Match Making

      Speaking of bride takes me to the topic of ‘match making’, you know the precursor to becoming a bride! As I continue in my efforts to find a suitable literary agent/ publisher for my book, it has convinced me that this process is also like match making. You have to keep trying and not give up hope. To find a life partner, you have to inform your social network that you are available. And then hope that some one might know some one, who might know some one, who might know some one, who might know some one…who might be just right for you! It is said that a spinster at 40, still hopes to be a bride someday. Similarly a writer at any age, hopes to be recognized as a published author some day!

      Here is a very funny story of how a book got published. Its link appeared as automatically generated information on one of the posts in this blog. Recently I read a very interesting article in Fortune magazine, titled ‘ The Best Advice I Ever Got ‘. I read it with the intention of applying some of the advice towards making my book a reality. Now this is where the fun begins. The best advice that Thomas S. Murphy ( Former CEO, Capital Cities/ ABC ) got is as follows:

” Don’t spend your time on things you can’t control. Instead, spend your time thinking about what you can.”

      When this advice is applied to my book proposal, it means that I am wasting my time! For surely, I cannot control if and when my book will get published. After this I read an interview of Larry Page, the co-founder of Google, and boy, did it instill hope in me! Here is a quote by him:

” In our first founders’ letter in 2004, we talked about the risk profile with respect to doing new innovations. We said we would do some things that would have only a 10% chance of making $1 billion over the long term. But we don’t put many people on those things; 90% work on everything else. So that’s not a big risk. And if you look at where many of our new features come from, it’s from these riskier investments.”

      Given the fact that I spend 10% of my leisure time on getting my book published, and 90% on others, its not a waste of time at all! Ofcourse if the book becomes a reality, then it would be the best investment of my leisure time Now back to match making. So do you know some one, who might know some one, who might know some one, who might know some one, who might know some one…who might know some one in the publishing world, who might be interested in this book. If you do, then do let me know!

Ratna