Dedicated to my friends in publishing

NOVEL IDEA
Making A Best-seller
Narendra Nair
A friend is going through post-partum distress. He published a novel, now he is anxious about its future. The first print run was 500 copies. According to the publisher, that was 450 copies too many. Twenty were distributed among friends and relatives, another 20 were “donated” to a big chain of book stores and some libraries. Ten suckers were cajoled into buying them. Getting it published had been a feat in itself. The first publisher sent it back without comment. Publisher No. 2 wrote back to say that he was full up till the year 2030; if, after that, the author still wished, he could send it to them again. Publisher No. 3 told him that times were hard and he had a bypass on his father-in-law coming up; if the author could put up the money for it, he would see what he could do. One after the other, they turned it down, some with haughty reserve refraining from commenting on his temerity in sending it to them and some unburdened by any such reserve. Some of the comments were so scathing that despite being fairly dark, he blushes when recalling them. Eventually, one publisher — naive, young, reckless and impecunious — agreed to bring out the thing on the condition that they halved the costs. If at all they sold anything, royalties would be no more than 5 per cent on each sale. Advertising would be a no-no but he promised energetic word-of-mouth and instructed his staff of three to plug the book to everyone they met. It was printed on recycled paper. My friend, an atheist, prays 10 hours a day now at temples, churches, synagogues and mosques. He has prayed at Tirupati (all he got was a lightning-flash of the idol from the aam-janata line) and at Guruvayoor. He has sent anonymous copies to Pramod Muthalik and Ashok Gehlot (his book cover has a couple holding hands), half a dozen Shiv Sainiks, an Archbishop, two orthodox Muslims and some television journalists, drawing their attention to this literary outrage that criticises Hindus, Muslims, Christians, all major political parties and television news. Nothing happened. He then printed 100 sheets on his computer with the message, “Ban ‘Pub-Crawl’” and put six exclamation marks after it. He placed them on seats in local trains one night and now sits with bated breath, surrounded by holy books awaiting denunciation and the call for a ban. Ah-ha!