Amish Tripathi is the author of the Shiva Trilogy, a series of novels that claims to have sold 1.5 million copies, grossing over Rs. 40 crore in sales over two years; a movie is being made on the first book of the trilogy - The Immortals of Meluha - with rights being bought by Karan Johar's Dharma Productions in 2012. In this interaction with Medianama, Tripathi speaks about the ebooks space in India, the impact that that the digital space has had on the marketing of books, serialising books online, and the idea behind creating an album and releasing music related to the novels. Medianama: How does the digital space impact you as an author? Tripathi: E-books make hard copy books a lot cheaper provided that the e-readers are also cheap. They also make distribution easier and cheaper. E-books are also more readily available. In a small village, you might not have a book store but you can download the e-book instead if you have internet. What’s goes into a fantasy book is only about 25% of what is in the mind of about of a fantasy writer. There’s an entire world in our mind. A fantasy writer can communicate more content in an e-book than in a physical book. In an e-book, we can provide much more like maps, links giving a reading experience that is richer. However, the e-book market is smaller in India. The revolution is coming but it is not likely to come too soon to India. Digital has opened…
