Suhail Mathur: Journey from an Award-Winning Author to a Successful Literary Agent

As one of the biggest literary agencies of the country, The Book Bakers gears up for its ten year anniversary later this year, the CEO & Co-Founder, Suhail Mathur,  a man who wears several hats is surely an inspiration for the literary fraternity. From being an award-winning and bestselling author to doing English cricket commentary for Star Sports & Airtel’s mobile app, heading new show development and animation for a leading General Entertainment Channel, and delivering motivational TedX talks, Suhail has done it all.

In the words of Mr. Mathur; “To be honest, I had gained some experience in the market and finished writing my debut book, The Bhairav Putras. Due to its success, I was invited to several literary festivals where I got the opportunity to interact with talented youth, who were looking for an opportunity to tell their stories but were unable to find the support of a publishing house since most agencies back then were looking out for established names. I have always been a doer and decided to venture wholeheartedly into the literary industry to assist the amazing storytellers of our land by finding publishers who believed in these authors. And so, with the help of my father, Mr. Sanjeev Mathur, we co-founded The Book Bakers while I was still in my final year at the National Law University, Delhi. Interestingly, while the first book to be signed up under our literary agency was my own, the first book to release in the market was by a Ph.D. student from my law school, Mr. Sonal Gupta, who wrote a beautiful book titled 1402 Quotes On Love representing the quotes he had compiled for as many days consecutively on the theme of love and relationships. It was released by the well-known publishing house, Author’s Press way back in 2013. And today, I am elated to announce that we have successfully sold a whopping 1016 books as of now.” sums up his decade-long journey.

Related Articles

How Aditya Met Himself…

The Diary of an Impulsive Stoic – Prof. (Dr) Anandajit Goswami

The Concept of VAE VICTIS pervades in El-Dorado

He attributes his success to the immense support of his parents, Mr. Sanjeev Mathur & Mrs. Kitty Mathur, who he feels had belief in his abilities and allowed & encouraged him to shift paths from the legal field., where he was quite well settled, and take the agency work full time. His erstwhile girlfriend and now wife, Sumedha, had been a constant support throughout this journey.

Unlike many, who have humble beginnings and then make it big, The Book Bakers started off with a boundary from the word go. Mr. Mathur considers the autobiography of The Great Khali co-authored by Vinit K Bansal as his first big ticket project which put them into the top league as they were able to sell the book to a big brand like Penguin. Not just it was a humongous professional success for The Book Bakers it also worked well for him personally as during the pitching of the book, he came in contact with the team at Om Books International where he was signed up by Mr. Ajay Mago & Ms. Dipa Chaudhuri for The Hunt For Rama’s Bow, which not only went on to become a bestseller but also won the Best Mythology Book of the Year 2017 at Lit O Fest.

Mr. Mathur recognizes the role of Mr. Bansal as very important in his career. He was not only his first publisher but also gave his agency his first project as an editorial unit, several projects as cover designers, and eventually the first big book as a literary agency. Another game changer for The Book Bakers was the signing up of bestselling author & India’s Agatha Christie, Ms. Manjiri Prabhu into their fold. She, along with Mr. Bansal, was one of the first top-ranked Indian authors who showed confidence in their work, and over the years they have collaborated successfully on more than 8 books with several publishers including international ones like Bloomsbury.

Mr. Mathur further elaborates with beaming eyes; “Each and every book deal that we sign is a fruitful accomplishment for us simply because we feel one with our authors and I am well and truly proud of them. If you ask me to pick up certain highlights, I think we can be really proud of the kind of work we have done in bringing out the genres of Horror, History, Military & True Crime in the last 5-6 years, the work we have done in unearthing literature and authors from several states like erstwhile J&K and Bengal to Maharashtra and Uttarakhand, selling multiple books to screen adaptations including the book, Journey Of A Mother which was turned on celluloid as Mrs. Chatterjee v Norway starring Rani Mukerji, delivering a TEDx talk in the capacity of a literary agent, as a son, the release of my father’s bestselling book, Gunning For The Godman was a proud moment as well. But I think we pulled off the world’s largest & longest online literature festival in the Pandemic during the first lockdown with 91 sessions spread across 8 days, and 600 speakers across 37 countries is something our entire agency and its authors can be proud of since it was a collective effort acted upon an intrinsic desire to bring our bestselling authors to the comfort of the Indian reader’s home, and its stupendous success was an acknowledgment of the fact that we had achieved something remarkable together and must continue our zest to strive for the best.”