WHY INFLUENCER PUBLISHING IS HAVING A BIG MOMENT
With social media celebrities turning to book publishing, guaranteeing bestsellers and hype, a look at what’s motivating this switch. And what this means for authors without a strong online presence
Last month, Penguin India, the largest English language books publisher in the subcontinent, threw a party in Mumbai. An impressive a air by all accounts — a ve-star hotel as the venue, stars and recognisable faces in the crowd, and enough food, drinks and conversation to satisfy even the hardest-to-please guests. “We had Durjoy Datta dancing, Ankur Warikoo doing some creative stunts with the attendees, and tote bags, books and other merchandise as party favours,” says Pallavi
Narayan, head of communications and brand partnerships at Penguin Random House India.
Other headliners that evening included actor and author Neena Gupta, radio jockey Stutee Ghosh, and sexual health educator Tanaya Narendra aka Dr. Cuterus. Penguin Palooza is what they called the event, designed to celebrate the “book inuencer” — someone who has carved out a space for themselves online, doing book reviews, author interviews and other literary content. Their followers could even be a modest 5,000, a far cry from the millions a fashion or food inuencer attracts.
Over the last few years, Indian publishers have taken a cue from their counterparts in the West as they increasingly consult social media inuencers to create a buzz around the latest releases. But what we are now seeing are inuencers trying out the role of author themselves and often creating bestsellers. According to entrepreneur Ankur Warikoo, famous for his YouTube videos on personal nance — his most popular video (4.4 million views) is on “how to pay a 25-year loan in just 10 years” — when he rst decided to pen a book, “I was writing for an audience that doesn’t read or has never read.”
Last month, style blogger and fashion entrepreneur Masoom Minawala launched her rst book, She’ll Never Make It ( Juggernaut Books). Minawala has a following of 1.3 million on Instagram. On April 14, she put up the rst post about her book on her Instagram account — the cover blurred, and a heartfelt note about what she called her “biggest project”. The next day, she revealed the cover of the book and announced its release. The same day, the book hit No.1 on Amazon in the overall books category, with over 800 orders placed in a single day.
In March, entertainment content creator Malini Agarwal aka Miss Malini launched her second book, Under the In uence (HarperCollins India), with a star-studded party in Mumbai. Agarwal was early on the inuencer front. “I was always this face on the scene of Bollywood that used to document it as a creator before the word ‘inuencer’ was coined,” she says.
Since the release of her book, Agarwal has embarked on a pan-India book tour, with both free and ticketed events that involve a show, workshop or curated interaction. While ticketed events