Confessions of a lit agent: How to sell books on cinema and handle film star egos

Film books are tricky business, not only because some film writers have egos as big as the stars they write about, but also because a lot of the material for the book is dependent on the availability of their insanely busy and fickle subjects. The era of dry and clichéd cinema books such as Ten Classics of Indian Cinema, Twenty Evergreen Stars of Indian Cinema, Thirty Bollywood Films that Permanently Altered the Brain Chemistry of the Hapless Viewer et al is long gone. Film writers now have hardly any option but to do books that have lots of access to their subject and are rich in anecdotes. Or, as an editor habitually says, "Hitherto untold stories". Even if that means a lot of trouble; before a forthcoming meeting with a star, the writer may have to use past life regression therapy to know what was told to him during the previous one.

Any publishing insider would know that the king of Bollywood had signed a contract for his autobiography a little less than a decade ago, that a Bollywood superstar whose biography was to be released on his 60th birthday is 62 now and there is still no sign of the book, that the thespian Dilip Kumar’s autobiography took ages to be completed. Another major problem with film books is that somehow they just don’t sell. If a film book is able to sell 3,000 copies, it is considered a success. If it goes into reprint, it's considered a minor miracle. And if it sells more than 10,000 copies, it goes down in the annals of Indian publishing history. Naturally, because of these low figures, the advances for film books are also abysmally low.

Some film writers are just passionate about their theme or subject, but for those who crib about how they will lose out on a more lucrative film or screenwriting project, or have to pay from their own pockets for travel and research, I give them my, by now tried and tested, spiel:

1) This is just the advance royalty. It's not the total income from the book. If the book becomes big, you'll make a lot more money from it.

2) Treat this as a labour of love and not a money-making proposition

3) Writing a book is a very fulfilling experience. The pleasure you feel from holding your own book is incomparable.

4) "You're filling a major gap in film studies by writing this book" if it's a general book on cinema; or, if it’s a biography/autobiography, "There have been books on several lesser film stars than the star you're writing about. You are righting a grave wrong". Then there is the rampant problem of official/authorised versus unauthorised biographies. Publishers love official/authorised biographies, because then the star too pitches in for the promotion efforts – something which is usually the sole responsibility of the writer. This also gives the editors the rare opportunity to actually edit manuscripts and not spend most of their working hours defending and covering up for the gaffes committed by their inept marketing teams.

Who cares if the writer has no control over the book and all the scandalous, controversial, and interesting episodes about the star's life are completely glossed over and substituted by mind-numbingly boring interviews with his family, friends, colleagues, his favourite school teacher, his first ayah, driver, dhobi, barber (access, baby!) et al and some rare, although I must admit, hitherto unseen pictures of the star taking his first baby steps, cutting his first birthday cake, or climbing a tree?

I remember how a film star with a very controversial past cleverly authorised one of my writers to write a book, but only on his cinema and not his personal life. The reason given was that he has a wife and children now, although the said wife and children were present even when he was having clandestine affairs with his co-stars.

Although unauthorised biographies are the real deal, because for a change the writer can write the truth, they pose a legal dilemma for the publisher, especially if the subject is alive. How can I forget when I had turned lawyer for a day for one of my authors’ books on an influential, bad-tempered TV and film producer whose favourite pastime is issuing legal notices to journalists and rival filmmakers? The project was initially authorised and had her full access and support. However, when word about the book reached her screenwriter best friend, who has written his own Wikipedia entry (!), and  had wanted to do a book on her for the longest time, all hell broke loose. The author, who had spent years on research was told that he could not publish the book. Luckily, the publishing house, which is headed by one of the bravest editors in Indian publishing, decided to go ahead with the project. I was worried for the author and actually did a legal edit on the book since the editor working on the book actually wanted the author to be more critical of the producer! I deleted harmless lines about this czarina’s poor academic record, how her parents were very worried about the chubby teenager’s future, her mother’s fondness for playing cards, the well-documented fact about how she used her father’s influence to land some of her first projects. I even changed  particular words such as the word "begged" in "how she begged TV channels for high viewership slots"

True to her reputation, the czarina issued a legal notice when the book came out just because her Jupiter-sized ego was hurt. After reading the lines, "You have caused our clients irreparable injury and loss..." in the notice, I was reminded of a chat with the author (now a friend) during which he told me that before he recorded his first interview with one of the aggrieved clients for the book, she offered him some "Prasad" so that he writes some sense!

S is the loveliest and most endearing person from the film industry. Naturally, I was very upset when one of our projects together got stuck. She had been commissioned to do a monograph of a film released several decades ago. When she started research for the book, she realised that everyone associated with the film and their grandparents had been long dead and the one or two people who were alive had turned senile or had lost all memory. The valiant S still made an effort to meet these half-dead people to get something, anything about the film out of them, but to no avail. The daughter of the long dead hero of the film also didn't remember much about the film, even though she was quite alert. Despite having a very hectic job, S spent hours on end in many archives, but couldn’t find anything of value.

After several months of trying, S finally gave up on the project. In order to save the book deal, S and I brainstormed other ideas. In film writing, it's very common to substitute an idea that is not working with another idea to keep the relationship and contract alive. Should she do a biography on Uttam Kumar? She knew the family well and could get hitherto unknown stories and rare photographs (of cutting cakes and playing in the park) out of them. The idea didn't work, as a publisher had already burnt its fingers with an Uttam Kumar biography. One option was to do a book on Prasenjit, but since he was already doing an autobiography, a biography didn't make any sense. Would a book on Rahul Bose work then? The publisher wasn’t interested. What about Ashok Kumar? Hadn't he come out with an autobiography many years ago? 

Unfortunately, he had.

I was reduced to tears when a journalist of S' stature started suggesting names such as Joydeep Mukherjee, Mithun Chakraborty, a Bengali filmmaker who has won more than a dozen national awards, but is unfortunately not known to anyone outside of those who bestowed, rather magnanimously, these awards on him. And horror of horrors, even Bappi Lahiri! Finally, we decided to zero in on a rather difficult veteran actor, who is only remembered on August 15 and then forgotten till August 15 of the next year.

My only rather sad memory of the legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray is watching him give his honorary Oscar acceptance speech from his deathbed. I must confess I have not seen any of his landmark films. I remember telling an editor friend of mine, who has now shifted to Italy, that perhaps I was a phoney who specialised in film books without having any knowledge of them. The always positive and encouraging friend told me that it didn’t matter. That as long as I felt these books had a market, I was doing fine and not being untrue to myself. I guess she was right, otherwise which agent in his right mind would have signed up for the biography of a technician, who had assisted a famous director on several of his films? The only difference was that the famous director in question was Satyajit Ray. The truth is that anything remotely related to the legendary auteur has a ready market. Hell! Even the mention of the name "Satyajit Ray" in a book could get publishers interested.

With no knowledge of this technician and Ray and his rich legacy, I started pitching the book. I kept getting rejections.  It had been months since the proposal had been pitched and just one publisher remained. The author was getting very restless. I got an idea: play up the fact that the chapter on the technician's relationship with Satyajit Ray would constitute the bulk of the book and there would be at least 50 rare pictures of the technician and the auteur at work. I told the author to milk the Ray connection as much as possible and that nobody wanted to read about the technician's childhood and college days or the first time he operated the camera.

Somehow, this spiel also did not seem to work with the editor. A few months and several hundred SMSes to the editor later, I got a call telling me that the book had been accepted. The promise of those 50 unseen pictures of Ray clinched it for us. My Ray theory proved to be right.

I have numerous other experiences with Bollywood books and their starry subjects, but I guess I’ll probably use them in a book.