Be in charge of your good luck

thing elusive, which is beyond our control. He adds, “The book contains theory pertaining to how we can be in charge of our luck. It is also accompanied by anecdotes from lives of successful people like Narendra Modi, Sachin Tendulkar and A.R. Rahman as examples.”

Ashwin says that even in the publishing world, the most popular authors are very often not the best authors but the ones who will simply not take ‘no’ for an answer. “Each time my first book, The Rozabal Line was declined I would come home and take a look at a graph I had made, of authors who had been rejected — J.K. Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected 12 times, Stephen King’s 30 times and Gone with the Wind was rejected 38 times before it was finally published. So I used to tell myself that perhaps every rejection was getting me close to these veteran authors — because one needs to find a way to motivate oneself and keep going.”

Ashwin had then selfpublished his book, which was then picked up by a traditional publishing house and went on to become a best-seller. He says, “Even if you are confident of your work, you can’t keep waiting forever and self-publishing helps one get their talent noticed as there can be only three possible consequences — it won’t make it at all, or even if it’s not doing well, a publishing house gets interested and sees promise in your writing or your book becomes a bestseller anyway with the support of anyone else.”

And of course, it is crucial to keep in mind that even if critics slam your book, it is just one person’s point of view and has no effect on how the book will do commercially.

The author says that he is currently working on his next fictional novel, Sialkot Saga, which will be in the historical and mythological space like his earlier books. Meanwhile, there are talks on, about a film adaptation of Chankya’s Chant and a television show based on Krishna’s Key.

To budding writers, Ashwin advices, “You need to be disciplined and write something every day. Don’t be damned if your book isn’t picked up by a publisher instantly. Persevere till something finally clicks — in short, be in charge of your good luck.”