We all have different dreams in different phases of our lives. One of the few things that I wanted to do even as a child was a writing a book. A book that people could hold in their hands and read. Like all other childhood dreams it got shoved under the carpet once I grew up. To be brought out some 15-20 years later when I had settled down in my career and life, and had more leisure time at hand. Because that’s the way things are, right? Well, wrong. This might have been true for the baby boomers – my parents’ generation – but not the Gen X, to which I belong. And here I am telling you how I became a published author while freelancing full time, taking care of a family and two kids.

My first full-time job – copy editor

Unknowingly, I started on my path to becoming a published author with my first proper job. I say proper job because just after completing my post graduation I taught computer science to graduate and postgraduate students for a couple of years. Just character building, as I like to say.

Anyways, when I had had enough of character building I decided to move on to and experience the corporate world.

Now, I have a postgraduate degree in computer management. What it did was to confuse me whether I should pursue a career in computer science or management. Computer science is a subject I have been doing since my school days and I really love programming and designing solutions logically. Management was again something that I thought I would enjoy doing. I say I thought I would enjoy because till that point of time I had no experience of doing a Management job. Even the project I had done in college was developing a payroll system, nothing to do with management. Although in hindsight I believe that when colleges impart a sort of dual degree to a student, they should also ensure students do at least one project in each, so that they get an idea of what is to come in future and take a decision accordingly.

Anyways, so I was applying left and right to both computer and Management jobs. One fine morning in in January 2004 I received two calls. 1 was from Thomson press, where I was supposed to join as a copy editor. The second was from Adobe HR where I was supposed to join as the HR manager. I had to decide what to do. I did not know what to do. I was so so worked up about it that I could not even rejoice that suddenly I had two offers in my hand.

I called up my elder brother who had been working for some time and I felt he would be able to help me. I realize now that he was very much the right person to help because he did not tell me what to do; he asked me to look at the pros and cons of both the jobs and judge what I wanted. Eventually I decided in favour of being copy editor at Thomson press because it appealed to me. Why, I cannot tell you. May be because I have always been interested in studying and the idea of reading physics journal papers was appealing. It had something to do with academics so again it was appealing. 

I joined as a copy editor and that became my first step towards an eventual writing career.

Fast forward to 2013 and I became a full time freelance writer. I quit my teaching job in 2012 to take care my kids. Soon after, I got an opportunity to develop School Management System for a local School and enjoyed it immensely. But I also realised that software development was not something I could pursue because it needed more of my time than I could afford. I loved writing and decided to build my career in the field of writing.

Writing Computer Science textbooks

I got my first break in freelancing from NIIT, a company I had worked for full time earlier. It was 14th January 2014. I remember the date so clearly because 14th January is considered to be an auspicious date by us. Long story short, I started writing K-12 Computer Science textbooks for NIIT in March and continued for the next 12 months. As the books were for their education initiative in schools, they did not carry my name as author. I was disappointed, but learnt all about writing high quality computer science books and many things about publishing industry in that one year.

Later I worked with many textbook Publishers but it was only in 2020 that I saw my name as author for Navneet Publications. 

I become a self-published author

My first fiction was a collection of short stories – Flashes from Life – self published on Amazon. When I quit my job in 2012, I started writing a memoir. An outline, a very interesting introduction, and a couple of chapters are still lying in my hard disk. And I do intend to complete it one day. I am not putting a date to it because I want it to be a labour of love, not deadlines.

All the while I continued to write, edit and review computer books. But my heart was into fiction. I love reading fiction and wanted to write stories like Jeffrey Archer and Agatha Christie. I kept writing stories – short and long and flash. Anything that I wanted. I read a lot about the craft of writing, and implemented them too. I also kept sending pitches to publishing houses but never heard back from them. Digging more about the publishing industry on the Internet, and talking to senior authors, made me realize that was the way publishing industry worked. They take only potential bestsellers. The rest can go to hell for all they care. And one can’t even blame them; they are here to do business not charity. And publishing is a high stakes business. Lots of money, effort and reputation is at stake on each book a publisher undertakes to put out in market.

Finally, getting frustrated with the whole process, I decided to self-publish on Amazon. Before going for a full fledged novel, I decided to publish something small, so that I understand the process of publishing on the platform. I chose 14 of my short stories and published them in October 2019. It felt good to have finally pressed that publish button.

But after a couple of days I realized I wanted to touch my book; I wanted something I could hold in my hands. Unfortunately Amazon does not provide hard copy printing on its Indian platform. So again the whole experience of publishing remained incomplete for me. I did find a roundabout way of getting my hands on a hard copy but it was simply that — a roundabout.

I ordered 25 print copies from amazon.com and got it delivered at my brothers US office address, someone brought it to the India office and finally my brother couriered them to me. After keeping one copy for himself.

I look for a vanity publisher

As I have told you, I keep writing while everything else is going on. I don’t remember when and how, but one of my personal essays got converted into a non-fiction short book. I decided to test waters with a vanity publisher with that book. After much deliberation and considerations, I got the book edited independently and used the services of White Falcon Publishing for printing and sales. As per our contract, they sell the book on their own platform and Amazon. Printing and shipping is their headache. I paid for book cover design, type setting and Amazon ads. I also got author copies. When I compared costs of everything I would have to do independently, I realized there was not much monetary difference but there was no headache as well.

The only thing I have lost is control over my ebook on Amazon, something which I am not at all comfortable with right now. 

The lockdown was imposed just after my book – How to Live Happily Ever After – got published in March 2020 and so only crickets have come to my sales pages on Amazon and White Falcon. But then you know that I believe in character building and I have already begun on my next book!! A non-fiction on time management.

Till I publish that book – yes, I do have a deadline for that – I will leave you with the link to my book How to Live happily Ever After. Go to this page, read all about it and purchase if you want.
Happy reading!!