mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/others/sunday-…
“While celebrities turning authors is not a new trend, Indian publishing today is increasingly looking at children of stars to write the next bestseller. “
“While celebrities turning authors is not a new trend, Indian publishing today is increasingly looking at children of stars to write the next bestseller. “
This is one of the reasons for this phenomenon, but not the only one. 
In a previous thread, I had gone over how the traditional Indian publishing market of sailing on revenues generated by dictionaries, atlases, books of knowledge had been upended by the Net.
In order to pay for their Bookerbait, they are obliged to publish celebrities and now children of celebrities. For a celebrity, publishing is a vanity thing, yet another privilege like a first class ticket their money can buy, a point of conversation at their parties.
Media coverage is a function of who the author is, not what they have written. Even a book written by Eesha Deol will get extensive media coverage . Plus many celebrities, who have a shitload of money, will themselves drop a few crores on their vanity project.
The first person a book needs to sell to is the commercial team of the publisher. These are the people who sell to book stores. First question they ask is “kaun hai yeh” about the author, not anything about the book. If they know the author, they approve the commissioning.
Obviously they don’t read the book. They also know the first people they need to sell to are the distributors and then to those who run book stores. None of them care about the book. They care about the name recognition of the author.
One of the biggest avenues of sales are airport book stores, the time to read a book is before getting on a plane. The store is small, the time to choose is little, and with Shweta Bachchan on the cover, the decision is immediate, it’s like an old friend except she isn’t..
Picking up a non celebrity author is a jump of faith, what if you don’t like it. The reason you buy Eesha Deol’s book is the same reason why she sells purified water: you trust the actor of Apna Sapna Money Money for some reason you cannot fathom.
Finally, there is the overall feeling that it is because we publish vanity projects, we can do our bookerbaits. And even if we can’t get a booker, what’s wrong in 5 star parties and having your picture taken next to Amitabh Bachchan. Make my friends jealous no?
