How I Turned My Debut Novel into an Amazon Bestseller (Part 1 of 3) – The Groundwork

I released the first eBook version of my book Maya’s New Husband as a self-published author on 3 Jan 2015. It immediately hit the Amazon Hot New Releases charts at #1 the first day itself and then the Amazon India Bestseller list, peaking at #1 several times. In fact, even now, eighteen months after its release, the book continues to be at the top of the Amazon India charts, almost always in the top 10 positions. Even on Goodreads, it has a solid rating of 4 out of 5 stars, and as many as 65 reviews and 130 ratings.

People often ask me what I did to bring my book to this kind of acclaim. Hence I thought I would rather blog about it and keep it here for posterity. So, here goes.

In this first part of this three-part series, I talk about the things I did before actually beginning to write even the first word of my novel. Yes, if you plan to be a recognized author, the groundwork is extremely important.

(Disclaimer: The following strategies worked for me. They may not work for you, or they may. And they do entail a fair amount of work. If you are expecting a magic trick, this is your cue to bail out of this page.)

  1. I created a blog six months before I wrote my first book. You definitely need a website or a blog if you are going public. Once your name is out there, people will want to check you out. That is what the website/blog helps you achieve.

  2. Once the blog was made, I started putting up short stories on it every Friday. I went all out to make these short stories as interesting as possible, working on them over and over again, each word and phrase, till I thought they were ready to go. One thing I would like to say here – at every step of my public writing journey, I have always been conscious of being read by a large number of people, and even judged. I make no mistake about that. I might be bordering on paranoia to be thinking of that at all times, but that paranoia helps me create good stuff.

  3. I made a Facebook author page. I kept, and still keep, this page clean and only about my writing work. I promoted the page on my timeline.

  4. I joined several author groups on Facebook. There are tons of them that are really great. I joined not just national but also international groups, because that’s where the real fun lies. I participated in them with meaningful discussions and contributed with my knowledge of the language and the craft. I helped other aspiring authors with my feedback. It helped me make some good friends.

  5. I made a Twitter account, a Pinterest account, an Indiblogger account, a LinkedIn profile, everything. I may not be active in all of these places, but I do have all those accounts and I try to keep them updated.

  6. I started sharing my free stories on these accounts. But not just like that. I designed cover pages for all my stories. Yes, the visual representation is very important. I cannot stress that enough. A lot of people have told me that they have clicked on my page just because the cover page looked appealing. Knowing that, I design cover pages for even a 1000-word short story.

  7. I shared free stories on Wattpad and Figment. I participated in their swap-stories-for-review exchanges. I got great reviews everywhere. I made sure I posted one story every Friday. A time soon arrived when people started waiting for my stories each Friday. A reader actually told me he expected to see a new story from me each Friday. It made me feel high!

  8. I started talking with people who had already gotten published. I found out about their process, and I did research on publishing houses. I saw how traditional publishing compared with self-publishing. I ruled out vanity publishing entirely because that is only another way of insulting your own work before others do it.

  9. I then began outlining my first novel. This happened around August 2014. I spent a lot of time thinking over it, and I spoke with my family about it. Their encouragement was a huge motivating factor.

  10. Around sometime there, I joined a phenomenon that changed my life. It was www.NaNoWriMo.org. I had joined its unofficial Facebook group earlier and I was also a member of its India page, Wrimo India. And then, when the month of NaNoWriMo 2014 started, my journey as a writer truly began.

In the next part of this series, I shall be talking about how NaNoWriMo helped me emerge as a writer, and how I actually went through the writing process. I shall also be talking about the groundwork I did to launch my book.

Stay tuned.

Nayee Duniya (Oct 4, 2015)

Press Mentions

Press Mention in Nayee Duniya (Indore Edition) dated October 4, 2015:

This was a brief coverage of the Rising Litera event titled The Writers Perspectives which was conducted at Cafe Terazza in Indore on October 2-3, 2015.

Nayee Duniya (Oct 4, 2015)

Press Mention in Dainik Bhaskar (Indore Edition) dated October 6, 2015:

This was a brief coverage of the Rising Litera event titled The Writers Perspectives which was conducted at Cafe Terazza in Indore on October 2-3, 2015.

Dainik Bhaskar Oct 6, 2015

Three Tips to Pep up Your Writing

By Summerita Rhayne, author of Against All Rules and other books

Thanks for hosting me on your blog, Neil. Today I’m sharing three ways in which writing can be made to have more impact and vibrancy.

This post was inspired by a question asked in the FWBA (For Writers, By Authors) group on Faebook about how to make the writing more visual. There are innumerable pointers for doing that but I’m going to be brief here and share what I think is important.

It’s common these days to hear advice about taking out adverbs and adjectives and many of the adjuncts to make the writing crisp and direct. I don’t agree with that entirely. That’s because when we read we don’t just want to know Y happened after X and before Z. If all we have is the dialogues and the action, it would seem as though we are reading a film script. A book comprises much more. It allows us to give wings to our imagination and visualize according to our understanding.

At the same time, it is also true that we no longer have the luxury of leisure and even in our reading we want to get to the story as fast as possible.

Here are three pointers which I feel can enhance your writing while keeping it from getting weighty, descriptive or ponderous.

Keep it simple and action oriented.

This is what I’m increasingly doing now in my writing and I’ve found it works great in maintaining reader interest. Instead of using elaborate phrases and descriptions, keep your writing really simple and just describe what is happening. Think of it like a movie scene unfolding before you. I know it sounds contradictory to what I said before but really it isn’t. Let me explain. Those scenes in a movie in which you get close ups – they are the cue for us to write the emotional reaction of the character. Here’s where you can show your writing skills and have the reader tune into your character’s experience real up close. This will serve the purpose of internalization or giving emotional depth to your character and their conflict. Stick to bare description elsewhere. That keeps your focus on your plot. I also find that once I begin to describe simply what is occurring, the words find cadence more naturally.

Use metaphors while looking through the characters’ lens.

Metaphors are a lovely way to enhance your writing. A beautiful way to use metaphors is to filter them through your character’s experience. For example: your character who is a teacher in small school might describe an irritation like the sound of chalk squeaking across the blackboard. Whereas, if your character is a racing driver, it would be more appropriate for them to feel it like the squealing of tires on sudden braking. Think of creative ways in which you can add interesting comparisons.

More dialogue. Less description.

Dialogue gives pace to your writing. We read more quickly and visualize better if the characters are deep in conversation. A tip is to use 40% narration: 60% dialogue. This is what editors are looking for these days from what I hear.

Hope you found this post useful. Do you agree writing should be simple and not too descriptive? Do you agree with other pointers in this post? Do share what you like to do to make your writing more striking.

 

About the author:

Summerita Rhayne is a romance author who has written in historical and contemporary genres. She loves to explore emotional conflicts in her stories.

You can find out her books here, and read more about her on her website. Follow her on Twitter here.

 

The Birth of Maya’s New Husband

The Calling at Calangute

In the pleasantly warm month of August 2014, my family and I went on our annual food, fun and frolic pilgrimage to the wonderful carnival and cashew feni state of Goa. Over the years, this has become almost a ritual for us, a way to unwind from the hectic mores of the routine Mumbai life.

The Calangute Beach Residency where Neil D’Silva’s novel Maya’s New Husband took birth

Now my family consists of me, of course, my wife Anita, and our two lovely angels, Gilmore and Felicia. The kids are quite a handful, but they keep our spirits high. Most of our trips are centered on them, as they should be; there’s precious little that we do for ourselves.

Every year, our trips to Goa turn out to be the annual highlights. We begin looking forward to them from March itself, and the year of 2014 was no different. However, that was only as far as anticipation goes. For, when the trip actually began, we suffered, right from the outset, from a severe case of Murphy’s Law. For the uninitiated, this Law states: If anything has to go wrong, it will.

So, in Goa, this year, everything began going wrong. We decided to go by train this year, which turned out to be a bad idea. Blighted by gregarious co-passengers and facing inordinate delays, we somehow reached Goa. We alighted during a sudden torrential downpour, in which we traveled to our destination — Colva. This was a long and onerous journey because of the rain and a major road accident ahead of us. The next day, we had to go to Calangute, our final destination, and that journey turned out to be misery personified as well. In any case, when we reached Calangute, we were told — horror of horrors — that there was an issue with our booking. Despite having a two-month advance booking, due to an oversight (mea culpa), we had to give up the reservation and then footed it along the beach to another hotel I knew had rooms available.

Finally, we downgraded ourselves, and found ourselves in a passable accommodation, where we would pass our next three days in bliss.

But, alas! Bliss it was not meant to be! For, the very moment that we dumped our bags at our hotel, Anita caught the chills. She ran a temperature, which was brought down by the antipyretics we carried with us, but she was too emaciated to travel anymore. She could only join in the fun from the hotel room.

So, this was the trip in summation. But, what has all of this got to do with Maya’s New Husband?

I’m coming to that.

The one most wonderful thing about our impromptu accommodation was that it gave us a magnificent view of the salty Goan sea. We were right on the beach, and the balcony opened out to the sounds of the lashing waves at every hour of the day.

On the second night there, after the kids had slept, Anita and I sat on this very balcony, close to each other, snuggled in one warm blanket, and looked at the stars. We spoke of general things, mostly about our lives back home, because that ghost never seems to leave us. But, somewhere midway through this conversation, I was reminded of Longfellow’s brilliant phrase: Footprints on the sands of time.

This created a passion in me like no other. I began thinking aloud, with my patiently-listening wife for company. What would happen of me when my journey here is done? Would I be obliterated just like that? Would I be one of those nameless, fameless grains of sand? Or, would I leave a few of my footprints on the sands of time?

What legacy would I leave behind?

I thought aloud, and she listened. And then I told her that I have to follow my dreams. Because, well, ars longa, vita brevis. I decided, then and there, that from that moment on, I will give wings to my fancies. I will leave my footprints in the form of my stories.

I brought my laptop out that night when everyone had slept, and sat through the dead of the night, in that quaint hotel on Calangute Beach, Goa, chipping away at the machine. It was around 3 in the morning that the initial words of Maya’s New Husband began to take shape.

The Inspiration

The story of Maya’s New Husband chose me. I did not choose it.

Horror had always fascinated me, but, for me, horror isn’t just about spirits and ghosts and vampires. It is much more. Real horror is that which you can feel. Real horror needs to have its element grounded in reality. Horror stories that play out in our real world are the ones that are the scariest.

Here, again, my marriage with Anita became an inspiration for the story. Ours was a so-called ‘arranged’ marriage. We knew each other just for a little less than a year before we got married. This is too short a time to understand each other, their likes and dislikes, their pet peeves and fond fancies, or anything for that matter. Despite that, we took the plunge.

From that first day of marriage itself, I had an awareness of how much harder the marriage must have been on her than on me. She was the one who had left everything behind and made a home with me. I was still in the same house I lived in. Her stakes were undoubtedly higher.

Millions of women marry in this manner in India each year. Knowing practically nothing about their husbands, they aspire to make their homes with them. And, a lot of times, they face unspeakable horrors at the homes of these unknown husbands.

What if, a woman married someone who held the most terrifying secret within him? Won’t each moment with such a man be present a new horror for the poor woman?

This was the basic grain of the horror element of Maya’s New Husband. The horror is not because of the themes; it is because of this desolation that Maya surrounds herself with in her new house.

My inspiration took form from my personal observations, and Maya took shape.

View from balcony of Calangute Beach Residency that inspired D’Silva to write MNH

 

The Process

I could not have written the story if I hadn’t been introduced to National Novel Writing Month in 2014. Towards this end, many things had been instrumental. My brother, Roy, helped me in creating an author website. As the website was created, I saw how my short stories got a concrete platform. My interest was piqued, and I started sharing my stories with people, and got a heartening response.

This was what made me confident of writing a full-fledged novel. It was time to give Maya’s New Husband a shape too. During the NaNoWriMo month, I started writing right from November 1, 2014. I wrote all through this month, religiously clocking in several hours every day. Finally, the manuscript was finished on November 21, 2014.

I won the certificate as a NaNoWriMo 2014 Winner. I proudly shared it with everyone I knew.

When we were a week into December, I sat with the editing of the novel. Anita sat next to me all through those hours, and as she read it, I saw the expressions on her face and realized this was something that could hold people’s interest. I shared the story with a few other people and found similar reactions. I knew I had something monumental in my hands; now all I had to do was to edit it thoroughly and share it with the world.

Maya’s New Husband underwent three complete revisions. I added scenes, deleted fluff and when the third version was done, I got the feeling that this was ready to go.

Around this time, I did some research on self-publishing. This is really an amazing thing! Writers no longer have to grovel at the feet of traditional publishers; they can hold out on their own. The Internet is a wonderful place.

On January 1, 2015, I put forth the eBook to the world. It earned strong reviews right from day 1. Maya’s New Husband had taken off.

On January 18, 2015, I was ready with the print version. This was launched at a happening online event, where some of the best self-published Indian authors attended. The event was buzzing through the night, and the book arrived in its print form.

Today, as I see the print version of Maya’s New Husband, I get a feeling that cannot be described in words. Yet, I am only humbly reminded of the beautiful words of another masterful poet, Robert Frost:

But I have promises to keep

And miles to go before I sleep

And miles to go before I sleep.

 

Read the entire success story of Maya’s New Husband here.

Interview with Spectral Hues

Author Neil D’Silva’s debut book Maya’s New Husband, the newest entrant in the Indian horror fiction world, has been released in its print version at a unique online event. We catch the author on the sidelines of the event. Here are the excerpts of the interview:

Congratulations, Neil, on your debut novel Maya’s New Husband. Please tell us about the book.

Maya’s New Husband is a novel in the much-unexplored Indian horror genre. At the core of it, it is a horror story, but what inspired me to write it was the concept behind it. It is about a woman named Maya, living in the Mumbai suburbs, who finds a strange attraction towards a mysterious man in her life.