Penning to inspire

It is not very often that in the world of publishing, a self-published debutant author tops the country’s best-seller lists, that too, in a span of mere few weeks. But it did happen, leaving the country’s readers jaw-dropped, when 23-year-old Savi Sharma, penned her first book, Everyone Has A Story, and went ahead to sell over 1,00,000 copies of the novel in just 100 days! The numbers surely were a record of sorts, in the commercial fiction space in India.

Rising from being ‘Savi-Sharma-who’ to becoming one of the top selling female fiction writers in India is a journey in itself. This romance writer is now out with her second book, This Is Not Your Story. While literary critics writer are harsh on her writing style, Savi is clear that she is writing commercial fiction and it’s the chords of the mass audience that she needs to strike, with ease.

Talking about the idea behind her latest book, Savi shares, “When my first book released, Everyone Has a Story, my purpose of writing that book was to inspire people, and make them pursue their dreams. The second book is not just about inspiring, but compelling people to take a step towards achieving their dreams, because I believe that inspiration is just the first step. Only when we take an initiative and work towards our dreams is when they are fulfilled. I wanted to convey this idea and that is how the idea for the second book occurred. So this story is also a more challenging one with more complex characters and situations.”

In our life, one mostly tend to be influenced by our family, friends, colleagues and does what they want him/her to do, and not what one genuinely wants, which makes each of our stories not our own, the novelist opines. The author who quit her CA studies to become a storyteller shares, “This Is Not Your Story is a tale of courage, hope and self-discovery, which are explored by the three main characters. One is a CA student, who wants to pursue his dreams, while his parents want him to finish his CA and how he finds the courage to go on a path chosen by him, about a girl who tries to keep her faith in love despite all odds, and the story of a startup guy who tries to find himself through failures.”  

The writer, who says she loves to follow the writings of Paulo Coelho, Amish Tripathi among others, also adds that she knew that her debut writing would do well, even as she published it without a traditional publisher. “I knew that I had a good story, and I knew that I had the tool of social media through which I could reach out to people. With the right usage of digital platforms, I could know my potential readers, receive their feedback, stay connected with them. If my readers would write to me on any of the platforms, I would personally contact them back to know what they felt about the book. These are some of the things which help an author in the long run. I kept all these factors in mind while writing the second book as well.” So what’s planned ahead for Savi? “Right now, I’ll be going on a book tour — covering 28 cities in three months. During this journey I’m hoping to find an inspiration for my third book and make the decision on which story I would like to tell next,” she says.