Writing your first book is in the back of the mind of almost every blogger. The food bloggers want to write a cook book. The travel bloggers want to write a travelogue or travel guide kind of a book with all their adventures and experiences and story writers want to publish their novels or their collection of short stories.
Being a blogger we are already publishing our work daily though these works are freely available to the public but still these are creative work. I was recently going through a poem written by a fellow blogger and was mesmerized with it. The quality was so good that it could have easily become part of our academic curriculum.Even some comments stated the same. Similarly I find few very good short story writers who work so hard in their story and publish their work for the readers free of cost. All these are creative works and are publish but they don't get the value they need.
You have to be a published writer to be noticed and even then you are been exploited in the hands of publishers. So, seeing the broad picture if you are a creative writer then you are a born victim and nobody can help it.
I will also add a real story to this, since my family has been in academics from very long time, more than 5 generations. We have known some really great names in Indian academic circle. There was a poet whose poem is part of the CBSE syllabus and almost everyone know him because it is a very popular poem but he hardly used to get any money from his publishers and don't even ask about government help but yes the publisher became rich.
There is no way to check how many books are published and sold though with books being sold on E-commerce site some data is being available these days but most of academic books which are sold from the book shops gets undetected and there is no data available for them.
You will now ask how is all this going to impact your first book, yes these things does impact me. I don't want that other people should get rich with my work, I would rather make my work available to the public free of cost. Why should anyone pay for my work when the profit is hardly going to come to me.
How many publishers give details about the number of books published and sold. This is a open letter and I challenge there will be no publisher who can come out and say that you can check the details on my website. Share it to every author and publisher you know and lets see there response on this.
We are bringing reforms in every sector and it's time for the publishing sector to come clean on this and give the due rights to the authors. Like many of the creative bloggers I have my work ready with me but I am not interested in publishing because I know there is hardly any profit in taking this much toll when you are hardly going to get anything out of it.
The post is written for Indispire topic of the week by Indiblogger
Have you considered ebook self-publishing like Smashwords or Createspace? My guess is you have since you do seem knowledgeable but thought I'd mention it in case you haven't. Createspace actually just opened up for print as well as e-book format. Of course there is always the stigma with self-publishing, but it is dramatically reducing as more and more authors are embracing self-publishing as a way to do exactly what you are describing. And if a self-published book does well (and some do) then the publishers can't help but sit up and notice.
ReplyDeleteYou missed my point, it is not about me but the systemic problem that exist today. In India it becomes huge because most books are sold by shopkeepers and in road side stores are there are hardly any data available for that. These are thousands of authors who have published their books in last 5 decades who hardly got any value for their writing.
DeleteI know there is better opportunity available now for us to publish and I really thank you for all the suggestion but here I trying to put forward a broader question. Thanks for your valuable feedback. :) :D
Gaurab, I do agree with some points raised by you. Most writers in India are facing a situation where publishers are not willing to tell the actual number of books sold out. You can see many cases where royalty to authors is not paid properly. Some multinationals are exception in this regard. But reforms are needed in this sector. The Intellectual Property Rights Act and Copyrights Act should be implemented properly. But as I feel, if a story in you, it has got to come out. Thanks for your nice post!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the support Pankaj and your valuable feedback. Even the multinationals are thriving on the lack of system that India has. Even they are not making it public as they are competing with their local Indian counterparts. I have checked most of the sites by leading publishers but they have hardly mentioned it anywhere.
DeleteGaurab, I do agree with some points raised by you. Most writers in India are facing a situation where publishers are not willing to tell the actual number of books sold out. You can see many cases where royalty to authors is not paid properly. Some multinationals are exception in this regard. But reforms are needed in this sector. The Intellectual Property Rights Act and Copyrights Act should be implemented properly. But as I feel, if a story in you, it has got to come out. Thanks for your nice post!
ReplyDeleteAah yes...my aunt tried to publish her book...it was such a task..and very little money..after looking at her struggle I agree with these points too
ReplyDeleteThanks for the support and yes there are thousands of authors like aunt whom the system have let down and people like us can hardly trust them any more. Do tag any author or publisher you know so that we could get them to hear the concerns.
Deletelike *your aunt
DeleteTrue man...you have hit the bull's eye.........But on a broader aspect....yes the scenario is changing....
ReplyDeleteThanks for your valuable support and it is true the situation is better than it was a decade ago but still a lot has to be done. Hope you will spread the word. :)
DeleteBeing born to literary Family I know what you are saying here. True published authors hardly get the value for their work and publishers get the cream. But being a creative writer, one wants to get published in hard copy, holding your work in your hand feels amazing... I love holding my father's books. I love sharing my mother's published work too... Though I don't know if ever I will publish any of my work, but yes full time writers struggle alot. And there are a few who get value for their work- they are famous and rich!!!
ReplyDeleteI can totally understand that feeling and even my parents and grandparents tell me the same thing. This is a very common thing I see in authors who say at least they have published my book and send me that royalty check every year but both of them had jobs to feed their family if we would have been dependent on that royalty that publishers gave then we would have been starving. It is our money and there is nothing wrong in asking for that. :) Do get published and I'm sure you will but also demand your right :)
DeletePS - That's your poem I mentioned in my post :)
Huh..here is one me that's so much not keen on writing a book! :) Good luck to you.
ReplyDeleteThank you. The thing is the books are already there in my mind. :)
Deletehappy blogging then Gaurab!
ReplyDeleteThank for :)
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