Heres so many new books are being released every week during lockdown

In the last three weeks columnist and author Shobhaa De has released four ebooks And though by her own admission she works like a beast writing at a manic pacehellip often 2000 words a day its possibly the quickest she has churned out fiction since she turned authorDes books which are part of the Lockdown Liaisons series by Simon amp Schuster are a collection of short stories that deal with human relationships their breaking and unbreaking during the forced period of isolation brought upon us by the pandemic In a way the books symbolise the opening of floodgates to a slowly growing repository of lockdownthemed literature which might soon become a genre in itselfBut Des new exploits are also remarkable because they come at a time when bookstores are barely managing to sustain some even shuttering But the veteran argues Writers will continue to write And readers will continue to readThe lockdown if anything has given writers the luxury of time and the muchneeded impetus to focus on their work Des own short stories were spurred by what shed like to term as the lockdown syndrome It triggered off all sorts of responses in people across the world We were collectively confused at first and soon the confusion turned into insecurity During this churn and turmoil I felt a strong need to express what I was going through It was my way of chronicling a unique period an unprecedented calamity that had shaken the world and turned it upside down almost overnight I am essentially a storyteller I listen attentively observe a lot My intuitions are pretty strongmdashthe stories started to pour out of me in a crazy gush They just had to be written in the here and now while we were all coming to terms with dramatic cataclysmic changes brought on by a microbe she shares The result is only more and more books Not just by De but other authors too and an interesting future for the world of publishingWhen Des publishers decided to experiment with the format of releasing a new short story collection online once every week on a Saturday she felt it was a gamble well worth taking In fact her first book in the series Leaving and other Stories made it to the number one spot on Amazon the day after it was launched on May 30 Digital is the future ebooks are going to transform publishing she feelsHer sentiments are shared by Commonwealth Prize winning author Siddhartha Gigoo who selfpublished his book Love in the Time of Quarantine in three weeks flat When the Delhibased writer first announced that he was attempting this feat on social media on March 25 the driving force was his favourite writer Kazuo Ishiguro If he could write The Remains of the Day in four weeks why couldnt I write a book in 21 days However Gigoo who has published his earlier five books traditionally was also wary of the medium He wasnt sure if such a risk would augur well Typically people look down upon selfpublishing But given the kind of person I am I like my creative space When you send your manuscript out to publishers you have to deal with the inevitability of having to take their inputs right from editorial to the cover pricing and promotions Also often the author has to literally beg for visibility says GigooAuthor Siddhartha Gigoo who selfpublished his novel says it helped him cut back on the time that would have been lost in looking at his manuscript and picking it up for editing and proofing before typesetting it for printHis book which evolved from an exercise in writing a tercet a threeline poem eventually became a love story between two people separated during the lockdown Simultaneously a moving experience of witnessing a migrant family leaving the city on their feet with a dog following closely had a profound impact on him This also became part of his narrative The book allowed me to have this existential debate about life triggered by the pandemic I wasnt sure if this was the right time to pitch a book of this nature to my publisher or my agent So I decided to selfpublish on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing It made me the master of my own destiny His 15yearold daughter designed the cover of the book while his wife a professional editor took on editing duties For the next 21 days his entire family was involved in the mini project It was quite excitingGigoo says this also helped him cut back on the time that would have been lost in looking at his manuscript and picking it up for editing and proofing before typesetting it for print All of that can take around 18 months Gigoo had done it in a matter of daysWriting a Coronavirus or lockdownthemed book was but an extension of the lived experiences and reality Authenticity is always key whatever the medium says De while speaking about the themes she explored in her book Intimacy love sex and emotional bonds have taken a huge hit during the lockdown People are questioning and rejecting so much of what they imagined was true and permanent Even the strongest bonds got tested during this difficult period The lockdown has taught us one lessonmdashnothing and nobody can be taken for granted Loneliness has become the leitmotif of the lockdown as Sushant Singh Rajputs tragic death has underlined Mental health will dominate future conversations when this ends she addsDuring the lockdown journalist Ziya Us Salam got down to writing about a subject that he had been meaning to work on since 2009 Where many authors chose the digital route author Ziya Us Salam who wrote his nonfiction title Inside the Tablighi Jamaat HarperCollins India in four weeks at the beginning of the lockdown in April chose to go the traditional way A book is a book You cant really compare the joy of having a book in your hand says Salam who declined an offer to write an ebook on racism during the lockdown The book will be out in paperback in July and though currently on preorder it is already at number one in the political ideologies section on AmazonSalam says writing about the 93yearold Islamic organisation which is arguably the worlds and certainly Indias largest was at the back of his mind since 2009 I had seen their various jamaats one of which used to happen at a mosque right opposite my house I had also personally interacted with some of the volunteers of the Tablighi Jamaat I realised that the organisation was treating Islam as a path to spiritual upliftment rather than a lived experience I gave up the idea then he says But the Corona outbreak and the subsequent Tablighi Jamaat congregation which took place in Nizamuddin Markaz between March 1013 and was held responsible for a severe spread of infection compelled him to take up the project when approached by HarperCollins There wasnt even an iota of truth in what was being said about them especially in the electronic media Everyone was out to malign them Somebody had to set the record straight says SalamThe challenges of writing a book during the lockdown were plenty For starters he had to restrict himself to email or telephonic interactions with the volunteers most of whom are difficult to trace as the Jamaat doesnt keep a record on its members He also had to give up an opportunity for a personal interaction with Maulana Saad the chief of the organisation who is based out of Uttarakhand and was at the centre of the controversy Yet what the lockdown did was give me ample time to focus on the book I have written books in less than a month before But here I had to work with fewer resourcesActor and former nationallevel swimmer Shray Rai Tiwari says he was able to pen his memoir and finally express why he quit swimming because of the time he had at his disposal due to the lockdownFor some writing a book during the lockdown also became a medium to help introspect about their own journey Like literary agent Anish Chandy of Labyrinth Literary Agency says People are sitting at home and fretting about ways to reinvent themselves so they are giving writing a shot Thirtyyearold Mumbaibased actor Shray Rai Tiwari who wrote and published his book Almost A Swimmer Excerpts from my Childhood Diary Notion Press is one of them Tiwari who originally hails from Jaipur and used to be a national level swimmer says I left the sport very abruptly and somewhere had come to regret it and had become remorseful A lot of family and friends asked me why I had left swimming and I didnt have an answer Tiwari says that the lockdown allowed him time to reflect on the life he could have had and what could have been I kept my phone aside for three days and started thinking about this Thats when I realised that there was a lot that I had to say or was left unsaid The ebook available on Amazon helped him translate this remorse to gratitude There were lessons I learnt and they were worth sharingChandy says that the lockdown saw some new publishing trends especially in the digital and selfpublishing space Once the lockdown hit a number of publishers decided to experiment with digitalonly books This led to some market buzz but no significant sales in absolute numbers Most publishers reported doubling their ebook sales but thats on a small base he says adding Since people have more time on their hands submissions from writers have also gone up exponentially The quality of all these submissions are more or less the same as before 10 per cent good about two per cent publishable The one thing thats changed is the turnaround time from authors to incorporate editorial comments that has reduced drastically I think the lockdown has had a positive effect on selfpublishing companies because they dont deal with the hard bits of marketing21Numberof daysit tookSiddharthaGigoo towrite hisnovelCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current affairs and a complete guide from food to things to do and events across Mumbai Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates MidDay is now on Telegram Click here to join our channel middayinfomedialtd and stay updated with the latest news