A Novel way of getting published.

aruna · Dec 9, 2007

I found this story most interesting, though I wouldn't recommend anyone trying to follow suit.
Preethi Nair wrote a novel and it was the story we all know: she couldn't find a publisher.
So she set up her own publishing company and PR firm and working under an alias or several, promoted her own book. The story ended in multiple contracts.
http://www.preethinair.com/double_life.php

Garpy · Dec 10, 2007

An encouraging story, but I think it's only fair that any struggling writer planning on doing the same reckless thing needs to take several factors into consideration:

1. This may be a slightly 'spun' story. The publishing business is rife with exaggerated rags-to-riches tales to promote a book and a new author.

2. The author had fall back - parents who no doubt kept a roof over her head whilst this whole process was ongoing. More importantly, she had no children/family to keep.

3. Finally, the most cynical comment of all - she appears to be a 'very promotable' author - that's industry code for 'her face fits'. She's young, she's attractive, I would guess she sounds good on the phone and over the radio. It's perhaps telling that she was picked up by an agent before she had a book good enough to publish. I suspect the agent saw first a bubbly media-friendly face - a promotable commodity - the writing bit came later.

IN reality, self-publishing, self-promoting like this will put you on the road to ruin (or atleast a garage full of mouldering books). Unless ofcourse you're young, attractive, at ease shmoozing with editors and agents, well-connected with media buddies or already a minor celebrity.

aruna · Dec 10, 2007

I agree with you 100%... and another thing... she was Indian, at a time when Indian chick-lit was the top trend. Still, it's a good story!

Garpy · Dec 10, 2007

Yuh...I didn't want to say that. It smacks of, well....I just didn't want to say it.

amber_grosjean · Dec 10, 2007

Its one of those stories where you think to yourself as you read it, "Now why can't something like that happen to me? I work hard, I'm a good writer."

I really can relate to her struggles trying to get the first book published. Started at 11, completed my first book around 12 as a result of my first rejection from a short story which became the first chapter in that book. Needless to say the book is still unpublished but I do have two books published now, 20 years later (the second one will be released soon). I am still struggling though because I have no idea what to do about marketing. The book is selling but still, I would like to market this book too.

Its a pain in the butt but we all have to go through these things if we ever want to become famous lol.

Amber

Doodlebug · Dec 10, 2007

aruna said:
I found this story most interesting, though I wouldn't recommend anyone trying to follow suit.
Preethi Nair wrote a novel and it was the story we all know: she couldn't find a publisher.
So she set up her own publishing company and PR firm and working under an alias or several, promoted her own book. The story ended in multiple contracts.
http://www.preethinair.com/double_life.php

Didn't the young author of Eragon do something similar? I don't mean set up his own publishing company, but have the book printed by a vanity then turn around and sell it (to great success, I might add.)

Just curious. Stories like the one you mentioned do crop up every so often. I guess the 'moral' of these stories is that there are many different roads to success.

Just Me · Dec 10, 2007

Sadly, stories like this do nothing except reinforce every single bad thought I've ever had about the publishing industry. :e2bummed:

~JM.

aruna · Dec 10, 2007

Doodlebug said:
Didn't the young author of Eragon do something similar? I don't mean set up his own publishing company, but have the book printed by a vanity then turn around and sell it (to great success, I might add.)

In his case, I think it was the parents, who had or started a publishing company.
I like the idea that Prithi had really no idea about the publishing buisiness; she went into it with all the worst newbie illusions of instant fame; I could almost imagine her ending up with Publish America! And yet she swallowed the bitter medicine of reality and turned it around into with her own spunk and hard work, all on her own.

Garpy · Dec 11, 2007

Look, it's heartening reading these cinderalla type stories, but the bottom line is that this kind of thing just doesn't happen for us boring normal people. It happens for kids whose parents are already in the business, it happens for bubbly effusive young media moppets who have ol' college buddies as editors/agents, it happens for people whose dad was a famous film-maker, it happens for journalists/critics who know they'll get gushing reviews for their debut from their press drinking buddies...

...but it doesn't happen for us normal people. It's bloody unfair, and the publishing business is rife with this kind of thing. There's nothing you can do about it, except make sure you write material that is significantly better than the tosh produced by pampered ghost-written celebs and well-connected wannabees.

Khazarkhum · Dec 11, 2007

One Name:

Tori Spelling.

Does anyone anywhere believe, for one minute, that she would have had a TV career if her dad had been anyone other than Aaron Spelling?

Same with Eragon. If the kid's parents hadn't been in publishing, would anyone have ever heard of the book? Especially one as cliche-ridden as Eragon?

And Tom Brokaw's book on the 60's--would it have been published or gotten the huge advance it did if he hadn't been an NBC anchor?

aruna · Dec 11, 2007

Garpy said:
Look, it's heartening reading these cinderalla type stories, but the bottom line is that this kind of thing just doesn't happen for us boring normal people.

Hey, I do not comsider myself a boring NORMAL person!!!! I am anything but normal so you can expect some crazy cinderella-type story coming from me anytime soon...

0

aruna · Dec 11, 2007

Khazarkhum said:
One Name:

Tori Spelling.

Does anyone anywhere believe, for one minute, that she would have had a TV career if her dad had been anyone other than Aaron Spelling?

Then there is Cecilia Ahrens, whose father just happened to be the Prime Minister (or whatrever the Irish word is) of Ireland. Anyone surprised that her terrible, terrible first novel not only got a top publisher but a 1A promotion?

0

(you can always tell when I am writing from work, because of these little 0's at the end of my posts)

seun · Dec 11, 2007

aruna said:
Then there is Cecilia Ahrens, whose father just happened to be the Prime Minister (or whatrever the Irish word is) of Ireland. Anyone surprised that her terrible, terrible first novel not only got a top publisher but a 1A promotion?

And is now a film (doubtless a horrible, shitty romcom but a film nonetheless).

seun · Dec 11, 2007

Garpy said:
Look, it's heartening reading these cinderalla type stories, but the bottom line is that this kind of thing just doesn't happen for us boring normal people. It happens for kids whose parents are already in the business, it happens for bubbly effusive young media moppets who have ol' college buddies as editors/agents, it happens for people whose dad was a famous film-maker, it happens for journalists/critics who know they'll get gushing reviews for their debut from their press drinking buddies...

You're me with a better beard.

aruna · Dec 11, 2007

seun said:
And is now a film (doubtless a horrible, shitty romcom but a film nonetheless).

Faints. Really? I didn't know that but I'm not surprised.
0

Elodie-Caroline · Dec 11, 2007

Oh, I'll have no trouble at all then, will I. I can make anyone laugh in real life and I'm not bad looking for being middle-aged. Plus I got chucked off the Simon Mayo phone-in radio show, because the writer Josephine Cox and I ended up taking over his show and having a laugh. She liked my name and wants to use it in one of her future books. I asked if I was getting royalties for it. She thought it was funny and he thought I was ungrateful? hehehe

Elodie

Garpy said:
3. Finally, the most cynical comment of all - she appears to be a 'very promotable' author - that's industry code for 'her face fits'. She's young, she's attractive, I would guess she sounds good on the phone and over the radio. It's perhaps telling that she was picked up by an agent before she had a book good enough to publish. I suspect the agent saw first a bubbly media-friendly face - a promotable commodity - the writing bit came later.

IN reality, self-publishing, self-promoting like this will put you on the road to ruin (or atleast a garage full of mouldering books). Unless ofcourse you're young, attractive, at ease shmoozing with editors and agents, well-connected with media buddies or already a minor celebrity.

seun · Dec 11, 2007

aruna said:
Faints. Really? I didn't know that but I'm not surprised.
0

afraid so.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0431308/

aruna · Dec 11, 2007

Makes me want to see it just to moan and groan!
BTW it's Ahern nicht Ahrens.

seun · Dec 11, 2007

I find a lot of these stories annoying. What was that one about the guy who apparently lived 'off the grid' and his book was going to the next DVC? I couldn't give a toss if the guy had a three foot dick. What about the book? Tell me about that not your life story.

Same thing with this woman's story. If it's all true, then great. Fair play to her. But this seems to be to be overshadowing the book.

aruna · Dec 11, 2007

seun said:
Same thing with this woman's story. If it's all true, then great. Fair play to her. But this seems to be to be overshadowing the book.

No, to be fair I don't think this is the case. I had heard her name and of her books, and even read one, long before I heard her publishing story. I don't think it was used for her promotion; I only read it because I looked up her website. I had a short email exchange with her recently and that's when I found the story. It was not pushed down readers' throats, as for instance the story of Rowling writing Harry Potter in a cafe to keep warm.

I think her books were promoted on their own merit, and marketable though she is, I don't believe that that was THE deciding factor. The deciding factor was that Indian chick-lit books were at their zenith, and hers really fit the bill. The one I read was not at all bad; MUCH better than Cecilia Ahern's.

0

Doodlebug · Dec 11, 2007

Khazarkhum said:
One Name:

Tori Spelling.

Khazarkhum said:
Same with Eragon. If the kid's parents hadn't been in publishing, would anyone have ever heard of the book? Especially one as cliche-ridden as Eragon?

Okay, I'm really going out on a limb here, but I like Eragon. Yes, it is cliche-ridden, but so are a lot of stories. I started reading it to my kids, fully intending to hate it, but I don't. I don't love it, but I am enjoying it.

Dustry Joe · Dec 11, 2007

The author had fall back - parents who no doubt kept a roof over her head whilst this whole process was ongoing. More importantly, she had no children/family to keep.

I miss the point. Most writers have a means of surviving. How many are living from sale to sale? (Aside from me, that is)

As far as how mediagenic she is, and well favored for succes...then why couldn't she sell her novel to a pulisher?

It is possible to do something like this. I've done similar things myself, on smaller scale. How many people would want to is a different thing.

Garpy · Dec 11, 2007

Most probably because, first time round she was sending out manuscripts and the writing had to speak for itself.

Second time around, with her masquerading as a PR moppet and pimping herself, it was all about personality, interviews, face time....and not the writing - at which point she got an agent and a book deal.

Go figure.

Scrawler · Dec 11, 2007

Garpy said:
Unless ofcourse you're young, attractive, at ease shmoozing with editors and agents, well-connected with media buddies or already a minor celebrity.

Oh.
Let's see. No. Yes. No No. No. No. No.
There goes that idea.

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