His idol's voice

If you think Indian Idol is an all audio-visual business, you haven't seen this yet.

The crowd at the launch of Aapka Abhijeet at Crossword is quite boisterous, by Kolkata's tame standards.

There's a lot of jostling at the bookstore, some heckling and even a few raised voices, as Abhijeet Sawant's fans clamour to get closer to their idol "" minted as he was right in their living rooms "" and the organisers to get some order to the madness. But sitting next to the Indian Idol, Abhijeet's publisher Harsha Bhatkal seems unruffled.

It must be precisely this composure that Bhatkal must be banking on to drive sales of Aapka Abhijeet, a book that tests his popularity in print. An initial run of 10,000 copies had been ordered after the first two launches in Mumbai last month. But with the launch in Kolkata, Delhi and then Pune, Aapka Abhijeet has already gone into reprint.

At this rate, the book will probably beat Jassi's 7 Steps to Success, the self-help book by the TV star that has sold an impressive 15,000 copies.

But then, that's nothing compared to the 50,000 copies sold by Soul Curry for You and Me, a collection of the pearls of wisdom Amitabh Bachchan let drop as he welcomed viewers to Kaun Banega Crorepati.

Or the quarter million copies sold of the Shakalaka Boom-Boom colouring books, or the one million copies of the Discovery series of books on natural history for kids.

For Popular Prakashan, the publishing house Bhatkal heads, the tie-up with television has been very fruitful. Its origins lay in the Sanjeev Kapoor series of cook books that Popular brought out six years ago.

It was the first time that the 75-year old publisher ventured out of its area of specialisation "" social sciences and medicine. Of course, the success of Sanjeev Kapoor's books had a lot to do with his TV show, but Zee, the channel on which it was aired, had nothing to do with the book.

The first formal co-publishing tie-up came about three years ago with Star, followed by one with Sony a year ago. TV helps, according to Bhatkale. It provides "an interface with the author". Also, there's the publicity.

The idea, as Bhatkal explains it, is simple: "To look at content in other formats in order to create content in print."

It's not so simple, of course, in actual practice, because not all successful TV shows can lead to successful books.

Says Bhatkal, "Often, the books that have done well have had nothing to do with the shows. They draw on the spirit of the brand created by the shows."

For example, Aapka Abhijeet reinforces Abhijeet Sawant's image as the larger symbol of hope for ambitious youngsters today.

The hope that just about anything, even idolhood, can be achieved through hard work. The business just calls for "books to be seen and marketed as any other product in the marketplace".