Creative collaboration
Could Samrat Upadhyay have achieved his success in Nepal?

By Ashutosh Tiwari

Samrat Upadhyay is a professor of English at the University of Indiana in the United States. Most readers of this magazine know him as a Nepali author of two collections of short-stories and one novel. Put out by a top-bracket American publishing company, Samrat?s books have been translated into several languages, and favorable reviews have appeared, among others, in the New York Times and Time magazine. Pundits of Nepali literature never tire of arguing the literary merits, or lack thereof, of Samrat?s fiction. But even they grudgingly concede that when it comes to revenue generation, there is no doubt that Samrat is the most successful Nepali author in history. Could Samrat have achieved a comparable success by being a writer in Nepal?

In a roundabout way, veteran Nepali writer Kali Prasad Rizal says yes. In an issue of Himal Khabar Patrika, Rizal once rued that if only his parents had sent him to a school like St. Xavier?s, he too would have grown up to be a successful writer in English -- rivaling, if not surpassing, Samrat?s fame. Rizal?s claim was certainly intriguing. But what is one to make of the fact even St. Xavier?s, in its 50-year history in Nepal, has produced only one Samrat despite having graduated hundreds of fluent-in-English students?

Surely fluency alone takes one only so far, and if you add ?hard work? to the equation, maybe a bit further. Since there is no shortage of hardworking and fluent-in-English Nepalis who have not had much success as writers, it?s time to accept that in addition to fluency and hard work, an aspiring writer needs something essential to catapult her to the front rank of the profession. That something essential is a market-friendly support network of fellow-writers, agents, publishers, editors, marketers and distributors, libraries and newspapers, and translators.

Take Samrat?s case, as an example.

By his own admission, he gets up at 4 am, and writes for several hours everyday. That?s hard work. He shares his drafts with colleagues, writers and editors. All of them volunteer time to provide detailed criticisms, suggestions and comments. Based on the advice he receives, he revises his work. In the process, he deletes some paragraphs, and adds new sub-plots or endings. In some cases, he discards everything he has written, and re-writes everything from scratch. The work is lonely, but the process of thinking through is collaborative, and it takes time and effort.

Next in Samrat?s support system stands a book agent, who knows publishers and their requirements. She is the writer?s advocate. Since she works for a commission, her goal is to sell Samrat?s manuscript to the highest bidder. Her success is never guaranteed. But in the competitive world of American publishing, where nine out of 10 manuscripts are summarily rejected, getting a good book agent is important, for she knows what manuscripts appeal to which publishers. Once the publisher accepts the manuscript, he hands it over to an in-house editor, who knows potential readers? tastes. She consults Samrat for additional revisions, and, with a team of experts, decides on illustrations, cover photos and the price before sending it to press.

Meantime, marketers devise press materials for promotion: They may want Samrat to go on book tours or appear in media. Copies of the book get shipped to book-stores and Amazon.com, and libraries. Readers? clubs start inviting Samrat for speaking sessions, while newspapers and magazines publish reviews. All these generate a buzz for the book, thereby increasing its chances for higher sales. If the book does well in the US, Indian publishers may purchase the rights to re-print it in South Asia. And this is how Samrat?s book gets into your hands in Nepal.

But it is precisely this sort of market-friendly support system that?s glaringly absent in Nepal. Much of it is due to the fact that the market here is so small that no agent can hope to survive by selling manuscripts to publishers. Besides, with low returns, publishers do not have any incentive to spend money on editing, designing and marketing. Compounding the problem further is our own writers who seem to think that they are so talented that even their rough drafts are eminently publishable, requiring no editorial support. The result is that it?s our writers who end up doing all the work -- from deciding what to write to selling badly designed books with unedited contents.

It?s only recently that we are beginning to see some unbundling of professional responsibilities. The Madan-Puraskar winning novel Palpasa Caf鬠for instance, was written by Narayan Wagle, but published and marketed by Nepalaya, a firm that previously marketed film and music. Yes, it?s tempting to think that because of competitive pressures, rising demands for high-quality books and falling technology costs, the Nepali book market will get sophisticated in years ahead. But until that happens, let?s be clear: No Nepal-based author can hope to have a comparable kind of success that Samrat has had no matter how talented or hardworking she is.

Meantime, the lesson to be drawn from Samrat?s American example is this. In today?s world, a creative work is never the product of only one person, even when that person starts it. It?s the time-consuming collaborative process ?- with different professionals coming together to add relevant bits of expertise along the way -- that shapes how the product is revised, edited, designed, packaged, differentiated, marketed and sold. Remove one or two players from the support structure, and creative outputs will suffer.

Indeed, collaboration is how creative goods ? from novels to rock music to movies to software programs ? make their mark in the marketplace. And collaboration is at the heart of the success of creative places like Silicon Valley or Hollywood (think how long the credit rolls are at the end of movies). This is why, for our creative industries to flourish in times ahead, it?s not enough to say ? as we always say -- that we have the talents who work very hard in Nepal. What we need to do is look for ways develop the rightly unbundled market-support structures so that our local Samrats in all creative fields can reach their full potential in Nepal.

(Special thanks to Ajit Baral at FinePrint Publication for helpfully critical comments on an earlier draft. This article was originally published in Kathmandu?s The Boss business monthly magazine, May 2006 issue).