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Is it all about the money? |
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10th August 2008 |
A bestselling author, let's call her Ms X, is out browsing furniture
when she comes across a gorgeous black leather armchair. She
flops down on it, immediately feeling her body being nurtured in its
sturdy, comfortable warmth. The salesperson smiles indulgently:
``That's forty thousand rupees.'' She stands up like she's been poked
with a cattle prod. Later relating this story to a colleague at his
house she delivers the punchline. The colleague and his wife laugh,
but a sister-in-law who is visiting them from Seattle is
puzzled. ``Aren't you a bestselling author?'' she asks.
Let us back up a little. Ms X spent about a year and a half writing
her novel. Of this the first six months she was working, then
realizing it wasn't possible to commute and work and look after the
house and write, she sat down with her supportive but not high-earning
husband and they decided she must quit her job. With the long-term
investment payments to be made and the car loans still trickling out,
it will be a tight situation, but for one year we can do it. All goes
as planned and one year later a manuscript is ready. They heave a sigh
of relief, she goes back to work, and they start making the rounds of
publishers. This isn't a horror story, so within nine months of
finishing the manuscript a contract is signed. This is fiction, so nine
months from the contract being signed the book is in the stores, three
years after she began. This is a fairy tale, and so her book becomes a
``bestseller.'' This means that she sells about 10,000 copies, each
of which is priced at Rs 200, of which she gets 10 per cent. In other
words, she makes a neat Rs 2 lakh, apart from having her picture in
the newspaper and people calling her for quotes every time Salman
Rushdie takes a new girlfriend. The slight problem is that the
publisher makes payments only once a year and her book just happened
to come out in June so she won't get any money till one year later
when it will be paid with tax deducted. So here is Ms X, the queen of
2008's literary scene, one lakh eighty thousand rupees to show for
four years of waiting. People keep asking her about her second book
now, and she says that she's finding it hard to write with the home
and the kid (yes, that's happened in these four years) and if she
could only quit her job she would be able to write full time. Why
don't you quit your job, they say. I can't afford it, she replies. How
come, they ask. Aren't you a bestselling author?
Ms X wants her book to be published overseas. That's the only way to
make real money. A 10,000 dollar advance from a US publisher, or 5000
pounds or 6500 euros, would be almost a year's salary. She could
write. She could spend more time with the baby. But the agents take
months to reply (which is odd because every so often she reads of how
so-and-so was picked up by some big-name agent who flew specially to
Coimbatore or Imphal to meet her.) When they do reply they talk about
how they liked the book a lot but how American/French/Dutch audiences
would find it hard to relate to. She remembers the time, now almost
five years ago, when she made a principled decision to write a book
without any glossary or words in italics, a book which would be an
arrow aimed at the heart of an Indian English-speaking
audience. Dragging herself back to her keyboard she writes a reply to
the agent, talking about how Stenbeck is read all over the world
despite being quintessentially American, as is Faulkner. The universal
comes out of how people deal with their specific, she writes. Then she
deletes everything, writing instead a polite email thanking the agent
for appreciating her potential and assuring him, as she has assured
three others, that she will share her next manuscript with him.
Getting up from her desk she sinks into her sofa and thinks about how
much she used to despise writers who wrote books for Western
audiences. But suddenly she no longer sees it as a despicable act. She
sees those writers, sitting alone at their desks, wondering how they
can take the turmoil that is within them and bring it to
publication. They all want a little success, that little money that
can buy them that little time they need to go to their laptops and
write. It doesn't seem like too much to ask, she thinks. Then her eye
falls on the thinning upholstery on the sofa's arm and she thinks of
how leather furniture is so much easier to maintain.
This piece first appeared in Brunch on 10th August 2008 under the title It's all about the money. |
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| Mohit Dhawan Says |
| 25th August 2008 |
| nice one, this always happen to me what ever situation i am in i always find right words to describe it, today i had a fight with my friend, where she saying she wants a more creative job and for which she is even willing to move to mumbai, after just 3 months into a love marriage which was very difficult as per indian social norms, as it as inter cast, i think this one is just perfect to make her satisfy on her creative pleasures. i also write a blog, i will appreciate feedback .. http://mohitdhawan.blogspot.com/ |
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