AUTHOR’S BIO:
Rahul Sharma is by education a qualified Chartered Management Accountant, Associate Member of the esteemed Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, London, U.K.
He holds a post Graduate Management diploma and is a commerce graduate from Kurukshetra University. Rahul has worked in various MNCs in the capacity of accountant for around 10 years in Delhi/NCR and the USA.
He holds a post Graduate Management diploma and is a commerce graduate from Kurukshetra University. Rahul has worked in various MNCs in the capacity of accountant for around 10 years in Delhi/NCR and the USA.
The authoritative, boring and rudimentary style of corporate operating didn’t match Rahul’s artistic temperament and he decided to call it a day being an accountant. Presently, Rahul and his wife Pooja run their own business. Rahul spend his morning teaching Hatha Yoga to his handful pupils of all age and background, day at their business and evening reading his subject of interests and writing – which is his highest calling and fulfills his creative instincts.
The author is 35 years of age, married and has a daughter. Currently, he lives in his hometown Panipat, Haryana with his family. His subjects of interest are; Occult sciences, spirituality, and religion.
1. Who and what inspired you to write?
Only two things have appealed to me most in my life – Food and Books, in that order. As far as I could remember, I was always creating one story or the other in my mentation and I had listeners too. I can visualise vividly how during my school days when as part of the punishment, a handful of my classmates along with me were asked to stand outside the classroom and I would bake stories on the spot and how they all loved it and laughed innocently at my way of narrating them. I had a love for comic books too and loved many Indian characters and I invented one character of my own called “Chutku Lal” and many of my verbal stories were around this hilarious character famous then in my circle of friends. I did not use a pen and notebook to create those stories for I liked them to happen in serendipity, I could cook them on the spot and that gave me a true high which I still miss. So, I moved from comics to novels to spiritual texts, philosophy, yoga and god knows anything which satiated my words voracity. When getting all those educational certificates and paraphernalia along with decent jobs didn’t satisfy me and I didn’t feel motivated and happy in what I was doing, I began to ponder and observe myself and it took me several years but I found out that I want to do two thing in my life at any cost, one was to learn and practise Hatha Yoga and the other was to write and get published.
I have been able to complete both the items on my bucket list and adding more to the list!
2. What challenges did you face while writing and getting published?
Writing was fun and didn’t present any particular pain to me but getting published was really a tough job and required a lot of patience and hope. There was always an element of doubt and fear was but natural. The internet is full of information of all kind and like the world itself, the internet is also full of deleterious inputs from depressed, spiteful and actually duped and hurt people, so it was very easy to feel at once down and depressed. There were information about publishing scams and the long tiresome process in getting published and the resultant nothingness extracted out from the book. All this was enough for a budding writer to call this quest of getting a publisher and reaching out to the target readers off. But, I decided after the initial perturbation of my will that I shall pursue this dream of mine and should only look at the shinier, brighter side of things. And slowly from there I begin to see light.
3. How did you come to know about the literary agency THE BOOK BAKERS?
I was looking for literary agents on internet and found many results. One fine day, I found out all about The Book Bakers and Mr. Suhail Mathur and how he had been leading writers towards their destinies.
4. How did THE BOOK BAKERS help you and what would you like to say about them?
My manuscript was rejected by four literary agents and three publication houses before getting accepted by The Book Bakers for representation. Mr. Suhail Mathur explained to me the whole process nicely and eloquently in the beginning itself and guided me through the initial editing and the submission process. It was he who first of all showed confidence in the book and told me that it would certainly get published.
5. How do you see literary success for yourself?
For a writer, the success is the love of his readers. I don’t equate commercial success of a book with the love, understanding and respect an author may get through dissemination of his words. The commercial success as I understand is all a psychological process, same as first advertising tacitly to smoke through movies and other mediums and then warning about its ill effects, thus making a large sum of money just by playing with the minds of susceptible people. Same is with book markets, better known people, so called celebrities etc. gets to sell their pieces quickly through psychological pitching also called PR.
6. When can we expect your next book?
I am in the middle of my second work and hope to finish it by March 2019.
7. Any message or tips for aspiring authors?
Don’t follow anyone and just be yourself. I have observed that when one idea gets accepted, many new authors try to replicate it and try to make something similar. Like, when Harry Potter was a huge success, many writers started writing books about magic school and wizards. We can certainly see a phenomenon with Indian writers currently that there is huge input of mythology fiction in the market due to previous success of this theme and many writers are writing just to make the book more marketable and presentable and I suppose not many are fulfilling their inner calling and are merely churning out words mechanically.
I believe an author doesn’t write keeping in mind the trends of the market but an author writes to fulfil his heart’s longing for concealed, unintelligible emotions being materialised in to words and that work may then become a trend!
BOOK NAME: IMPROVISED CAGES
PUBLISHER: BIG FOOT PUBLICATIONS
BOOK SYNOPSIS/BLURB:
Reuben was caught ‘sinning’ by his mother and was taken to the father of the local church. Reuben, in turn went to meet a pimp in London to find the ‘truth’. Did he find the answers to his questions? His questions are everyone’s questions no one bothers to ask. Reuben takes a daring step and what shall be the repercussions?
Kamal, a timid but talented boy is overlooked by his parents and rejected by his peers, he has imaginary friends. There are secrets pertaining to his childhood and his violent personality nobody knows except his imaginary friends. What becomes of such a deluded mind even if it tries to be normal & what is normal after all?
Appalling, disturbing and mind boggling tale of two boys who existed 100 years apart!
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