Just a Memorabilia

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I’m now rapidly distributing my book and the principle is ‘First come first serve’. This means people nearer to me get the first chance to have the book. And it has exactly happened so, so far.

My curiosity had led me to enquire who exactly buy my book, for it is possible to track down the buyers in some cases. What I found really surprised me…and to some extent, saddened me too. All those who are in possession of the copies of my book in exchange of a paltry sum of Rs 250.00 are not likely to read them. They have bought them as the objects of memorabilia!

Didn’t I write the stories for taking long six years’ time, correct and refine them during the course of last three years, spend hours with the pagesetter and photoshop professionals, fight with them for a perfect design, borrow money to self-publish? Were all these done just for the sake of creating a thousand pieces of memorabilia? Why all my readers not able to compete with these collectors of memorabilia?

It’s a difficult job to reach the booksellers for they do not want to source their books from an individual author--a poor self-published author. One has to go through the established channel of book distributors, spend on them and jack up the printed price to accommodate these middlemen in the trade. Despite all these, I have arranged with some bookshops in cities like New Delhi, Mumbai, Vashi, Trivandrun, Hyderabad, Banglore, Visakhapatnam, Bhubaneswar, Ranchi, Raipur, Shimla, Chandigarh, Indore, Jaipur, Port Blair, Vadodara, Rajkot. Full list is available at the link . I’ve even arranged online sale of my book in US with a portal linked to this . Still my readers are miles away.

Yet there is a silver lining.

Of late I’ve got a few e-mails ordering for the copies of the book and a few other comments at my blog expressing desires to buy my book. They are from the respectable people like the principals of an engineering college, a high level functionary in a voluntary organization, a publisher who once rejected my submission, a diplomat from a prominent European country, a fellow netizen and the like. This is gratifying. An author probably needs that, to start with. And the rest are just incidental.

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By
A. N. Nanda
10/06/2007
Bhubaneswar
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