Author Vikram Sampath laments the lack laws for authors in India

The books market has witnessed a lot of fiction writing in the last few years, about college experiences, love lives and what not.

However, I feel the content or literature of such books is not up to the mark, or adds any value to a reader’s knowledge. We all go through different experiences in life and if all of it was written to make a book, it would simply translate to trash on the sales racks.

But having said that, there does exist a huge market for such mediocre writing, which only erodes the values of what makes a good book. Also, though Indian literature, fiction and non-fiction, has been witnessing a huge number of releases each year, the book business remains a tough one for authors to survive. The creator of the content always gets the rawest of the deal, in terms of royalties, adaptation into films and so on. It takes a lot of effort to write a book, but that is only the beginning of the struggle for an author,  to take it to the readers. Right from promoting the book in the media to coordination for the book to be available on the stands, the onus falls on the writer, which should, technically, be the publisher’s job.

Another challenge is the absence of literary agents, which also forces authors to get shoddy compensation and treatment, once the book is released, as there are no strict governing laws currently. Being an author in India is an exhaustive experience, due to the non-existent laws on copyright and rampant plagiarism. I only hope that as the years pass by, governing laws are put in place to give the creator or writer their proper due, in monetary terms and appropriate recognition for their effort.