The Book Launch

Scene 1: Here I am, fiddling with my remote, browsing various TV channels while having dinner, checking if there is something worthwhile that can be watched. And lo! suddenly I find a “BREAKING NEWS” appear below “Buchanan accuses former great “x” in his latest book “BUKH – A – NAAN”

Scene 2: The next morning, Times of India would carry the same piece of news on the front page with a nice tag line to attract enough eye balls.

Scene 3: By the time I finish reading the TOI and switch on the television I find News channels analyzing the “so-called” controversy generated by the book (which mind you, no one has read till now. In fact the publishers haven’t even released the book – Only certain “excerpts” have been leaked.)with a few cricket experts. Now, the way this news is analyzed also differs from channel to channel.
(a) Some rational ones prefer a discussion and an “in-depth analysis” with cricketing “gurus” like Nikhil Chopra and Saba Karim.

(b)And then there is another breed of news channels who would have 1 anchor dressed in Aussie uniform (trying to resemble Buchanan) and 2 in Indian Tri-color (one dressed like Bhajji for sure) against a backdrop of animations and graphics and their discussions would make you feel that Indians have just entered into a war with Australia.

Scene 4: A few events would happen the next day

There would be another series of Breaking News “Buchanan denies having ever made such statements” or “Buchanan says his remarks were quoted totally out context and there are clarifications about it in the subsequent chapters, which haven’t been leaked”.

The same clarification story would appear in the newspapers. And by this time a couple of cricketers who have been “accused” in the book would post their comments in their blog!

Television channels would feature interviews of Buchanan, cricketing experts and particularly the cricketers who had blogged their view point. Each of them would air their point of you; clarifications…counter clarifications……

The end result – Everyone ensures that news about the “book release” remains in the public domain for atleast a couple of weeks; long enough for the publishers to actually release the book and make its way in the book shelves.


Its not just the Buchanan case. I have seen it happen so often. Remember Adam Gilchrist auto-biography release last year. The same series of events unfolded (with the Symonds monkey-gate being a dominant part of the leak). If you go back and have a look at various book releases you would find a similar pattern of events.

I guess its all part of the “marketing strategy”. Just imagine – a cricketer decides to write an auto-biography. (Or for that matter any famous personality). He would sign a deal with a major publishing house which would get exclusive rights to print and market the books. Now if the cricketer doesn’t write something even “remotely controversial” – the book won’t sell. It won’t come in the news at all! Thus the publisher + celebrity ensure that some controversial topics are touched. Weeks prior to the actual launch of the book – the publisher, in partnership with a few media channels start “selectively leaking” the controversial aspects of the book. What follows is the exact series of events as described in the Buchanan’s case. The book remains in the limelight for the right/wrong reason for a month – during which it makes its way to the book stores and it all translates into very good sales.

If you still don’t believe this – wait for the next book launch. I am 100% sure it would follow the same pattern. And yes, if the next in line to write a book happens to be Dada then you can imagine what’s in store!