Think Big, Start Small! “We come up with quality books, all of which are good” – Sachin Garg (MDI alum) – Co-founder Grapevine

MDI invited me to be part of a panel with four other bright young entrepreneurs to address their B-School graduates recently and I am glad that I was there. Each of the four – Amit Kharabanda from tech world, Sachin – a publisher and talent scouter, Sonal Kapoor – a social entrepreneur, Mattea champeo – an investing evangelist – is very inspiring. As they spoke I captured my own learning notes and their stories. I thought of sharing those notes, one after another…as part of my Think Big Start Small, series..

Here is the story of Sachin Garg

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Sachin Garg is an Indian bestselling novelist, best known for his semi-autobiographical chronicles. Garg has authored the bestseller – It’s First Love..Just Like The Last One! And I’m Not Twenty Four…I Have Been Nineteen For Five Years. Sachin Garg’s plots generally embody tragic romances and young love, and are targeted towards the younger generation. His books, though not inclined towards verbose language and more of an easy read, have successfully reached their targeted audience.

Sachin graduated from Delhi College of Engineering with a bachelor’s degree in engineering and went on to study management at MDI, Gurgaon. After completing his MBA, Sachin found his true calling and started writing novels. In 2011, he co-founded Grapevine India Publishers Pvt. Ltd

Sachin Garg, founder Grapevine publishing, an alum of MDI sharing his story with the current students of MDI

Sachin talking to the students of MDI –

When I came to MDI I had already clinched a deal with a publisher to publish my first work
2009 – My first book clicked – Srishti publisher
Social media played a huge role in popularizing the book. I was in the first year at MDI

I got placed at JSW steel during our campus placements
Never expected that I will be posted in a remote location, in their steel plant, beyond Bellary for the next 16 months
Especially after being in France for the previous 6 months, during the student exchange program, the posting to the remote location was no less challenging. It was like being thrown back to 18^th century
But, I must confess, the experiences there became the ‘masala’ for my next project
Second book came from my observations and realizations from that experience
my book had a girl being posted there, I covered everything… work, romance, love… amidst the rustic hinterlands of India
The book hit the market in 2010

In May 2011, I thought of being an entrepreneur
What is my ARENA going to be? only thing I know about was books and publishing
My father was in DDA, a publishing IDEA was beyond his grasp or our family’s
I went to Durjoy Dutta (‘Of Course I love you… Till I find someone else’ fame), a big name by then, and a few more joined in
By Sept 2011, we had 20+ authors
All happened in a couple of weeks

One of our books was in the AC Nielsen list at number three
Next year AC Nielsen’s list of 250 had Penguin, Rupa too, but Grapevine had 15 in that list, highest number of entries

Usually if you want to publish you need connections in those publishers
We wanted to give platform for the new authors. From one new author a month, we moved to the short story writers
We are creating a self publishing platform
We are organizing ‘India lit fest’ in this year’s world book fair at Pragati Maidan this FEB
The journey has been exciting… looking forward to many more plots..

I was with my better half, Indira and our book-gorging daughter Mallika at the World Book Fair at Pragati Maidan, early this month. We bumped into Sachin there and he was very excited about the Lit Fest and invited us to be there. Unfortunately we could not make it. Sachin invited Mallika to contribute to the book series that is featuring young authors under 18! Mallika is excited!

If you want to submit a manuscript to Sachin to publish, write to Grapevine with: