At 2:17 a.m., after his forty-seventh rejection, Madhav decided the publishing industry needed to die.
Preferably before breakfast.
He dialled the number printed on one of those publishers’ websites, intending to deliver a speech on literary injustice.
Unfortunately, he had copied the number incorrectly.
“Congratulations,” he announced when someone answered. “You are about to talk to the greatest unpublished writer of the century.”
“Excellent,” said a woman. “Shoot!
Neither of us has achieved anything yet.”
Madhav blinked.
“Are you a writer too?”
“Technically a publisher! I own a publishing house. Practically, I own three printers, two unpaid interns, and a husband who thinks ISBN is a government agency that collects taxes on books.”
Her name was Devika. She had inherited a tiny publishing company and a mountain of debt. She desperately didn’t want to publish another literary masterpiece that sold seventeen copies, including the author’s family.
“What have you written?” she asked.
“A novel about a man who murders his publisher.”
“Autobiographical?”
“Not yet.”
“Send it.”
Devika read the first page, laughed, spilled coffee on the second, and called him.
“This is dreadful.”
Madhav’s heart stopped.
“ In a refreshing way though. I haven’t read such nonsense written with such confidence since my ex-husband’s divorce petition.”
They agreed to publish it under the title
‘The Published Murder’
Neither noticed that the cover featured a photograph of a smiling tax inspector holding a bloodstained fountain pen.
The launch attracted eleven people: six journalists who had mistaken the venue for a press conference announcing a minister’s resignation, three aspiring murder mystery writers, and two policemen investigating the title.
By evening, a video of Madhav arguing with a policeman about whether fictional murder required a permission had gone viral.
By midnight, the book was number one online.
Readers loved its “audacious satire” Literary critics called the tax inspector cover “a devastating metaphor for institutional violence.”
One professor wrote a thesis on the fountain pen and what could be filled in it!
Sales exploded.
Six months later, Madhav and Devika stood outside a bookstore, watching a queue stretch around the block.
“I can’t believe it,” he whispered. “Neither can I,” she said. “I have to confess something to you!” Devika looked miserable.
“I accidentally ordered ten thousand copies”.
“The outsourced printer offered a massive discount for bulk orders. I calculated the savings, got excited, and approved it.”
“You ordered ten thousand books to save money?”
“Of course! I’m a publisher, Madhav. We don’t make money selling books. We make money believing we’ll sell books.”
He buried his face in his hands.
She patted his shoulder. “Cheer up. If we sell every copy, we’ll be millionaires.”
“And if we don’t?”
She brightened. “We can use them as bookmarks for the next book.”
“Devika! Sent my next!” Madhav cried excitedly over the phone.
“Too unrealistic,” his inbox flashed just two words as though someone had imposed a word restriction on mails.
His next book was about how a man accidentally becomes a bestselling author.
