From writing and self-publishing to marketing her books, Savi Sharma, all of 24, spoke about her best-selling novels Everyone Has A Story and This Is Not Your Story before a select audience at An Author’s Afternoon — presented by Shree Cement and Taj Bengal, held in association with t2, Prabha Khaitan Foundation and literary agency Siyahi — at the Alipore star hotel. In conversation with the Surat-based writer was Nilisha Agarwal, founder-director of Brand Affair. Excerpts from Savi speak...
WRITING A BOOK
I first decide the soul of the story... the message I want to give through this book. Then I decide which characters will be apt to form that story, because it’s your characters who narrate your story. After drawing up the character sketches, I decide their career, I decide their physical attributes. Then I make the outline of every chapter, like in this chapter, my character will do this, so that I don’t get a writer’s block in between. And then I just enlarge my chapters.
I wrote my first book in college. It took me four years to complete it, because I was doing my graduation, CA studies and internship. I did not publish that book, because I was not happy with it. But the experience taught me how to write a book and I wrote my next two books in four to five months each. Initially, I would write at any time of the day. Sometimes I was able to write a hundred pages at a time and sometimes only two pages. I used to sit with my diary and pen every day for lots of hours.
The characters in my books are a combination of both real-life people around me and fictional influences. Some are inspired from my own experiences or my own dreams too.
BELIEVE IN YOURSELF
I really believe in the ‘law of attraction’. Let me give you an example. When I was studying for chartered accountancy, I made a list of hundred visions... not dreams, but visions, of things I want to complete in my life, like to be invited as a guest to a radio station, to have my article published in a leading newspaper, to inspire people.... If I just believe in it, the universe will give this to me. And, it just happened! After a year, I was going through my list and I realised that more than 30 per cent had already been met! Many readers message me saying, ‘We want to write too. Even we have a story. But we are not sure if people will like it or not. What if readers criticise us?’ That is what is stopping them. They don’t believe in themselves. If you don’t believe in yourself, you can’t ask others to!
BE POSITIVE
I think that negativity is increasing in this world because of social media. We often focus on the negative things. We think that negativity sells. And the problem is that people accept negative thoughts very easily.
Positivity is the essence of a meaningful life because when you are positive, you are hopeful. When you are going to office, you’re thinking, ‘Oh no, I’ll get late again.’ We don’t give our mind the command, ‘I want to be on time.’ The mind doesn’t listen to ‘don’t’, it listens to ‘I’ll do it’. If at midnight, someone calls, we get negative thoughts immediately. But we never think that maybe someone has had a baby, or maybe someone got a nice job offer. So we attract negativity. If you are feeding your mind with negativity, you can’t get positive things.
TRAVEL TEACHINGS
I love travelling... it teaches you many things. When you travel, you get to meet new people, you get to see new places... you get to listen to your inner voice. It helps to know your soul, your conscience, what it wants to tell you.
So many people have inspired me during my travels. I was stuck in traffic in a small town somewhere... this guy on a bike was talking on his phone and I overheard him saying, “Okay, dude, this is the problem... this happened. And now let’s stop thinking about the problem and start thinking about the solution. Because only by thinking about the solution will we get a solution.” This is actually the mantra for life.
When I go to Haryana, my native place, I travel by bus. Some of the ladies on the bus are uneducated, but they often share the struggles of their life... how their husbands used to treat them and how they took a stand. You get to know that people are fighting, people are doing so much to live. We feel fighting for our exams is so tough, they are fighting with their life! They give us hope, that if they can survive, why can’t we?
OH CALCUTTA
I’ve been to Calcutta twice for my book tours. There are lots of readers here. They just love my books! The way they share their experiences, it inspires me to write better. The city is very rich in literature, which is inspiring too. Being a storyteller, I want to be around people who know literature well and respect literature. People respect storytelling over here. Calcutta is really the city of joy!
SELF-PUBLISHING
Once my story was about to be completed, I was sure that it was a good story. I’d written it very honestly. I didn’t want to take it to traditional publishers, because that would have taken a long time. They might not have replied for months or years, even. They might have even rejected my manuscript. So I thought, I’ll self-publish it. I went directly to the printers and told them, this is my book, I want to print a thousand copies. Then I opened a seller’s account on Amazon and put my books on it. So I was the writer, the publisher, the distributor, the marketer, everything (laughs). It was a bit tough because I was working round the clock... like a one-woman army!
People used to say that in self-publishing, you can’t get success. But I feel I’m an example that you can get success if you work smartly. It was Facebook that helped me. My initial readers, when they first read the book, they said that my book had some lines which were very inspiring and had motivated them. I made images of those quotes and those went viral. People started keeping them as their WhatsApp status and Facebook status. Word of mouth worked wonders for me.
Many people say I am lucky and that mine was an overnight success. I say, I worked round the clock! I was the one replying to readers at 2am and checking my Amazon status at 7am! I was working all day long. And that’s the reason I achieved certain things. If it’s so easy, why can’t you do this? Overnight success is a myth. It never happens. There are 15 years of hard work behind that overnight success.
(Once her self-published book started selling in huge numbers, traditional publishers sat up and took note and offered to publish her books. After a few months, Savi signed a two-book deal with Westland Books.)
Text: Rushati Mukherjee
Pictures: Rashbehari Das
