Pop fiction is a great leveller

Whatever your stand on the Jan Lokpal Bill issue, the one heartening aspect of the 13-day circus has been a mass of people from different social strata coming together for one cause. We don’t see this happen often.

We are hyper-aware of how diverse India is. And this diversity is tricky business, in the cultural world especially. There is work created for the masses, like a Bollywood blockbuster or a Page 3-inspired newspaper supplement; and then, there are products we don’t expect will have a wide appeal. However, before Anna Hazare united the nation —  rather than a sliver of disgruntled intelligentsia — India had one great unifier: cheap pop fiction.

Chetan Bhagat’s first novel, Five Point Someone, has sold over 700,000 copies. Karan Bajaj’s debut novel Keep Off The Grass was a bestseller with sales of more than 500,000. Recently, The Secret of the Nagas by Amish is believed to have sold 70,000 copies within a few weeks of its release. All these authors have a few things in common. They are management students; critics rubbish their writing; their books are cheap; and given the sales figures, everyone except the critics (probably the same disgruntled lot who are appalled by Hazare) is buying their books.

Full article here Firstpost

Indian publishing needs to get less fun

In India it is editors who decide what readers get to read. Why is it that mediocrity becomes a goal in the attempt to bridge a non-existent divide between ‘literary’ and ‘commercial’ fiction?

In the world of Indian English publishing, kitsch has begun to dominate the mainstream. Penguin India publishes ‘Metro Reads', books that they call ‘fun, feisty, fast'; Random House India produces the ‘Kama Kahani', a series of Indianised Mills and Boons; Hachette India openly states that it cares most about commercial thrillers; and with its latest, highly-marketed release, Johnny Gone Down, HarperCollins India seems to be headed in the same direction. These are all books that openly disclaim any particular literary merit. They are projected instead as ‘fun' reads — with the implication that only a killjoy could possibly protest them.

A preliminary question
But before we get to that question — are these books fun for us? — there is an important preliminary question:why are they being offered to us? The easy answer is that the market is clamouring for them, just look at Chetan Bhagat. But this is too easy. It's been seven years since Bhagat's first book. Why would it take so long to follow his example? Moreover, the mainstay of Bhagat's readership has never been readers per se.It has been non-readers, those who are new to books, even new to the English language. This is certainly a massive group, and after Bhagat's success it has certainly been tapped — but by the smaller publishers, such as India Log and Shrishti Publications — not by the A-list. For them, Bhagat has simply been a fact of life — too dominant to ignore, too declasse to embrace. Which is one reason why their own ‘fun' releases take great pains to explain that they're well-written too, that they ‘bridge the divide' (a fashionable phrase) between the literary and the commercial.

Full report here Hindu

Johnny goes around

Drugs, money, sex, murder, organised crime, religion, investment banking, cyber space, exotic locations, from Brazil to Cambodia. Karan Bajaj’s latest novel, Johnny Gone Down, his second, has all the elements requisite for a potboiler. And it’s making news for being the pulp fiction novel of this summer with an initial print run of 50,000 copies! The author explains to Suman Tarafdar where this novel of a man fighting against himself germinates from. Excerpts:

This is quite a pacy read! However, this is quite a distance from your previous novel. Where did the inspiration for this one come from?
Yes, I think Johnny Gone Down is a fundamentally different novel from the recent slew of novels by young writers or even my own Keep off the Grass or as it doesn’t deal with clichéd urban angst or the love-life complexities of the ‘boyz n grlz jst hangin’ out der in McDonaldz’! The fundamental conflict is more man against his very bizarre destiny vs man against himself in this novel.

As for the inspiration, I usually start with a big theme in mind and allow the story to work itself in my head for a while before I put pen to paper. The theme I was playing around with for Johnny Gone Down was around success and whether a stable, even-keeled life is better than a rich, interesting life with towering ups and abysmal lows. During this time, I was also backpacking for a year between jobs and traveled to some pretty interesting places and ended up meeting quite an odd assortment of people on the road and in youth hostels. Somewhere, I began to realise that no matter where I went, whether Cambodia or Brazil or Mongolia or India, there seemed to be more similarities than dissimilarities in people, feelings and ideas. Hence this incredible intercontinental journey of the protagonist began to fuse with the original theme.

Full interview here Financial Express

Will IIM alumni rewrite publishing rules in India?

Buoyed by the success of his debut work, the publisher of IIM alumni Karan Bajaj's second novel is eyeing to achieve new heights with a unique and massive marketing campaign for the first print run of an impressive 50,000 copies of the thriller "Johnny Gone Down".

Says Lipika Bhushan, marketing head at Harper Collins India, "We toyed with the idea of how we can achieve new heights with ?Johnny Gone Down? since there is growing market for such books. Karan has a definite fan following and so the book has the content to click with the masses. And when we talk about masses we have to aim at high numbers and lower price points."

The book is priced at Rs 99 and the publisher is aiming to achieve nearly 100,000 copies in a year.

Full report here PTI

Drawing from life

Nothing gives Karan Bajaj as much thrill as writing about the common man stuck in bizarre situations...

After the success of his wild and racy debut novel, Keep Off The Grass in 2008, U.S.-based Karan Bajaj's second novel Johnny Gone Down (HarperCollins) is all set for release. Having already reached the mark of 50,000 in its first print run, the book has managed to generate excitement among book lovers. The technocrat-turned-writer reflects on his second effort and passion for writing.

On how he got into writing and his writing style...

Till I was about 22-23, I never really thought of what I wanted to do. I completed my engineering and then went on to pursue an MBA from IIM Bangalore. I got a fulfilling job that gave me ample opportunities to travel, as well as some great experiences which found their way into my books. (He now works with Kraft Foods in New York). As far as my writing style is concerned, I guess I am an old-school thriller writer. I love to write about conflict up-close, which can be seen in both of my novels.

On Johnny Gone Down
It is a deep, dark Forrest Gump-ish story that talks about the character's 20-year journey which takes him all over the world, where he lives as a genocide survivor, a Buddhist monk, a drug lord, a homeless accountant and a software mogul among others. It is a story about the unpredictable trajectory of events for a normal man who wants to live this strait-jacketed life but ends up in bizarre, surreal situations. The places mentioned in the novel are the places that I have travelled to.

There are portions of the book which talk about events, both historical and contemporary which struck me and inspired me, for instance the genocide in Cambodia in the 1970s.

Full interview here The Hindu

Will new thriller make Indian publishing history?

The yet-to-be released thriller Johnny Gone Down by Karan Bajaj is set to make publishing history with a first print run of 50,000 books, billed as one of the biggest ever in India for a work of fiction.

The thriller will be published by HarperCollins-India at an affordable price of Rs.99. 'It is the first time HarperCollins-India is aiming to achieve nearly 100,000 copies in a year with the first print run of 50,000 for an Indian author at such an attractive price,' Lipika Bhushan, head of marketing at HarperCollins-India, told IANS.

The book narrates the racy tale of 40-year-old Ivy League scholar, Nikhil Arya, who is broke, homeless and minutes away from blowing his brains. An innocent vacation turns into an intercontinental journey that sees Nikhil first become a genocide survivor, then a Buddhist monk, a drug lord, a homeless accountant, a software mogul and a game fighter.

Full report here Sify