Don't look for controversies: Amish Tripathi to writers

Author Amish Tripathi, who shot to fame by securing a USD 1 million dollar book contract last year for his mythological series, insists a pragmatic approach scores over any controversy while marketing a book.
"A good book selling itself is a fallacy. You need to be practical in figuring out how to sell the book once you finish writing it," said the author who asked authors to refrain from creating any controversy around their work purely to gain popularity.
Tripathi, the author of the "Shiva Triology" was in a conversation with with Meru Gokhale on topic "The Immortals" in Jaipur Literature festival here today.

Advising aspiring authors to best themselves with fine writing he said, "Write with the purity of your heart. Write for yourself and for your soul."
He stressed on the importance of having a side job so that authors were not compelled to compromise on their writing work. Tripathi also urged them to form a better marketing strategy to enable successful marketing and sales.
He pointed out that in India, most controversies were created for the purpose of marketing, which he said was not a good approach.

A former banker, Tripathi who has written "The Immortals of Meluha", "The Secret of the Nagas" and "The Oath of the Vayuputras", shared his view on religion and said that it was the God himself who chose him to write about him.

Responding to a question from the audience member who asked how the author set boundaries while writing on mythology, Tripathi said,"It is he who sets the boundaries and I have no control."
The author said there is something to learn from every religion and besides idols of Hindu Gods he has symbols from other religions in his puja room.
"This is the Indian way," he remarked.
The author gave example of the Manganiyars in Rajasthan who belonged to Muslim community and sang ballads devoted to Lord Rama.
"...And also the vast majority of people visiting Ajmer Dargah Sharif are Hindus, this is the beauty and the Indian way," he said.

Tripathi, said that he was atheist but as he wrote more and more, he was pulled back to religion.