No Writers' Block

Authors who have become literary brands are now attempting to stretch their wings and create new revenue streams

- Monica Bathija

WHEN WRITER ASHWIN Sanghi was writing his first novel, The Rozabal Line, it was just a matter of getting it done and published. The first print run was 2,500 copies and it was anybody’s guess whether there would be a second book. It was only when sales touched 70,000-80,000 copies that Sanghi knew a second book would happen. “Once you have a successful book out there then to a very great extent your inertia is also affected because your publisher then starts following up,” he says. And only when the second one—Chanakya’s Chant, in 2010, a year after The Rozabal Line—did well was he convinced that there should be no looking back.

He went on to complete his third mythology-based fiction The Krishna Key (2012), after which he co-wrote two books in the Private series with American crime writer James Patterson, and a non-fiction 13 Steps series, co-written with domain experts.

Unlike Sanghi, whose writing career was more or less unplanned, author Amish Tripathi says he had a very clear plan in his head right from his first book: To create an interconnected universe of characters, much like the Marvel Universe, over the years.