Amish Tripathi

Amish Tripathi (born 18 October 1974) is an Indian author, known for his novels The Immortals of Meluha, The Secret of the Nagas, The Oath of the Vayuputras, Scion of Ikshvaku Sita: Warrior of Mithila and Ravan:enemy of Aryavartha The first three books collectively comprise the Shiva Trilogy and the later three are the first three books of the Ram Chandra Series which is going to be a collection of five books. The Shiva Trilogy was the fastest selling book series in Indian publishing history while the Ram Chandra Series was the second fastest selling book series in Indian publishing history. Amish recently launched his first non-fiction book called Immortal India.

Gautam Chikermane of Swarajya Magazine says "Amish’s influence goes beyond his books, his books go beyond literature, his literature is steeped in philosophy, which is anchored in bhakti, which powers his love for India".

All 6 books have sold over 4 million copies in the Indian subcontinent since 2010, with gross retail sales of Rs. 120 crores. Forbes India has ranked Amish among the top 100 celebrities in India in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018. Amish was also selected as an Eisenhower Fellow, an exclusive programme for outstanding leaders from around the world.

Amish Tripathi was born in Mumbai and grew up near Rourkela, Odisha. He is an alumnus of St. Xavier's College, Mumbai and Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. He worked for 14 years in the financial services industry, in companies such as Standard Chartered, DBS Bank and IDBI Federal Life Insurance, before beginning his writing career.

Shiva Trilogy

The Immortals of Meluha, Tripathi's first mashup novel and the first in the Shiva Trilogy, was published in February 2010. The second book in the series, The Secret of the Nagas, was released on 12 August 2011, and the third and final installment, titled The Oath of the Vayuputras, was released on 27 February 2013. The trilogy is a fantasy re-imagining of the Indian deity Lord Shiva's life and his adventures, and it is widely gaining popularity.

The Immortals of Meluha and The Secret of the Nagas have been released in UK through Jo Fletcher Books (an imprint of Quercus Books) in January 2013 and November 2013, respectively.

Ram Chandra Series

Scion of Ikshvaku was released on 22 June 2015. It is the first book in the Ram Chandra Series. Like the Shiva Trilogy this one is also a fantasy re-imagining of the Indian epic Ramayana. It follows the story of Ram and is a prequel to the Shiva Trilogy.Scion of Ikshvaku won the Crossword Book Award for Best Popular Award.

On 18 October 2016, Tripathi announced that he will be releasing two new books in 2017. One will be his first non-fiction book while the other will be the sequel to the book, Scion of Ikshvaku, from the Ramachandra series with name Sita: Warrior of Mithila which was released on 29 May 2017. It opened at #1 on the national bestseller lists andbecame the highest selling book of 2017. Tripathi launched his first non-fiction book, Immortal India in August 2017. Tripathi's next book Suheldev & The Battle Of Bahraich is postponed until next announcement. Amish published his next book Raavan- Enemy of Aryavarta on 1st July 2019.

Tripathi pictured in 2012 with the Shiva Trilogy

Tripathi's novels have been translated into a number of languages, including Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati, Assamese, Malayalam, Marathi, Kannada, Estonian, Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian, Polish, Czech, French and Odia.

The reason the books have been translated into a number of local languages is because the author believes that west-focused Indian publishing as a whole is gradually being embedded into the Indian cultural sensibilities. Further explaining his thoughts, Tripathi said "I genuinely believe that five years from today, we will have a situation when other languages will account for higher sales of books than in English. That is the big change happening in publishing where readers are taking pride in their own culture. Another comparative example would be television, where regional language channels garner more TRPs.

All of Tripathi's books (released and planned) are on religious topics since he is a devoted worshiper of Lord Shiva. Amish had turned into an atheist in his youth but returned to faith while writing his first book. His grandfather was a Sanskrit scholar and a Pandit in Benares. Tripathi says that he gathered most of his knowledge of Hindu theology and religion from his grandfather and his very religious parents. He believes that religiosity and liberalism go hand-in-hand in India.

Sandipan Deb, former Executive Editor of Outlook and Editor of Financial Express, writes of the philosophical depth of Amish's books: "Through all Amish’s books flows a current of liberal progressive ideology: about gender, about caste, about discrimination of any kind. And what I believe separates him from the horde of Indian writers who have jumped on to the mythology bandwagon after Shiva’s (Shiva Trilogy's) success, is his historical research.". In an interview Amish said that the secret behind his success is by visiting Shri Mahadev Mandir situated at Rajendra Sarovar, Chhapra, Bihar. He requests his true fans to do the same.

In the Indian market where large sales volumes of books are rare, Tripathi's books have been enormously successful. His marketing skills and strategies have been widely credited for the success of his novels. He has stated, "It’s a fallacy to think that a good book sells itself. I can give you a long list of books that I think should have been bestsellers but nobody’s ever heard of them. My management background along with marketing experience helped me devise effective strategies for promoting my book."

Weeks before The Immortals of Meluha hit the bookshops, Tripathi printed sample copies of the first chapter and persuaded bookshops and chains to give them away free to anyone who approached the cash counter, creating a buzz. He also made presentations to big retail chains, visited smaller retailers, met local distributors and regularly sent email updates to various stakeholders. He targeted social media websites for promoting his debut novel, and made a trailer film with a background score reportedly by Taufiq Qureshi and uploaded it on YouTube.

For the promotion of his second book, Tripathi created video trailers of film production quality, complete with visual effects and screened them at multiplexes before movies such as the Shahrukh Khan starrer Ra.One. He believed that this would work as the audience that visits theatres is the same that read his books. Three other trailers were released on YouTube.

In 2013, a music album called Vayuputras, an original soundtrack based on The Oath of the Vayuputras, the final book of the Shiva Trilogy, was released. The album featured songs by artists such as Sonu Nigam, Taufiq Qureshi, Palash Sen, Bickram Ghosh among others. This was the first time ever that an original soundtrack was made for a book series.

The innovations in marketing continued with launch of Scion of Ikshvaku in 2015 where again a teaser trailer was launched on YouTube, followed by another book trailer, like in the case of the Shiva Trilogy.In fact, TV advertisements were released during IPL to promote Scion of Ikshvaku, perhaps a first for any book.

In 2016, the author also uploaded another film on YouTube to give readers a perspective on how all books written by him are interconnected, with clues to all futures having been placed within the Shiva Trilogy.

• Honorary Doctorate by Jharkand Rai University for outstanding contribution to Art & Literature
• Hello Hall of Fame Awards for Literary Excellence 2019
• Jashn-e-Youngistan Award 2018
• Ustad Bismillah Khan Award 2018 for Contribution to Indian Culture
• Intellectual Property - Inspirational Icon of The Year 2018
• Kalinga International Literary Award 2018
• Distinguished Alumnus Award 2017 (IIM - Calcutta)
• Forbes Celebrity 100 List 2017
• Icon of the Year Award 2017
• Raymond Crossword Popular Fiction Award for his book Scion of Ikshvaku in 2016
• Dainik Bhaskar Readers' Choice Award in 2016.
• Pride of India 2014 and 2015.
• India's First Literary Popstar 2015
• 50 Most Influential Young Indians 2015
• Communicator of the Year Award 2014
• Society Young Achievers Award for Literature in 2013
• Man of the Year 2013 by Radio One
• Eisenhower Fellowship