoint any particular reason but it could have been that I was too shy, too proud, too young.. thinking eventually I would get in or just that I was growing and making our family business successful that I just left it to fate to take its own course. It was not that if I did not succeed in writing I would deem it as a failure in life...after all it was a hobby and not my earning source.

A little later I met my beautiful wife and the next 10 years just went by cherishing and making memories with her and having two handsome boys. The business continued to flourish by God’s grace and kept me extremely busy, working minimum 12 hours a day. In 20 years of being in the business, we made it grow 30 times which in itself was a matter of great satisfaction. This experience has held me in good stead when I decided to take the plunge in publishing my story. I soon realised that writing a book is one aspect but ensuring that people read it is altogether another ball game.

Given that originally my writing was inspired by movies, I kind of feel it as a compliment when readers tell me that it is an ideal bollywood script, even though a few readers also mean it as a criticism.

So my wait of 12 years was finally over when the book released on 21st September and my life changed and got more exciting. How I managed to do it without knowing anything about the industry has indeed been very satisfying. I will continue with my experience sharing about the process in subsequent blogs.

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