ŷ������

Hindi Translation of ‘Songs of the Mist�� Translated by Avnish and Archana, the book is being published by Story Mirror �� Publisher from Delhi. And here is a little excerpt from the book�� I hope that you like the new avatar�� __ Shashi �� नम�� शिवा�� Om Namah Shivaya

My blog �� SHADOW DANCING WITH MIND shares the TOP space in spiritual field amongst the blog of respected Sadhguru of ISHA Foundation’s as well as with some of the most popular spiritual blogs from across the world. My blog has been selected by respected aggregator FeedSpot. Here is what they say�� ______ This is the most comprehensive list ��

Happy to know that my blog �� SHADOW DANCING WITH MIND shares the TOP space in spiritual field amongst respected Sadhguru of ISHA Foundation’s blog and with some of the most popular spiritual blogs from across the world. Selected by certain respected aggregators. Here is what they say�� ______ This is the most comprehensive list of best Spiritual blogs ��

14 Year Old Anwesha Discovers the Magic of “OM�� �� Times of India When I read the news of Anwesha’s discovery about the power of Pranava Naad ‘Om��, I felt that all is still not lost in India in context of our ancient culture and heritage. In my earlier post on Creation: The Big Bang ��

“We live our life in the steps, not at the end. When the time is right, we will find our space in universal design. That space is the reality of our consciousness; rest is layers upon layers of memories, desires, and insecurities of mind. The problem is that within these layers, we lose the sense ��

 In the beginning the river Ganges is so swift and fast that nothing much remains same on her way over a period. It carves its way out of the mountains and forests and reaches the sea to submerge. That is the way we begin our life too. In our childhood, we are full of energy ��

As we take tentative steps of living day to day, we forget to realise that without a sense of belongingness, kindness towards all that we have been blessed with and inner flowering of love, it just brings us closer to an end��. We carry the ego, the pride and the pleasures every day as we ��

My Talk on Story Mirror Creativity Workshop III – Apparao Galleries, Chennai

The agenda of my talk was to get the aspiring author to understand what goes on behind making a best seller and how a budding writer can work on the ideas to get to the top. The agenda of my workshop was��

BASICS:

First things first , to make your book a best seller, the content is the king. Write a great story with beautiful language, flesh your characters with interesting matter and thoughts, you have a winner at your hands.
Second, as I keep repeating in my talks the powerful words of Milan Kundera, “Any work of art has to have a purpose of its Existence��. Your book has to have a purpose to suastain interest in the long term.
And finally the 3rd basic thing is to “�� as Naresh Fernandes advised me some years back when I was looking for the way to publish my first book, �� ��. This is what the enthusiastic budding authors forget to do and waste precious amount of time in contemplating, thinking and finding the right / any publisher to publish the book.

MARKETING:




Find your champions: The best and the most powerful advise that I can give, in terms of marketing your book, is to find your champions, usually they consist of your friends, relatives and colleagues.

Create your champions: And equally powerful advise you should thing about , in the process of becoming a best seller, is to help others become a best seller. This way you will create your own champions.



APPROACH:








Keep the buzz going
Find New angles, Promote in new ways, Launch in new places
Workshops, Book Clubs, Training
Create a platform to share your thoughts, ideas and reach out to your readers
Write something that other’s can find use for e.g my on Hindu Lit For Life is used as archive for the official Hindu Festival Page. and click on the “Archive Blog�� tab. Below is the case for IndiBlogger’s , which was used in their portal for their mega blogging event last year, Oct-Nov.
_____
In the end, here are some key points that you need not only to keep in mind but also actively pursue. Sharing also some of the pictures from the Story Mirror Creativity Workshop III. If you would like to attend the upcoming 4th Creativity Workshop, please register ��

TAKE-AWAYS:

1. Advertisements on FB, Twitter and most of the social media’s do give ROI. Personal Emails do, personal interaction do. SO create an email List
2. Keep the interaction going on, help before asking for help
3. Celebrity Endorsements, High Value Influencers, High Profile Publisher’s don’t work in terms of ROI
4. Book Readers, Review Bloggers, Book reading communities work. Get on to them
5. The best turn around is your own website, blog or group is. So create each one of them and invest your time and effort on it.
6. Write the next book, get your book translated, publish Kindle versions of supplementary books
7. Create workshops, help in learning curve of your readers, provide value of your interaction
8. Solve a problem, provide support without any need of reciprocation, become an expert in your niche area
9. Focus on your area of expertise




Famous Hindu Cartoonist Keshav, Director Lingusamy and Director Brindha Sarathy from Tamil Film Industry

10. Get one blurb that counts, Get an introduction by some one of authority or expert in your area, ask for their help in spreading the word.
11. Utilise Amazon’s marketing tools

12. Finally, get your champions together, which will come from your family, friends and network.



TO ATTEND THE NEXT WORKSHOP ON 17TH DEC @ APPARAO GALLERIES �� CHENNAI, PLEASE CLICK AND CHECK THE ��GOING�� TAB

LOST IN EMPTINESS

_______________

Lost in Emptiness

Entangled, wet and submerged

In crashing waves, the ocean scent

The sea waves

Think, play, sifting sun and sand

Like the fingers of my hand

Pressed against the darkness

That was long time ago �� a sunset

I sieve the destiny off my inner self

Trying to find, where I am going

In which fabric of cosmic design,

I color the threads

And reality dawns;

The whole life is nothing

Just a preparation of death.

Extricating my self

Off the foams that froth the listless beach

I got up and walked, leaving footprints

To fend for themselves.

I walked, and walked

All along the sea

Looking for the promised emptiness of light

Wondering all the way,

If it was also looking for me��?

Life in living is more of driftwood

Than a flowering plant

Knowing no roots

Belonging no one

Nowhere

Just

Lost in the emptiness

As memories lose their meaning

In becoming words, turning

My pain into poetic shell

A darkness to hide within

Where windows do crack open sometimes

To another darkness

Of knowing nothing else than questions

Don’t ask

Have nothing to say

Know nothing

Said nothing

Where you come from?

Where you are going?

Stay �� Live �� and be the Dead

_____

shashi@2013

Over a period of some years, I have been writing reviews of new authors at my blog which has more than Half Million hits and read by 700+ readers every day. Initially I reviewed most of my friend’s book but now I would like to do so more comprehensively, in order to help new authors to reach out to their target audience.

Hence I started a regular feature at my blog “��, displayed at the top right corner of my blog as to promote new authors and help them to reach their target audience.

New Authors Featured at my Blog : Shadow Dancing With Mind

It is for FREE as well as I plan to BUY each of the books I review and post the same at Amazon Reviews and at all my social media platforms. But I intend to be very selective about the books I going to review and very HONEST about it.

THE SELECTION PROCESS FOR SPOTLIGHT:

If you fulfil the following requirements, please send me an email (you can find it ) to take the process forward��

1) SYNOPSIS: Should be enough to interest me to write review about it.

2) AVAILABILITY: I will review only if it’s available online, in hard copy format, as I would like to buy it to read.  If it is available only on Kindle / Online versions, I will not review as I don’t like reading books on computer screen.

3) GENRE: Spirituality, Psychology, Non-Fiction, Intense Action thrillers, Self Help, Poetry, Historic, Romance, Young Adult, and comic books and in the same order.

4) EDITED: I will only review books that are edited by some one other than the author, author’s friend, relatives and colleagues (in case some one has gone ahead with a friend, relative or colleague as he/she is a great editor, then I need to know if it was a paid service. (This unconventional requirement is only because I would like to save my self from the trauma of reading a book full of grammatical errors / typos / bad english)

If you fulfil the above criteria, please send me an Email () with subject heading as ��FOR SPOT LIGHT �� (Book Name / Genre / Author’s Name)��.

PLEASE NOTE: The email should contain��

1) Synopsis

2) Brief Biodata and Picture of the author

3) Link to the book availability at Amazon or Flipkart (These are the only two places I would like to buy the book from), book’s blurb and cover Image.

4) Editor’s email ID to connect with him or her to know more about the book, what caught his / her attention in the book. I know it is unconventional but will save me a lot of time in selecting a book to feature in

Once your book is selected, I will send a questionnaire to be answered by you about your book. There after, I will give you the date when it will be published, for you to read the review in  and share the link to your friends and at your social media platforms.