Preeti Shenoy – From Blogs to Bestselling Books

Preeti

The 23rd of January was a rather memorable day for every literary enthusiast in Manipal. India’s highest selling female author, who also happens to a painter and a motivational speaker, the incredible Preeti Shenoy came to Manipal for a brief talk; a decorated event hosted by The MIT Post which was attended by almost every prominent figure in Manipal University including, but not limited to, the Director of MIT, Dr. G.K. Prabhu himself.

Preeti Shenoy 1

Preeti Shenoy walked up to the stage amidst much cheering and applause. Within minutes, she had the entire audience captivated and begging for more. Her simple, practical persona resonated equitably with the younger as well as the older and wiser among those present in the audience. She spoke about her origins; the story of how she became the famous literary persona that she is today. She described how writing and painting has always fascinated her and how she wrote her first ‘book’ at the age of 8, which was really 4 pages’ worth of writing and 2 pages of art.

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She then went on to tell us about the passing of her father in 2006, which left her at a very low place emotionally. This is what inspired her to start a blog as an outlet to her thoughts. Mind you, this was way back in 2006, when blogging wasn’t as popular as it is now, and she had no idea what she was getting into. As it turned out, she began to receive a lot of acclaim for her blog. Most people appreciated the simplicity of her writing and the positivity of her messages that she tried to get across to people. Over the course of time, she started getting a lot of offers to write for journals and magazines, many of which she gladly accepted. Some of her works got featured in the ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ series. It was after this that she decided to transition from blogging to actually writing a book.

Her father, she said, was the most powerful driving force behind her writing the first book. She completed it and submitted it to the publishers for publishing. It got rejected. She tried publishing it yet again. Rejected. This cycle continued for as astounding 39 times, until a publisher urged her to cut down her word count from 1,00,000 to 60,000 words so it could be published within reason for a 100 Rupees. Desperate, but never grumbling for a second, Preeti undertook the painstaking task of editing away practically 2/5ths of her inaugural novel. The book, 34 Bubblegums and Candies finally got published, and as fate would have it, it turned out to be a massive hit among the readers. The rest, as they say, is history.

Satyakam

The books she writes cater to almost everybody in every sphere of life. The references she uses are intentionally commonplace and relatable. They’ve inspired many a depressed soul and often saved them from going down a darker path in their life. She’s also, on more than one occasion, saved those who planned to escape the tethers of existence by turning their allegorical switch off and falling back into an eternity’s repose.

Following the highly inspired talk, there was a Q/A session where she interacted with the audience and aided them in their personal endeavours to succeed in their respective fields of artistic work. Through all this, she maintained a dignified, yet delightfully charming and refreshingly relatable persona, sans any sign of pretention. Indeed, the biggest takeaway from this event was this: that you can achieve anything if you persist. If you follow your passion without turning a blind eye to the practical side of life, that is the true road to achieving glory; personal or otherwise.

Preeti Shenoy stands tall and proud as living proof of that.

Rahul Basu for MTTN

 

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