‘Even Archer and Dan Brown have to market their books’

Bestselling author Ravi Subramanian said authors have to market themselves and put up dramatic announcements about their latest books in the age of social media and quick obscurity. "Even Jeffery Archer and Dan Brown have to market their books," Subramanian said at the Times Lit Fest Delhi 2017.
Write India director Vinita Nangia was in conversation on Saturday with three bestselling authors — Anand Neelakantan, Ravi Subramanian, and Ashwin Sanghi — who were all proud to call themselves commercial writers.
Ashwin Sanghi said very few authors win acclaim without propagating their books. "The two major factors that affect us in our country today in terms of publishing are discoverability and visibility," Sanghi said.
The authors talked about how literature in India has taken a sharp turn and that Indian readers have observed a synthesis of global and local culture in our books. "Baahubali" author Neelakantan said mytho-fiction had been written since time immemorial and that he was just another writer contributing to a plethora of tales spun out of mythology.
Subramanian believes popular literature and commercial publishing have "bastardised the short story", even though readers are interested. "Unless you put your book out there, it will not sell. A book is something the audience is most likely to miss unless they know that it is out there, about to be released," said Ravi.