Questions, answered
The things people actually ask — about the work, the campaigns, and how book PR in India really operates.
About her work
Who is Shabnam Sudha Srivastava?
- Shabnam Sudha Srivastava is a PR, marketing and narrative strategist working in Indian publishing, with more than fifteen years of experience. She is General Manager, Marketing at HarperCollins India, and is also Editor-at-Large at The Luxe Cafe. She is based in New Delhi.
What does Shabnam Sudha Srivastava do?
- Shabnam Sudha Srivastava leads integrated publicity and marketing at HarperCollins India. Her work covers 360° launch strategy, media relations, author and founder personal branding, fandom and community activation, influencer and bookstagram networks, brand partnerships, and literary curation for festivals and podcasts.
What is her career background?
- Shabnam Sudha Srivastava began in advertising, writing copy at Leo Burnett, then moved to Random House India, where she worked on campaigns for authors including Salman Rushdie and Lee Child. She went on to Frankfurt Book Fair’s South Asia node, handling marketing and trade relationships, and has led marketing and publicity at HarperCollins India since 2016.
What are her qualifications?
- Shabnam Sudha Srivastava holds an MA in Transnational Communications and Global Media from Goldsmiths, University of London, and an MA and BA (Hons) in English from Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi. She was selected for DIGIPIVOT 2020, the Google/ISB-certified digital marketing cohort for the top 40 women professionals in India, and completed the Publishers Training Programme at IIM Ahmedabad.
Campaigns
Which book campaigns has Shabnam Sudha Srivastava led?
- Shabnam Sudha Srivastava led the HarperCollins India campaign for Prajakta Koli’s debut novel Too Good To Be True, which took 20,000+ pre-orders, sold 1,50,000 copies within a month of its January 2025 release, and reached No. 1 on Nielsen India BookScan (Fiction). She also led the Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan biographies by Mohar Basu, and The Liver Doctor by Dr Cyriac Abby Philips.
Who marketed Prajakta Koli’s book Too Good To Be True?
- Too Good To Be True was published and marketed by HarperCollins India, where Shabnam Sudha Srivastava is General Manager, Marketing and led the campaign. The campaign included an original soundtrack, “Saanvare”, a custom Blue Tokai coffee blend, a Blinkit quick-commerce billboard promising ten-minute delivery, a fan-first Instagram handle separate from the author’s own page, and a 14-city tour rebuilt around college campuses after data showed a campus-based readership.
What awards did Too Good To Be True win?
- Too Good To Be True by Prajakta Koli won the Amazon India Popular Choice Debut Book 2025, the Crossword Popular Choice Award (Fiction) 2025, and Book of the Year (Fiction) at the Puri Literary Festival 2025.
How do you market a book when the author will not promote it?
- You build the campaign around the audience that already exists instead of around author access. For the Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan biographies at HarperCollins India, neither star was involved in writing or promoting the books, which ruled out interviews, signings and tours. Existing fan clubs on Instagram and X were activated to drive discovery, retail displays put the books front-of-store, and coverage ran off strategic excerpts. Both titles reached bestseller charts, and the Shah Rukh Khan title reached 271% sell-through.
Working together
Who does Shabnam Sudha Srivastava work with?
- Publishers and authors, on campaign strategy and execution from debut launches to legacy backlist. Brands and founders, on narrative and personal branding. Festivals, podcasts and media, on programming, curation and collaboration.
How do you contact Shabnam Sudha Srivastava?
- Shabnam Sudha Srivastava can be reached by email at me@shabnam.work, or through the contact form at www.shabnam.work/contact. She reads every message herself.
Where is she based?
- Shabnam Sudha Srivastava is based in New Delhi, India, and works on campaigns across the Indian market.
About book PR in India
What does a book publicist actually do?
- A book publicist decides what a book’s story is and then finds the people who genuinely want to tell it. The work is largely judgement and relationships: identifying the hook that makes a book worth covering this week, matching it to the right outlets, and managing timing — long-lead magazines close months before publication. A publicist does not control whether an editor commissions coverage, and coverage does not automatically produce sales.
Do you need a publicist if you already have a traditional publisher?
- Usually not. A traditional publisher has an in-house publicity and marketing team already doing this work, and they hold the media and retail relationships a freelancer cannot reach — front-of-store placement runs through the publisher’s trade relationships, not through media. Hiring a second publicist most often creates confusion rather than a second chance. It genuinely helps in specific cases, such as reaching an audience outside books entirely, or building a long-term public presence distinct from any one title.
What is fandom activation in book marketing?
- Fandom activation means turning an already-organised audience — fan clubs, reading communities, campus networks — into the engine of a campaign, rather than buying attention from scratch. It differs from influencer marketing because a fan community is not staff and cannot be paid to care; it participates only if the material is genuinely interesting to it. The publisher’s contribution is access, artefacts and legitimacy rather than budget.
How do you get a book reviewed in an Indian newspaper?
- Books pages filter on relevance rather than quality, so the pitch has to carry a hook that survives being described in one sentence. Timing decides much of it: long-lead outlets plan months ahead, and by publication week that window has closed. For most authors an excerpt or a feature is a more realistic outcome than a review, because review space is finite and shrinking while excerpt space is comparatively open.
How do you get invited to a literature festival in India?
- Festival programmers build themes and sessions first, then find people who can fill them — which is why “I have a book out” is not a pitch. What makes someone bookable is being able to hold a room and being interesting about something beyond their own book. Publishers put names forward, but a direct, specific approach that proposes a session rather than a person also works.
What does “bestseller” actually mean in India?
- In India, “bestseller” is not a protected or standardised term. It may refer to a Nielsen India BookScan position, a retailer’s own chart, an Amazon category ranking, or nothing verifiable. The qualifier attached to the word is what carries the meaning — “No. 1 on Nielsen India BookScan (Fiction)” is a checkable claim, while “bestseller” on its own is a marketing adjective.
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