The news from Smashwords that they are now shipping the books to Flipkart.com, an Indian online book retailer, made me think about the market for my books there.

I do have readers in India.  Judging from names and email addresses, this blog has followers in India too.  Greetings!  Amazon only recently started separating sales in India, but on the Talent Seekers free days a few people downloaded it at Amazon.in.  Why should I think about marketing it any differently from the way I market it in the rest of the world?

I have a biased view of the Indian culture from what I’ve seen on visits to the country, from Indian friends in the UK, and from general cultural spin off.  My books are full of castles, and adventures, and they suit advanced readers.  My experience of Indian children is that they tend to be very smart, and on average speak and write English far better than same age children in the UK – certainly more grammatically.  Basically, I think they’d like my books.

Some of my castles, whilst pictured in English style, are in my head far more exotic (well, not Castle Marsh).  Buckmore is largely in my head as Fatehpur Sikri, a beautiful rambling palace (and UNESCO World Heritage site) on top of a ridge not too many kilometres from Agra.  When my countryside isn’t British, it could easily be somewhere like the Hill Fort area of Rajastan.  And although he’s just a shadowy character occasionally referred to by Hugo-Mariusz at present, the Raja of Nilgiri pops up in his own right not too far in the future.

One of the things I want to do next year is pay more attention to the UK market, since I really ought to do more in my own home country.  But I think there’s an opportunity here, prompted by Smashwords, to pique the interest of good young readers who would enjoy the settings as well as the adventures.

What do you think?

How should I be marketing the books in India?
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