Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
For me, writing is fun. The day I quit my job and take up writing full time, writing will become just another job. A commercial necessity.
In Indian companies, people aren't too worried about the pace of growth as long as you're setting up a business which will survive for years.
If a reader likes a particular author, they keep reading all his books, and if the supply is not kept up, then the reader shifts his loyalties.
When 'If God Was a Banker' became a success, it changed my entire perspective. I wanted to write more and wanted to be lot more successful as a writer.
The opportunity to create wealth in foreign banks exists only in the investment banking space. Working in a local company teaches you to think long term.
I had, at a point in time, decided not to write on the corporate world. But if people expect me to set stories in a work environment, then why go away from it?
For 'The Bestseller'... there was hardly any research, but I had to give each person a quirk and develop their stories so that it would relate to who they are.
I enjoy writing and promoting my books. I enjoy the feedback. But all this is because I don't depend on it commercially. I don't need that money. I have a career.
Corporate career is like my wife, and writing is my girlfriend. My priority is the first but enjoy doing the second, as I have taken to writing as a stress-beater.
There's a market for fiction based on financial services. People wanted me to write stories based on this sector. There's a gap in the market, and I'm trying to fill it.
Bitcoin is complex: the entire private and public key issue, the transfers, the mining of bitcoins... but if you tell it as fiction, people would understand and remember.
An author needs to be in the market. He or she needs to come out with a new book every year. That keeps you alive in the public mind and gives a push to your older books.
Saying 'I am not interested in politics' is no guarantee that people will leave you alone. The politically-inclined will single you out as a soft target and go after you.
It is important to send your work to as many publishers as possible. For every one publisher who may show interest in your work, there will be at least five who will reject you.
My preferred genre of reading is crime thrillers - books by Harlan Coben, Jo Nesbo, David Baldacci, James Patterson, Ashwin Sanghi and a few others - and I write crime thrillers.
A thriller needs to hold the interest of the reader from the very beginning. It needs to engage with them, hold them in rapt attention, and prevent them from putting down the book.
If evil wins in a Bollywood film, it is bound to flop. A lot of people here want to change society, so they like to read about it being changed. And that means good usually triumphs.
Write something that you are comfortable with. Do not venture into something that you do not want to write about, because gradually, your discomfort with the subject will begin to show.
There were many times in my initial days as a writer when I had felt the need to talk to someone, to leverage on someone's experience, to learn from someone who had written and published a book.
I do not think I will ever write screenplays based on my books. I would not know what to cut out and what portions to keep. I like all the characters I have created. I cannot imagine chopping them off.
I believe Bitcoin is a very convenient way to shop and to transfer money to any account around the world. Governments should work around a framework for the currency instead of putting restrictions on it.
To make time for writing, one has to take time out from somewhere. Obviously, a fair amount of time that you spend with the family gets compromised. But my family has been very understanding and supportive.
My favourite authors are Jeffrey Archer, for his story telling skills; John Grisham, for the completely new genre he created; and James Patterson, for the way he created a new business model out of writing.
One shouldn't say yes in desperation to the first publisher who approaches. New authors especially should wait and weigh their deal and agree only when they are sure that they have landed themselves a good offer.
Any author gets inspired by the experiences and events that happen to him or his immediate circle. While that's where the seed or the idea germinates, by the end of the story, it accounts for hardly anything in the book.
Thousands of books are published every year in India, and it's becoming more difficult to stand out and get people to buy the books. The only way to get people notice the book is to create a buzz much before it's released.
The royalty any author gets is dependent on his track record and marketability and often on the price of his book, too. The higher you price a book, the more comfortable your publisher will be in paying you a higher royalty.
If you have sold the film rights to somebody, take your money and leave. If the producers need you, they will call you. But you have to be careful about who you are selling your book to, and ensure that it is not tampered with.
People think writing is a very distinguished, cerebral thing, where all you do is write. It doesn't work that way. People have to see online promotions, see piles of your book in stores, and you have to make sure the guy recommends it!
I've always wanted to write, but coming from a small-town background - I was born and brought up in Ludhiana - you think you're not the kind of literary person who will write books that will sell. There was always a kind of defensiveness in me.
When James Bond presses the watch and the car explodes, the writer doesn't go into the science of it. One should leave it to the leap of faith. I have tried to explain as much as possible, and what I can't, I have left it to people's imagination.
There is a certain amount of intrigue that gets created by revealing portions of the book and, in the process, generating a certain amount of interest. Often, authors do this by releasing a few chapters online or even releasing film-like trailers.
If you see in all my books, I have two key intentions. One is obviously to entertain and make sure that the reader has a good reading experience. I also try to write on subjects that nobody has dealt with before to make my works different from other page turners.
The problem with most of the want-to-be authors is that they are unable to focus. Either they have no idea of where to begin, or they have hundreds of ideas and don't know which one to pick. Both scenarios leading to one result... they give up even before they start.
After my first book, many of my readers came back to tell me that the female characters I had created were not strong enough. I have consciously rectified that in my next four books. In any case, it's true that women run the world, and men would do better to listen to them!
At times, parents foist their own choices on kids and try to get them to read the classics. But kids have very high filters and don't take to it. At other times, parents simply don't know what books to select for their children and end up giving books that aren't appropriate.
While a lot of management development books try to teach you a lesson or give you a scenario of what corporate culture and work practices are about, they're theoretical and written in a sermonizing way. Most people don't get past the first chapter, and they just look nice on the bookshelf.
My favourite authors are John Grisham and Jeffrey Archer. Grisham rapidly established himself and now completely owns the legal space of fiction writing, something I want to do in financial space. I like Archer because he keeps his readers engaged: every chapter is a page turner, and he keeps his writing simple.